David Hartley (; baptized 21 June 1705
Old Style
Old Style (O.S.) and New Style (N.S.) indicate dating systems before and after a calendar change, respectively. Usually, this is the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as enacted in various European countries between 158 ...
; died 28 August 1757) was an English
philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
and founder of the
Associationist
Associationism is the idea that mental processes operate by the association of one mental state with its successor states. It holds that all mental processes are made up of discrete psychological elements and their combinations, which are believed ...
school of
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
.
Early life and family history
David Hartley was born in 1705 in the vicinity of
Halifax,
Yorkshire
Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...
. His mother died three months after his birth. His father, an
Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
clergyman, died when David was fifteen. Hartley was educated at
Bradford Grammar School
Bradford Grammar School (BGS) is a co-educational independent day school located in Frizinghall, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England.
Entrance is by examination, except for the sixth form, where admission is based on GCSE results. The school ...
and in 1722 was admitted as a
Sizar
At Trinity College, Dublin and the University of Cambridge, a sizar is an undergraduate who receives some form of assistance such as meals, lower fees or lodging during his or her period of study, in some cases in return for doing a defined jo ...
to
Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes fr ...
. He received his BA in 1726 and MA in 1729. In April 1730 he became the first layperson to be Master of Magnus Grammar School (
Magnus Church of England Academy), Newark, and it was there that he began to practice medicine. On 21 April 1730, Hartley married Alice Rowley (1705–31). The couple moved to
Bury St Edmunds
Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as Bury, is a historic market town, market, cathedral town and civil parish in Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – ...
, and Alice died there giving birth to their son
David Hartley (the Younger)
David Hartley the Younger (1732 – 19 December 1813) was a statesman, a scientific inventor and the son of the philosopher David Hartley (philosopher), David Hartley. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Kingston upon Hull (UK Parliament ...
(1731–1813). While in Bury, Hartley met his second wife, Elizabeth Packer (1713–78), the fifth child and only daughter of
Robert Packer (died 1731) and Mary Winchcombe, a wealthy and influential family with estates in Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, and Berkshire, including
Donnington Castle
Donnington Castle is a ruined medieval castle, situated in the small village of Donnington, just north of the town of Newbury in the English county of Berkshire. It was founded by Sir Richard Abberbury the Elder in 1386 and was bought by Tho ...
,
Shellingford
Shellingford, historically also spelt Shillingford, is a village and civil parish about south-east of Faringdon in the Vale of White Horse in Oxfordshire, England. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 Local Government Act transferred it to ...
, and
Bucklebury,
Berks. (Mary Winchcombe was the daughter of Sir Henry Winchcombe, Bart., and the sister of Frances, wife of
Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke
Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (; 16 September 1678 – 12 December 1751) was an English politician, government official and political philosopher. He was a leader of the Tories, and supported the Church of England politically des ...
.) Despite the opposition of Elizabeth's family, David and Elizabeth wed on 25 August 1735, after agreeing to a severe set of restrictions that kept the £5,000 Elizabeth received upon her marriage completely out of the hands of her husband. Their first child, Mary (1736–1803), was born eleven months later. In 1736 the family moved to London, and then in 1742 to
Bath,
Somerset
( en, All The People of Somerset)
, locator_map =
, coordinates =
, region = South West England
, established_date = Ancient
, established_by =
, preceded_by =
, origin =
, lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset
, lord_ ...
. When Elizabeth's last surviving elder brother died without issue in 1746, their son
Winchcombe Henry (1740–94) inherited the family estates, making the family (though not Hartley himself) the possessors of significant wealth. Hartley died in Bath on 28 August 1757. He was buried at St. John the Baptist Church,
Old Sodbury
Old Sodbury is a small village and former civil parish in the valley of the River Frome just below and to the west of the Cotswold escarpment and to the east of Chipping Sodbury and Yate, now in the parish of Sodbury, in the South Gloucestershi ...
, Glos.
Education and professional career
At Cambridge, Hartley studied with
Nicholas Saunderson
Nicholas Saunderson (20 January 1682 – 19 April 1739) was a blind English scientist and mathematician. According to one historian of statistics, he may have been the earliest discoverer of Bayes' theorem. He worked as Lucasian Professor o ...
, who, though blind since infancy, became the fourth
Lucasian Professor of Mathematics
The Lucasian Chair of Mathematics () is a mathematics professorship in the University of Cambridge, England; its holder is known as the Lucasian Professor. The post was founded in 1663 by Henry Lucas, who was Cambridge University's Member of Pa ...
. Hartley was later instrumental in raising the subscription for the posthumous publication of Saunderson's ''Elements of Algebra'' (1740). Upon graduation, Hartley declined to sign the
Thirty-nine Articles
The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion (commonly abbreviated as the Thirty-nine Articles or the XXXIX Articles) are the historically defining statements of doctrines and practices of the Church of England with respect to the controversies of the ...
, a requirement for ordination in the Church of England. Although one point at issue may have been the doctrine of the
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...
, Hartley's main dissent from orthodox teaching was his commitment to
universal reconciliation
In Christian theology, universal reconciliation (also called universal salvation, Christian universalism, or in context simply universalism) is the doctrine that all sinful and alienated human souls—because of love of God, divine love and mercy ...
. Writing to his friend Joseph Lister in 1736, Hartley stated he believed "That Universal Happiness is the Fundamental Doctrine both of Reason & Scripture", adding that "nothing is so irreconcilable
ith
The Ith () is a ridge in Germany's Central Uplands which is up to 439 m high. It lies about 40 km southwest of Hanover and, at 22 kilometres, is the longest line of crags in North Germany.
Geography
Location
The Ith is immediatel ...
Reason as eternal Punishment, nothing so contrary to all the Intimations God has given us in his Works. Have you read Sr. Is. Newton’s Commt. upon Danl. & the Apocalypse?" For Hartley, on the gates of hell there could be no locks.
In the same letter to Lister, Hartley writes that "a Man who disregards himself, who entirely abandons Self-Interest & devotes his Labours to the Service of Mankind, or in that beautiful and expressive phrase of the Scriptures, ''who loves his neighbor as himself'' is sure to meet with private Happiness". This conviction became a guiding principle in Hartley's life, and it led him to devote himself to a various philanthropic projects. These include the publication of Saunderson's ''Elements of Algebra'' and the promotion of the shorthand system of his friend
John Byrom
John Byrom or John Byrom of Kersal or John Byrom of Manchester FRS (29 February 1692 – 26 September 1763) was an English poet, the inventor of a revolutionary system of shorthand and later a significant landowner. He is most remembered as t ...
(a system that Hartley believed could be a "universal character" and step toward the creation of a
philosophical language
A philosophical language is any constructed language that is constructed from first principles. It is considered a type of engineered language. Philosophical languages were popular in Early Modern times, partly motivated by the goal of revising nor ...
).
Shortly after turning to medicine, Hartley became an advocate of variola inoculation for smallpox.
Variolation
Variolation was the method of inoculation first used to immunize individuals against smallpox (''Variola'') with material taken from a patient or a recently variolated individual, in the hope that a mild, but protective, infection would result. Var ...
confers personal immunity, and if widespread would be a "service to mankind" by furthering
herd immunity
Herd immunity (also called herd effect, community immunity, population immunity, or mass immunity) is a form of indirect protection that applies only to contagious diseases. It occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population has become imm ...
. However, deliberate infection with the smallpox virus ran the risk of disfigurement or death. (
Queen Caroline, wife of
George II George II or 2 may refer to:
People
* George II of Antioch (seventh century AD)
* George II of Armenia (late ninth century)
* George II of Abkhazia (916–960)
* Patriarch George II of Alexandria (1021–1051)
* George II of Georgia (1072–1089)
* ...
, was an advocate and had three of their children variolated, but
Jonathan Edwards died from it in 1758.) The public good, then, could appear to be at odds with private interest. In his first publication, ''Some Reasons why the Practice of Inoculation ought to be Introduced into the Town of Bury at Present'' (1733), Hartley developed a statistical argument to show that the conflict is only apparent, that being inoculated furthers both the public good and a person's self-interest.
By the time of his move to London in 1736, Hartley was known by other campaigners of variolation, such as
Hans Sloane
Sir Hans Sloane, 1st Baronet (16 April 1660 – 11 January 1753), was an Irish physician, naturalist, and collector, with a collection of 71,000 items which he bequeathed to the British nation, thus providing the foundation of the British Mu ...
and
James Jurin
James Jurin Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, FRCP (baptised 15 December 168429 March 1750) was an English scientist and physician, particularly remembered for his early work in capillary action and in ...
, president of the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
. He also had the support of important Whig families in Suffolk, notably of
Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend
Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, (; 18 April 167421 June 1738) was an English Whig statesman. He served for a decade as Secretary of State for the Northern Department, 1714–1717, 1721–1730. He directed British foreign policy in ...
('Turnip' Townshend). Hartley's daughter Mary wrote that "the old Lord Townshend (then Secretary of State) treated him with as much kindness as he had had been an additional son, and all the sons and daughters as an additional brother". He was inducted into the Royal Society, and he also became a physician to
Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle
Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne and 1st Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne, (21 July 169317 November 1768) was a British Whig statesman who served as the 4th and 6th Prime Minister of Great Britain, his official life extende ...
, and his wife. In 1736 he offered to "recommend" John Byrom to George II.
By 1740, Hartley was known to every physician in London and to other medical men throughout Europe. He had thrown himself into a controversial attempt to harmonize private interest and public good. Hartley had started to experience symptoms of "the stone" (
bladder stone
A bladder stone is a stone found in the urinary bladder.
Signs and symptoms
Bladder stones are small mineral deposits that can form in the bladder. In most cases bladder stones develop when the urine becomes very concentrated or when one is d ...
) in early 1736. A bladder stone, sometimes as large as an egg, could function as a ball-cock on a toilet tank, causing an inability to urinate, excruciating pain, and sometimes death. (
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
, a sufferer, sometimes had to stand on his head to relieve himself.) Treatment by surgical removal (lithotomy) was a procedure many failed to survive.
Hartley thought a herbalist called
Joanna Stephens had developed a lithontriptic, an oral medicine that would dissolve a stone ''in situ''. He published ''Ten Cases of Persons who have Taken Mrs. Stephens’s Medicines for the Stone'' (1738), which includes an unsparing account of his own agonies. To make a proprietary medicine freely available to the public, Hartley convinced Parliament to pay Stephens £5,000 for her "secret".
With Stephens's recipe in hand, Hartley set to work with
Stephen Hales
Stephen Hales (17 September 16774 January 1761) was an English clergyman who made major contributions to a range of scientific fields including botany, pneumatic chemistry and physiology. He was the first person to measure blood pressure. He al ...
, along with two colleagues in France, to locate the medicine's chemically active ingredients. These were slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) and Alicant soap (predominantly potassium oleate, like other soaps an alkaline salt of a fatty acid). Hales had shown that some bladder stones rapidly dissolved in boiled soap-lye (caustic potash, potassium hydroxide). What was needed, then, was a safely ingestible preparation that would turn a person's urine alkaline; and this, they concluded, is what the slaked lime and soap combination did. In 1739 Hales won the
Copley Medal
The Copley Medal is an award given by the Royal Society, for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science". It alternates between the physical sciences or mathematics and the biological sciences. Given every year, the medal is t ...
for his work, and the following year Hartley published their results in a Latin volume, ''De Lithontriptico'', in
Basel
, french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese
, neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...
and
Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...
, the latter being home at the time to the foremost medical school in Europe.
In 1742 Hartley and his family moved to Bath, Somerset. He continued to practise medicine, and he devoted himself to writing his major work, ''Observations on Man, His Frame, His Duty, and His Expectations'', published in 1749 by
Samuel Richardson
Samuel Richardson (baptised 19 August 1689 – 4 July 1761) was an English writer and printer known for three epistolary novels: ''Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded'' (1740), '' Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady'' (1748) and ''The History of ...
.
He was a
vegetarian
Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter.
Vegetarianism m ...
.
Observations on Man: "A New and Most Extensive Science"
![HartleyObservations](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/HartleyObservations.png)
In the 18th century, "Observations" appears in the titles of scientific works – compare
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
's ''Experiments and Observations on Electricity'' (1751) and
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley (; 24 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist. He published over 150 works, and conducted exp ...
's ''Experiments and Observations of Different Kinds of Air'' (1774). Priestley, Hartley's champion, would declare that Hartley's work "contains a new and most extensive ''science. …''
e study of it will be like entering upon a ''new world. …''" The science is the science of "man", and the "new world" is the one embodied in the human "frame" itself.
The result, on the one hand, is a "vast haystack of a book". As one would expect from a physician with an inquiring mind and active medical practice, Hartley draws together a wide range of observations – to name a few, on phantom limbs, savant syndrome, and the experiences and mental development of the blind and the deaf (''OM'' 1, props. 34, 69, 78, 80, and 93).
On the other hand, just as
Newton's law of universal gravitation
Newton's law of universal gravitation is usually stated as that every particle attracts every other particle in the universe with a force that is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distanc ...
unified celestial and terrestrial mechanics, Hartley proposed a single "law" — "association" — to account for any and all observations of "man". Hartley's many observations are meant to be illustrations of the law.
Moreover, "association" has explanatory power. For example, in the section "The Affections by which we rejoice at the Misery of Others" (''OM'' 1.1.4.97–98), Hartley presents a detailed analysis of the process by which an abused, bullied child becomes an abusive, bullying adult.
[See Allen 1999, pp. 19–21.] He traces out how the child's automatic gesture of raising an arm to ward off a blow becomes, through a series of associative substitutions, the fist the adult raises to strike a child. An initial defensive gesture becomes a general aggressive stance, and thus the source of the insulting words and threatening actions by which the adult "goes on multiplying perpetually … the occasions of anger and the expressions of it".
Nonetheless, Hartley believed that it was no-one's destiny to be permanently trapped in such a hell. He was, rather, a religious visionary, and his fundamental belief breathtakingly optimistic: that association "has a tendency to reduce the state of those who have eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, back again to a paradisiacal one" (OM 1.1.2.14, Cor. 9). From this vantage point, Hartley's ''Observations on Man'' is a psychological epic, a story of "paradise regained" — but an epic describing, ultimately, the life of each human being.
Theories
Like
John Locke
John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism ...
, he asserted that, prior to sensation, the human mind is a
blank slate
''Tabula rasa'' (; "blank slate") is the theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content, and therefore all knowledge comes from experience or perception. Epistemological proponents of ''tabula rasa'' disagree with the doctri ...
. By a growth from simple sensations, those states of consciousness which appear most remote from sensation come into being. And the one law of growth of which Hartley took account was the law of contiguity, synchronous and successive. By this law he sought to explain, not only the phenomena of memory, which others had similarly explained before him, but also the phenomena of emotion, of reasoning, and of voluntary and involuntary action (see
Association of Ideas
Association of ideas, or mental association, is a process by which representations arise in consciousness, and also for a principle put forward by an important historical school of thinkers to account generally for the succession of mental phenomen ...
).
A friend, associate, and one of his chief advocates, was
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley (; 24 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist. He published over 150 works, and conducted exp ...
(1733–1804), the discoverer of oxygen. Priestley was one of the foremost scientists of his age.
Doctrine of vibrations
Hartley's physical theory gave birth to the modern study of the intimate connection of physiological and psychical facts. He believed that sensation is the result of a vibration of the minute particles of the
medulla
Medulla or Medullary may refer to:
Science
* Medulla oblongata, a part of the brain stem
* Renal medulla, a part of the kidney
* Adrenal medulla, a part of the adrenal gland
* Medulla of ovary, a stroma in the center of the ovary
* Medulla of t ...
ry substance of the nerves, to account for which he postulated, with
Newton
Newton most commonly refers to:
* Isaac Newton (1642–1726/1727), English scientist
* Newton (unit), SI unit of force named after Isaac Newton
Newton may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Newton'' (film), a 2017 Indian film
* Newton ( ...
, a subtle elastic
ether
In organic chemistry, ethers are a class of compounds that contain an ether group—an oxygen atom connected to two alkyl or aryl groups. They have the general formula , where R and R′ represent the alkyl or aryl groups. Ethers can again be c ...
, rare in the interstices of solid bodies and in their close neighbourhood, and denser as it recedes from them. Pleasure is the result of moderate vibrations, pain of vibrations so violent as to break the continuity of the nerves. These vibrations leave behind them in the brain a tendency to fainter vibrations or "vibratiuncles" of a similar kind, which correspond to "ideas of sensation." This accounts for memory.
Doctrine of associations
The course of reminiscence and of the thoughts generally, when not immediately dependent upon external sensation, is accounted for by the idea that there are always vibrations in the brain on account of its heat and the pulsation of its arteries. The nature of these vibrations is determined by each man's past experience, and by the circumstances of the moment, which causes one or another tendency to prevail over the rest. Sensations which are often associated together become each associated with the ideas corresponding to the others; and the ideas corresponding to the associated sensations become associated together, sometimes so intimately that they form what appears to be a new simple idea, not without careful analysis resolvable into its component parts.
Free will
Starting from a detailed account of the phenomena of the senses, Hartley tried to show how, by the above laws, all the emotions, which he analyses with considerable skill, may be explained.
Locke's phrase "association of ideas" is employed throughout, "idea" being taken as including every mental state but sensation. He emphatically asserts the existence of pure disinterested sentiment, while declaring it to be a growth from the self-regarding feelings. Voluntary action is explained as the result of a firm connexion between a motion and a sensation or "idea," and, on the physical side, between an "ideal" and a motory vibration. Therefore, in the Freewill controversy Hartley took his place as a determinist. It was only with reluctance, and when his speculations were nearly complete, that he came to a conclusion on this subject in accordance with his theory.
List of major works
* ''Conjecturae quaedam de sensu, motu, et idearum generatione'', Appendix to ''De Lithontriptico a Joanna Stephens nuper invento Dissertatio Epistolaris'' (Bath, 1746); repr. in Samuel Parr (ed.), ''Metaphysical Tracts by English Philosophers'' (1837); trans. Robert E.A. Palmer
* ''Various Conjectures on the Perception, Motion, and Generation of Ideas'', with an Introduction and notes by Martin Kallich (
Augustan Reprint Society, Publication no. 77–8, Los Angeles, 1959).
* ''Observations on Man, His Frame, His Duty, and His Expectations''. In Two Parts (1749; 2nd edn, trans. from the German, with ''A Sketch of the Life and Character of David Hartley'' by his son David Hartley, 1791; 1st edn repr. with an Introduction by Theodore L. Huguelet, Delmar, New York, 1976).
*
Prayers and Religious Meditations' (Bath, 1810; R. Cruthwell, 1814).
David Hartley also published numerous medical works.
Notes
References
* Allen, Richard C. (1999). ''David Hartley on Human Nature''. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press.
* James, William, ''The Principles of Psychology'' (New York, 1890).
* Rousseau, George S. (2004). ''Nervous Acts: Essays on Literature, Culture and Sensibility.'' Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. (Paperback) (Hardcover)
* Walls, Joan. (1982). "The Philosophy of David Hartley and the Root Metaphor of Mechanism: A Study in the History of Psychology,''" Journal of Mind and Behavior'' 3: 259–74.
*Walsh, Richard T. G. (2017). "David Hartley’s Enlightenment Psychology: From Association to Sympathy, Theopathy, and Moral Sensibility", ''Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology'' 37, no. 1: 48–63. https://doi.org/10.1037/teo0000047.
*Webb, Robert K. (1998). "Perspectives on David Hartley," ''Enlightenment and Dissent'' 17: 17–47.
*
External links
"David Hartley," by Richard C. Allen, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy"Hartley, David (1705-1757)," by Richard C. Allen, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hartley, David
1705 births
1757 deaths
18th-century British philosophers
Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge
Anglican philosophers
Determinists
English Anglicans
English philosophers
English psychologists
Empiricists
Fellows of the Royal Society
Humor researchers
Christian apologists
People from Halifax, West Yorkshire
People educated at Bradford Grammar School
Philosophers of mind
Philosophers of psychology