ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS
HARTLEY
JAMES MILL
BY
GEORGE SPENCER BOVVER, B.A.
ii
OF THE INNER TEMPLE, BARRISTER AT- LAW ; LATE SCHOLAR OF NEW
COLLEGE, OXFORD
Uonioti
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTQN
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET
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LONDON :
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CONTENTS.
PART I.
Their Lives.
pagk
. Ch. I. David Hartley 1
i Ch. II. James Mill ' 8
PART II.
Theie Philosophical Systems and Opinions.
: ; Ch. I. Preliminary remarks on the Theory of Association of
Ideas — The Physical Groundwork of the Theory —
Hartley's Vibrations — James Mill and Hartley on
Sensations — Ideas as copies of Sensations ... 24
Ch. II. The Elementary Postulates, and Eirst Propositions, of
the Theory of Association as laid down by Hartley and
James Mill 37
r ; Ch. III. The Communication of Ideas — Language — Naming . 46
-> Ch. IV. The Theory of Association, as applied to explain the
more important processes and operations of the mind . 65
Ch. V. Belief, as interpreted by the laws of Association . . 79
Ch. VI. Leading metaphysical conceptions, forms, and rela-
tions, as accounted for on the theory of Association
— Sameness — Similarity — Succession — Causality — Ex-
tension — Motion — Quantity — Quality — Analogy — In-
duction . . . . . . . . .111
Ch. VII. The Active Powers of the Human Mind . . . 136
Ch. VIII. The Will, as explained by Hartley and Mill . . .164
431G60
iv CONTENTS.
Ch. IX. The Practical Laws of Ethics, as resulting from the prin-
ciples of Association and Utility . . . .178
Ch. X. The Esthetic Doctrines of Hartley and Mill . . . 191
Ch. XI. The Principles of Utilitarianism and Association, as ap-
plied by Hartley and James Mill to special depart-
ments of Practical Life — Politics — Legislation — Edu-
cation — International Law 198
PART III.
The Value and Influence or theie Opinions . . . 214
Bibliographical Appendix 247
HAETLET & JAMES MILL.
$art h
THEIR LIYES.
CHAPTER L
DAVID HARTLEY.
David Hartley, the son of a clergyman residing- at Arraley
in Yorkshire, was born on the 30th of August, 1705. He
was educated at a private school, and, in 1720, entered at Jesus
College, Cambridge, of which society he subsequently became
a fellow. Owing to conscientious scruples with reference to
the Thirty-nine Articles, he abandoned his preparation for the
clerical profession, for which he was originally intended ; and
thenceforth applied himself to the study of medicine. Com-
mencing practice at Newark, he afterwards removed to Bury
St. Edmund's, and thence to London. In the later years of
his life, he took up his residence at Bath. In the exercise of
his functions as a physician, he was sympathetic, assiduous,
and skilful. He especially devoted himself to the study and
cure of the stone, and was the author of several medical
pamphlets on Mrs. Stephens' medicine for that disease, 1 besides
1 " Observations made jm_the persons who have taken the medicament
of Mrs/ Stephens," 1738. " View of the p'resent evidence for and against
Mrs. Stephens' medicine as a solvent for the stone, containing loo cases"
2 II. 1 R TL E Y A XI) J A MILS MIL L .
being the matmttieni of finally procuring for her the reward
of 50002. offered by Parliament.* He is said to have written
against Dtt'yjTf&ieja m ajfifen?e of inoculation for smallpox;
and several oilier of his inedieal disquisitions are to be found
in the Philosophical Transactions of the. time. He was twice
married, and had issue by both marriages. lie died on the
28th of August, L757, at Bath, of the disease which he had
so patiently investigated in his lifetime.
Both the philosophical and the moral character of Hartley
were no less conspicuous in his life than in his writing .
Philosophically, he was remarkable for patience of research,
variety of study, thorough scientific candour, and a constant
readiness to receive new impressions and ideas. Morally, he
was distinguished by modesty, unaffected openness, and bene-
volence. In the one case, his inquisitiveness of intellect well
qualified him for a writer on the connexion between body and
mind, and their reciprocal influence on one another, — a kind of
inquiry where alertness in the seizing of analogies is above all
things requisite; in the other, his sympathy of heart was of
eminent service 1" him in the observation and appreciation of
moral phenomena.
His great work On Man occupied sixteen years of slow
thought and toil in maturing (1780 — 1710); and even for
some years before ] 780, " the seeds of this work were lying in
latent germination/' as he himself used to tell his friends.
One cannot fail to notice the results of this steady and per-
sistent investigation, (extending over so long a period, and
[of which bis own was one], "with some experiments and observations,"
1739. "Directions for preparing and administering Mrs. Stephens'
medicine in a solid form," 1710 (in the Gentleman's Magazine). A large
ingredient in this medicine was soap, of which the unfortunate Hartley
was said to have himself consumed 200 lbs. before lie eventually died ot
tlie disease.
- Gazclli -, June, 17;)'.).
DAVID HARTLEY.
into so many different fields), in the astonishing" wealth of
illustrative matter by which the principles laid down in his
book are confirmed. It was first published in two volumes in
1749. Another edition by Dr. Priestley with elucidatory
dissertations appeared in 1775. In this the vibration theory,
and most of the Second Part on theological questions, were
omitted. But the book was, notwithstanding, practically
almost ignored till 1791. In 1801, Hartley's son published
the entire work, in three volumes, from the German of the
Itev. Dr. Herman Andrew Pistorius, rector of Poseritz, in the
island of Riigen, accompanied with the latter's notes and
essays. 3 Hartley himself was not at all sanguine as to the
chances of the immediate acceptance of his novel theory. " He
did not expect that it would meet with any general or imme-
diate reception in the philosophical world, or even that it
would be much read or understood ; neither did it happen
otherwise than as he had expected. But at the same time he
did entertain an expectation that, at some distant period, it
would become the adopted system of future philosophers.
That period " [writes his son in 1801] "seems now to be
approaching," — and by this time it has arrived, and a formi-
dable and industrious school of philosophy, known as the
Association Psychology, has been constituted on the lines
sketched out by him.
From a very early age, Hartley had a fancy for natural
science, experimental philosophy, and mathematics, which he
studied under the tuition of a celebrated man in his day,
Professor Saunderson. To optics, statics, and other special'
departments of science, he devoted himself in company with
Dr. Hales, Dr. Smith (then Master of Trinity College, Cam-
bridge), and some other members of the Itoyal Society. lie
3 This is the edition to which the references throughout this work are
made.
4 HA R TL EY AND J A MRS MIL L .
was a keen observer, in the exereise of his professional duties,
of physical peculiarities and habits, and mental diseases and
defects ; and acquired early the habit of sound and rapid gene-
ralization, which proved so useful to him in the construction
of his philosophical system. Historical and chronological
researches also claimed a large portion of his spare time ; and
he was on intimate terms with N. Hooke, the Roman his-
torian. In chronology, so far as physical science could be
brought to bear on its numerous problems, as indeed in all
kinds of natural science, he was an ardent admirer and dis-
ciple of Newton, whose Prlncipia and other works first
suggested to him the theory of vibrations. He was much
interested in all schemes for the reformation of language,
either as written, (e.g. methods of short-hand), or as written
and spoken both; and welcomed proposals of universal and
philosophical languages and dictionaries, and similar fresh
ideas.
But it was to mental science, ethics, and theology that
Hartley's tastes were principally drawn. In regard to these
subjects, the intellectual atmosphere in which he lived was
that of Edmund Law, Warburton, Butler, and Jortin, who
were his intimate associates and fellow-labourers both in these
fields and in that of ecclesiastical history. It was, however —
as he himself acknowledges, with his usual candour — from
one Mr. Gay that he derived the germ of his association
theory — at all events, as applied to morals. It was only the
germ, however, that he obtained ; and how fruitful Gay's two
short treatises became in Hartley's hands it only needs a
comparison of them with the latter philosopher's second
volume to show. In the latter part of his life he corresponded
very much with Dr. Priestley on their common subject.
Nor did Hartley neglect the more distinctly humanizing
studies of history, poetry, and art. Of the first of these
DA VI D HA R TLE Y. 5
means of cultivation he was especially fond. He was a great
admirer of some of the poets of his own country, such as Pope,
whom he respected not only as a man of genius,, but also, and
chiefly, because he was a poet who " moralized his song," and
pursued by a different road the same goal as himself. On
similar grounds he was interested in Dr. Young, and also in
Hawkins Browne, the author of a Latin poem, Be Animl
ImmortaUtate. It must be confessed, however, that Hartley
does not seem to have been a very enthusiastic lover of poetry,
except as a veil for philosophy, and that he was disposed to
regard the exercise of the imagination too much in a didac-
tical light. Owing to this latter attitude of mind, he even
took offence at the Essay on Man, which he thought inspired
by Bolingbroke, and calculated to weaken the force and
inviolability of the moral law, of which — though charac-
teristically charitable in judging individual instances of its
perversion in practice — he was extremely jealous. To the
" lewd " poets, who discoursed of love and beauty, entirely
unmoved by the puzzles of metaphysics and morals, he felt —
and frequently displayed in his works — a hearty aversion. In
music he took a passionate delight.
He was also a fair classical scholar; and the first prelimi-
nary sketch of his system — a little treatise, Be Sensu, Mol/r,
et Idearum Generatione, which he published in the form of
an appendix to a medical tractate on the stone — was written
in elegant Latin. With Hebrew he seems to have been at
all events moderately well acquainted.
All these varied tastes were reflected in the pages of his
work, as we shall have occasion to remark below. 4 So, also,
4 See Part. III. Cp. the Life by Hartley's son, Observations on JJ(tn,
vol. ii. p. ix. '' It was from the union of talents in the moral sciences
with natural pliilosoph}', and particularly from the professional knowledge
of the human frame, that Dr. Hartley was enabled to bring into one view
6 HA RTLEY A ND J A MES MIL L .
was his personal character. His amiability, — no pen was
ever freer from gall than his, and in the whole of his work
we do not find a single harsh criticism of a personal nature,
while his kindly appreciation and recognition of the labours
of his precursors is abundant and marked — his openness, and
his easy-going laissez-faire tendencies, — all these are mani-
fest in the tone of his recorded opinions, and the style of his
writing. As his son says, " it may with peculiar propriety
be said of him, that the mind was the man." His philo-
sophical character was only his personal character in one of
its aspects.
Hartley's was a quiet, useful, unromantic life, — unromantic
in all respects, except in that steady devotion to truth and
fact which tinges the most uneventful life with a hue of
romance, — too often of pathos. Eminently typical of the
century in which he lived, — comfortable, and ready to com-
fort others, — disposed to ponder and wait, not very prone
to action, unambitious, — he was always in a mood to make
allowances for the frailty of others, and to take things as
they came, while he was utterly destitute of the " passion for
reforming the world/'' which possessed James Mill. On the
other hand, if his life was not lit up by such noble aims as that
of his great successor, he had all the compensating advantages
incidental to a lack of enthusiasm. While he was not to
the same extent as Mill the cause of good to unseen masses
of men, he made far more friends and intimates out of those
whom he did know. The bitterness and violence, which in
Mill's case were engendered by consuming earnestness, were
unknown to him. No zeal could eat him up. His philo-
sophical system was not converted by him into a dogma or
the various arguments for his extensive system, from the first l-udiinents
of sensation through the maze of complex affections and passions in the
path of life, to the final, moral end of man,"
DAVID HARTLEY.
discipline; by thus having* no practical reference, while it
won him no partisans, it made him no enemies.
Though accurate and precise in his reasoning-, and metho-
dical in his daily habits, Hartley was far removed alike from
pedantry and fussiness. He was polished and gay in societyy
and eloquent in conversation, without becoming importunate
or a bore; and he was entirely without the vices of pride,
selfishness, sensuality, or disingenuousness. In the endeavour
to suggest the proper associations of ideas to the minds of
others, and to form their habits on the lines, and with the
help, of their position and previous circumstances, he was
" the faithful disciple of his own theory/' He did what some
one has said should always be done by every man, whether
Libertarian or, like Hartley, an advocate of the doctrines of
Necessity : in actual life he regarded himself alone as free, and
all other men as determined.
" His person was of the middle size and well proportioned :
his complexion fail', his features regular and handsome; his
countenance open, ingenuous, and animated. He was pecu-
liarly neat in his person and attire. He was an early riser,
and punctual in the employments of the day ; methodical in
the order and disposition of his library, papers, and writings,
as the companions of his thought/' [Observations on Ma0
{Life), vol. ii., pp. xvii, xviii].
During the nine years that elapsed between the completion
of his book and his death, Hartley, though reposing from
active work and collection of materials in reference to it,
continued to keep his mind open to any further suggestions
or discoveries that might have the effect of destroying or
modifying any of his doctrines. None such, however, were
made of any materiality sufficient to render an alteration of
his Observations necessary.
HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
CHAPTER II.
JAMES MILL.
James Mill was born at Northwater Bridge, in the parish of
Logie Pert, in the county of Angus, on the 6th of April,
1773. His father, a shoemaker, lived in one of the little two-
roomed clay-built cottages, some dozen of which made up a
hamlet of the parish. Industry, soberness, and piety, with-
out any remarkable gifts of intellect, distinguished the elder
James Mill in his life and vocation. The mother, Isabel
Fenton, was a woman of a somewhat different stamp. She
was proud — (being the daughter of a substantial farmer, who
had been in very good circumstances before he joined in the
Stuart rising of 1745, she probably felt her marriage to have
been something of a descent, and was not slow in manifesting
her feelings to her neighbours, and in domineering over their
wives) — but, together with her pride, possessed some of the
good qualities which usually spring out of it. She was most
ambitious for her eldest son James, and soon determined to
rear him to some destiny higher than his father's workshop.
Her influence over her husband was successfully exerted for
this purpose, for we find no record of James having ever been
required by his parents to assist in his father's trade, or
indeed, engage in any manual labour; while there are
" emphatic assurances/' as Professor Bain l tells us, to the
1 Life of James Mill, Hind, vol. i. p. 101.
JAMES MILL.
contrary. William/ the second son, took to the family
business, but the tender hand of his mother reserved James
exclusively for study. So that it must be remembered that
to her pride and motherly interest we, in some degree, owe
the Analysis and the History of British India.
At Montrose Academy, one of the Scotch grammar-schools,
James acquired the rudiments of a good classical education,
and meanwhile received kindly and constant encouragement
in his studies and aspirations from the minister of his parish,
Mr. Peters. At about the age of eighteen he came under the
notice of Sir John Stuart, of Fettercairn, one of the Barons
of the Exchequer in Scotland, a man who, though reputed in
the neighbourhood to have been haughty and morose, must
always command our respect for his fidelity to his young
friend. By Sir John and Lady Jane Stuart's influence
James Mill was sent, in the year 1790, to the University
of Edinburgh, under the following circumstances : — " Some
pious ladies/' writes Mr. Bisset, 3 "amongst whom was Lady
Jane Stuart (she was then ' Belsches'), "having established a
fund for educating one or two young men for the Church,
Lady Jane applied to the Rev. Mr. Foote, minister of Fetter-
cairn, to recommend some one. Mr. Foote applied to Mr.
Peters of Logie Pert, who recommended James Mill, both
on account of his own abilities, and the known good character
of the parents." It was a great advantage to Mill to be able
to go to Edinburgh at a mature age (for a Scotch university),
instead of receiving his education as a boy at Aberdeen, as,
without the intervention of the Stuarts, he would in the
ordinary course have been compelled to do. Being at this
period destined for the Church, he was bound to frame his
2 Besides the two sons there was a daughter, Mary, who was the
youngest child.
3 In the article on James Mill, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
io HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
course of study accordingly. Moral philosophy in the first
place was required; nor, had it not been, can we imagine
Mill neglecting it, more especially as the professor and lec-
turer was Stewart, of whose discourses on this subject he ever
afterwards spoke with the greatest enthusiasm, even declaring
that their eloquence was superior to that of the most admired
speeches of Pitt and Fox. He is recorded in the registers of
the university as having attended the Greek, Latin, natural
philosophy, and logic classes, between 1790 and 1792. There
is no mention of mathematics, but it is probable that he
attended this class, because of Playfair's reputation, and also
because he could scarcely have otherwise begun natural phi-
losophy and Newton's Priricijpia under Robison. John Stuart
Mill [Autobiography) supposes that he may have also studied
in the medical classes at this time.
During his residence at Edinburgh James Mill became
acquainted with a variety of men, who subsequently became
distinguished in their different walks of life, and some of
whom kept up their intimacy with him to the last. Among
these were Brougham, who probably then commenced a
friendship which did not terminate with his Chancellor-
ship, Professor Wallace, Thomas M'Crie, John Leyden,
Jeffrey, and Mountstuart Elphinstone.
Mill's divinity studies proper began in 1791, and lasted
for four winters. Professor Bain gives a curious list of the
works which he took out from the Theological Library at
this period, which shows very fairly the bent of his mind. A
large proportion of these are philosophical, such as Alison on
Taste, of which he afterwards made considerable use in the
Analysis, Cudworth's Morality, Smith's Theory of Moral Sen-
timents (to which he also refers in the Analysis), Locke, Beid,
Hume, Rousseau, Bolingbroke, Ferguson, Jortin (a friend of
Hartley's), and especially Plato, of whose influence (strange
JAMES MILL. ii
as it may seem) many trace&-are_jLo Jbe f ound ia_.tlie method,
and even sometimes in the tone, of his philosophy. In other
departments of literature, we find him reading" Rousseau's
Emile and Diseours, Massillon's Sermons, Karnes's Sketches,
HakewelPs Apology, Campbell on Rhetoric, (Euvres de Fene-
lon, Maupertuis, Abernethie's Sermons, Whitby on the Fire
Points, &c. He must, therefore, have become by this time
a very fair French scholar. But one sees that divinity was
not occupying- a very large share of his time. However, on
the 1st of February, 1797, he is introduced by Mr. Peters to
the Presbytery of Brechin, with his proper certificates, to be
licensed as a preacher. After the due amount of "questioriary
trials/' probationary sermons, lectures, homilies, and the like,
he is formally licensed on the 4th of October, 1798. He
began to preach in the church of Logie Pert. Those who
heard him said that his voice was "loud and clear," but we
are told that " the generality of the hearers complained of not
being able to understand him ;" and we may easily imagine
that his discourses were somewhat over the heads of the good
people of Logie Pert. He also preached in Edinburgh, where
Sir David Brewster heard him. From 1790 to 1802, Mill
acted as private tutor in the Fettercairn family, (where,
during the vacations of his Edinburgh course, he instructed
Miss Stuart, 1 for whom he always preserved the warmest
affection), and also in the family of Mr. Burnet at Aberdeen,
(this tutorship he is reported to have given up, owing to an
insult put upon him at a dinner-party), and in some others.
The tradition as to his having been tutor to the Marquis of
Tweeddale does not appear to be substantiated. These tutor-
4 This was the lady who married the son of the banker, Sir William
Forbes, and was the mother of a distinguished Edinburgh Professor of
Natural Philosophy, James David Forbes. Sir Walter Scott was vehe-
mently, but fruitlessly, devoted to her before her marriage.
12 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL,
ships were his first source of income. Meanwhile his parents
were becoming' somewhat reduced in circumstances. James
Mill generally spent what time was spared him from his
university studies and tutorial engagements at his home, of
which we have the following picture by Professor Bain :
" The best room of the house contained two beds along the
right hand wall ; in that room the mother hung up a canvas
curtain ('cannas' it was called, being what is laid on the
threshing-floor to keep the corn together) ; thus cutting off
from the draught and from the gaze, the further end of the
room, including James's bed, the fire, and the gable window.
This was his study. . . . Here he had his book-shelves, his
little round table and chair, and the gable window-sill for a
temporary shelf. He had his regular pedestrian stretches;
one secluded narrow glen is called ' James Mill's walk/ He
avoided people on the road ; and was called haughty, shy, or
reserved, according to the point of view of the critic. . . . His
meals were taken alone in his screened study ; and were pro-
vided by his mother, expressly for his supposed needs." Cer-
tainly it cannot be said that James Mill was not appreciated
by his parents, at all events by his mother. Nor did he lack
sympathetic friends in David Barclay, Peters, and others, at
Logie Pert, besides his little knot of associates in Edin-
burgh.
In the beginning of 1803 all preaching and tutorial work
was given up, and James Mill went up to London in company
with Sir John Stuart. Now commenced his journalistic
career, into which he entered with zeal and energy. Imme-
diately on his arrival in London we find him recounting in a
letter to his Edinburgh friend, Thomas Thomson (a well-
known devotee of science, and especially chemistry), his
literary adventures and prospects. He was delighted with
the large scope which London life afforded to an ambitious
JAMES MILL. 13
spirit, as compared, with the life of his "over-cautious country-
men at home/'' where " everybody represses you, if you but
propose to step out of the beaten track/'' He obtained intro-
ductions from Thomas Thomson to Dr. Robert Bisset, and Dr.
GifFord, editor of the Anti-Jacobin Review. Besides this, he
takes the greatest interest in politics, and often goes to the
House of Commons to hear the speeches of Pitt, Fox, and
Sheridan. Of the eloquence of the other members whom he
heard he had the lowest possible opinion. He has an idea of
starting- a class of jurisprudence, and of entering one of the
Inns of Court, for that purpose, but subsequently abandons it.
It may be inferred that he had studied law, or at all events
the philosophy of law, at Edinburgh, and had perhaps begun
to study Bentham in Dumont's translation. His first few
weeks in London were thus full of hopes and schemes and
enthusiasm.
He soon gets into harness as a journalist. Dr. Bisset first
of all tried him as an occasional writer on politics. For Dr.
GifFord's Anti-Jacobin Revieiv he writes his first philosophical
production, a review of Belsham's Elements of Logic and Mental
Philosophy, which is very interesting as containing an attack
on Hartley's theory of vibrations, and also on the selfish
theory of morals, which " imposes an obligation to be vicious,
removes the moral character of the Deity, and. renders it im-
possible to prove a future state." An argument appears in
this connexion, which seems to reflect a turning-point in the
history of his religious belief. He contends that till the
moral attributes of God are proved, it is useless to offer proofs
of revelation. " Unless I know that God is true, how do I
know that His Word is true ? " Another article from his
pen followed shortly after this in the same Review — on his
friend Thomson's System of Chemistry.
Besides reviewing for Dr. Gilford, he is now writing articles
14 HARTLEY AND J A MES MILL .
for the JEncyclopadia Britannica, on which he hopes to be able
to support himself at least for a year. " I am willing- to
labour hard and live penuriously," he writes to Thomson in
May, "and it will be devilish hard, if a man, good for any-
thing, cannot keep himself alive hereon these terms." The
rewriting and rearrangement for Dr. Hunter of a work called
Nature Delineated, brought him in some more money, besides
making him known to the booksellers ; so that at the end of
May he was able to take rooms by the year in Surrey Street,
with an old pupil of Thomson's. Meanwhile he was attending
the debates in the House of Commons with the keenest
interest. In November Mill had an opportunity of showing
his powers not only as a contributoi', but as an editor as well.
Together with Baldwin he projected a new periodical, to be
" devoted to the dissemination of liberal and useful know-
ledge," called the Literary Journal. It was to embrace
Physics, Literature, Manners, Politics, to commence in
January, 1803, and to be issued weekly in shilling numbers.
Mill was to be editor and contributor for four years. He
corresponded extensively with all his friends, in order to get
assistance in the various departments, and especially took
counsel with Thomson, whose brother James was to undertake
the Literature and Philosophy of the Mind. Thomas Brown,
the metaphysician, was also thought of; but, whether he
accepted the offer or not, we are not told. Most of the Edin-
burgh contributions were very good, but those from London
quite the reverse. " His energies and his hopes," Professor
Bain tells us, "were concentrated in the success of his bold
design. It was no small achievement for a young man to
have induced a publisher to make the venture. But he had
the power of getting people to believe in him. He was also
cut out for a man of business, and shows it now as an editor."
The first year of the Literary Journal contains some curious
JAMES MILL. 15
articles either written or inspired by Mill, such as an essay on
the structure of the Platonic dialogue (he always maintained
his admiration for the Platonic mode of philosophical pro-
dnre), another (curiously enough) to prove that Utility is not
the foundation of virtue, and another on Stewart's Life of
Reid, wherein some of his well-known opinions on the neces-
sity of bringing 1 early influences systematically to bear on
children are for the first time expressed. In the yea*- 1801
Mere produced (amongst others) a thoroughly characteristic
paper on religious feeling as distinguished from action/ and
several reviews of apologetic treatises in theology, most of
which he is inclined to discourage. In 1805 Mill continues
the Journal, and also publishes his translation of Villers' work
on the Reformation, adding very copious notes of his own, in
which he quotes largely from, and refers to, Dugald Stewart,
Robertson, George Campbell, &c, expresses here and there his
poor opinion of Voltaire, who "used not only lawful but
poisoned arms against religion and liberty," and warmly
defends the books of the Bible as comprising " the extraordi-
nary code of laws communicated by a benevolent divinity to
man." Villers' Kantism is also thrown in his teeth : conse-
quently, since Mill was a conscientious man, we must presume
that he had made himself acquainted with the writings and
arguments of Kant (probably in some French translation) :
also that he was as yet far from having reached the purely
negative standpoint in religion. In this year Mill further
commenced his editorship of the St. James's Clironicle, about
which unfortunately little is known. The proprietor was
Baldwin, his co-adventurer in the Journal. The paper lasted
for at least two or three years, possibly more. In 1806 the
6 "Religion," he says in it, "without reason may be feeling, it may be
the tremors of the religious nerve, hut it cannot be piety towards God,
or love towards man."
16 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
form of the Literary Journal was altered. Henceforth it was
announced that a Second Series would come out monthly, and
that the plan of the contents would be somewhat varied. This
year contains an article on Tooke's Diversions qfPurley, which
is a book well-known in connexion with the obsolete philology
of the Analysis, a severe one on Payne Knight's Principles of
Taste, and some reviews on works of Political Economy. In
one of the articles a reviewer, whether with or without the
editor's sanction, takes the side of the clergy against Dugald
Stewart and Leslie.
Soon after its transformation, however, the Literary Journal
had to be given up. Apparently, it had not succeeded. The
Chronicle, as we have said, was also abandoned not very long
alter this date. By these steps a large portion of Mill's income
was withdrawn. His burdens, moreover, were increasing*,
since his marriage had taken place in the preceding year to
Harriet Burrow, a lady of considerable beauty and grace, but
to whose lack of the necessary intellectual requirements he
was at the time quite blind. She, on her side, was soon dis-
appointed with the union, which she expected to be productive
of more material benefit to herself than it turned out to be.
Consequently Mill in this year, to meet the growing demands
of his situation, commenced his famous History of British
India, which he fondly anticipated would only take three years
in the writing. It eventually took twelve ! His steady
friend Sir John Stuart ceased in 1807 to come up to London
regularly for the Parliamentary sessious, and one more support
in his uphill career was, not indeed withdrawn, but necessarily
rendered less available. Mill's connexion with the Edin-
burgh Review (1S08 — 1813) bad not yet commenced. A
variety of circumstances therefore combined to render the
year 1807 one of the gloomiest in his life. After such a
brilliant start, everything now seemed to be working against
JAMES Ml j 7
him. In strong- contrast with his early fetters to David
Barclay, we find this of the 7th of February, 1<S07, written in
a very doleful and desponding" strain : — " I had a letter about
the beginning of the winter from Mr. Pet< rs, whioh informed
me that you were all well, and managing your affairs with
your usual prosperity, which, you may believe, gave me no
little pleasure to hear. I should be happy to see it too.
Have you no good kirk yet in your neighbourhood, which you
could give me and free me from this life of toil and anxiety
which I lead here? This London is a place in which
easier to spend a fortune than to make one. I kixm not how
it is ; but I toil hard, spend little, and yet am never the more
forward." At this time also his father's complicated .>
were the cause of a demand being* made upon him for 50/.,
which not a little distressed him; and altogether the futu
looked decidedly dark. During- all this period he is recorded
to have enjoyed the society of an extensive literary circle, but
not to have made many friendships in London, owing- to the
strong dislikes which he used with great rapidity to conceive,
and his unpopularity on other ground's. 6
But in 1808 came better things. In this year, which was
a notable one in Mill's career, commenced his friendships with
Bentham, with Ricardo, with General Miranda, and with
William Allen, the Quaker and chemist of Plough Court. In
this year also his intimacy with Brougham — he had been
acquainted with him previously in Edinburgh — was formed,
as also his connexion with the Edinburgh Review, under the
editorship of Jeffrey. Each of these friendships and con-
From tins point we may pass much more rapidly over the remaining
ground, both because Mill's subsequent career was of a more public nature,
and the works which record it (such as J . S. Mill's Autobiography) are
more generally known ; and also because Part III. in some measure deals
with it.
IL IRTI >■ y ' ND J A MES MIL L .
nex j on ■■■■ and distinguishable colour to Mill's
habits of thinking and aims in life, at least during the years
I si,. >me of them influenced him much
],., , P . During all this time the History of British India
y pressing. And in the earlier part of this
period his views on religion were becoming fixed, and
approaphing more and more nearly to absolute negation.
YIi-' connexion with Bentham was of course the pre-
dominating influence of his life. Mill used to stay with
short periods at his house (called Barrow Green)
• t Oxted, in the Surrey hills,, during the years 1807 — 1811;
and afterwards, during much longer portions of the year, at
Bentham's new house, Ford Abbey, in Devonshire, during the
1811 — 1817. When in London, Bentham lived in
n's Square, which was some distance from Mill's house at
Pentonville. Being anxious that Mill should live nearer
himself, in 1810 he gave him Milton's house, which was
almost adjoining his own. After a few months, however,
Mill removed to Newington Green, where he stayed for four
years. But in 1811 Bentham leased a house in Queen's
Square to Mill, who thus finally became his neighbour in
London.
The intimacy between the two philosophers was not with-
out those little breaks and pauses — those unphilosophical
squabbles — which are familiar to us from such well-known
histories as that of the intellectual communion of Voltaire
and Frederick the Great. In later life Bentham used to
apply harsh expressions to his old admirer and disciple,
such as " selfishness, coldness," &c. One day in 1814 we
read that Bentham was offended because James Mill had
left off taking his walk with him for a time, and the latter
writes to suggest that they are in the habit of seeing too
much of one another. On a later occasion Bentham surrep-
JAMES MILL. 19
titiously sent over to Mill's house, while the latter was engaged
in the India Office, to take away from it all the books out of
his library which he had allowed him to keep there and use,
solely owing to some offence which he had taken at his friend's
neglect. On the whole, however, their sympathy — personal
and intellectual — was most cordial.
Ricardo's friendship of course to some extent determined
Mill's interest in political economy. Miranda's influence is
important, since it is said to have contributed to the formation
of Mill's religious scepticism, in conjunction with the authority
of Bentham, of whom Miranda was an enthusiastic admirer
even to the point of desiring to introduce into his native
country, Spain, a Benthamic code. Mill's connexion with
Allen, and the joint efforts of the philosopher on the one side,
and the practical philanthropist and man of science, on the
other, to ameliorate the education of the poor, are worthy of
some notice, as they help to explain the former's views on
education, about which it is evident from all his works, and
from his son's Autobiography, that he felt very strongly indeed.
Mill co-operated with Allen in the quarterly journal called
the Philanthropist, and with Allen, Zachary Macaulay, and
others, in agitating their various educational projects. Among-
the proposed methods of educating the poor discussed in the
pages of the Philanthropist were the rival systems of Dr. Bell
and Mr. Lancaster (a Quaker). Mill, together with Allen,
espoused the cause of the latter. The battle between the
Bellites.and the Lancastrians, as they called themselves, waged
long and fiercely in the columns of this journal ; and in the
course of the controversy a great many interesting educational
questions were threshed out. The best means of civilizing
barbarous tribes were also largely considered, as well as the
systems in use at home for the reformation of criminals by
means of penitentiary houses, and the like, in connexion with
c %
20 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
which Bentham's Panopticon was examined and approved.
These and similar subjects, connected with the improvement
of the condition of the poor in body or in mind all over the
world, justified the description of the Philanthropist by its
editor as "a repository for hints and suggestions calculated
to promote the comfort and happiness of man."
In connexion with Brougham, we may presume that Mill
became interested in questions of legal reform. The defects
of the English penal system are pointed out even in the
Philanthropist, while the Edinburgh Review for these years
contains several articles from Mill's pen on subjects connected
with law and codification, English and foreign, mainly in
relation to speculations and proposed improvements issuing
from Bentham. The younger Mill always thought that
P>mugham exercised a much stronger fascination on his father
than was just, and that certain defects of character — such as
disingenuousness — were far from being compensated for by
his attractive manner.
James Mill's contributions to the Edinburgh Review, under
Jeffrey's editorship, extended over some years (1808—1815).
Jeffrey used to hack his articles about remorselessly ; and Mill
often, like other contributors, complained bitterly of this treat-
ment, but was met with apologies, accompanied, however, by
steady persistence in the line of conduct reprobated. Jeffrey was
continually urging Mill to soften his tone of writing, and on
comparing the Fragment on Mackintosh, for instance, with some
of the articles by Mill in the Edinburgh Review, as altered by
Jeffrey, we cannot help feeling that Jeffrey may have been in
the right. The contributions of Mill during the above-
mentioned years embraced the following subjects : Political
Economy [article on Money and Exchange, Oct. 1808] , Law and
Codification [Review of Bexon's Code de la Legislation Penale
— the first of his articles on Bentham's theories — Oct. 1809;
JAMES MILL. 21
article on the part of the Code Napoleon referring" to criminal
procedure, Nov. 1810], Education [the Lancastrian system is
discussed in the Feb. number of 1813], Indian Affairs [April
1810, article on the government of the East India Company;
July 1812, review of Malcolm's Sketch of the Political History
of India; Nov. 1812, article attacking- the commercial mono-
poly of the Company; July 1813, review of Malcolm's Sketch
of the Sikhs], Religious Toleration [August 1810] ; Politics
[review of a French treatise, Sur la Souverainete, by M. Chas,
Feb. 1811], the Liberty of the Press [May, 1811] ; and the
Emancipation and Condition of Spanish America [two articles
in Jan. and July, 1809, evidently inspired by General
Miranda] .
During the years 1815 to 1824, Mill furnished the articles
to the Encyclopedia Britannica which were afterwards reprinted
in a separate volume, and have now attained some celebrity.
In 1817 the History of British India went through the press,
and on its appearance, at the beginning of 1818, met with a
rapid success. A second edition was demanded in 1819.
Meanwhile Mill was gradually rising in the India House, and
in 1820 he was drawing" a salary of 800^ a year from the
Company, with promotion in store. At this time his old
friend, Dr. Thomson, the professor of chemistry in Glasgow,
wrote to inform him of a vacancy in the Greek chair at that
university. Mill is said to have seriously thought of entering
himself as a candidate ; but was prevented by considerations
of the probable opposition of the Tories at the election, the
necessity of signing" the Confession of Faith, his possible
advancement to the India Office, and the pecuniary loss which
such a change in his circumstances, even if successfully
brought about, would entail.
By gradual advancements, Mill rose in the India House till
he became chief examiner, in 1830, at a salary of ]200/.,
HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
which was finally fixed at 2000/. in 1836, a few months before
his death. From 1819 to 1830 he was in the revenue depart-
ment of the Company, and (as J. S. Mill tells us) introduced
several important reforms into the administration of India,
more through his larg-e unofficial influence with the directors.
than by the use of any immediate opportunities afforded him
by his position.
The remaining- points of interest during- this last stage of
Mill's life [1819—1836] are his connexion with the West-
minster Revieio (beginning- in 1823), his composition of the
Analysis during six summer holidays at his country house in
Dorking (1822—1829), the production in 1821 of the
Elements of Political Economy, his electioneering efforts in
Westminster on behalf of philosophical radicalism, his part in
the institution of the London University (afterwards Univer-
sify College) for unsectarian education, and his quarrel 7 and
subsequent reconciliation with Maeaulay, whose appointment
to India he afterwards strongly supported with the directors of
the Company. 8 One of the most extraordinary educations of
modern times, familiar to all from the pages of J. S. Mill's
Autohiograpliy, was being concluded during the first two or
three years of this period. Meanwhile Mill kept up some of his
old intimacies, as those with Brougham, Dr. Thomson, and
Allen, and formed some fresh friendships, as those with Grote,
the historian, Mrs. Grote, Henry Bickersteth (afterwards
Lord Langdale and Master of the Bolls, who advised him as
to the toning down' of the Fragment on Mackintosh), John
Romilly, and Charles Buller. In 1830 Mill left his house in
Queen's Square and took one in Church Street, Kensington,
where, as well as at his summer residence in Surrey, he spent
7 Re Maeaulay 's Review of the Essay on Government.
8 Before setting out for India, Maeaulay was earnestly counselled by
Mill (as J. S. Mill tells us) to keep to the line of an "honest politician."
JAMES MILL. 23
the remaining six years of his life in comfort and prosperity.
He had now become chief of the India Office. His nine
children were all gathered round him in his house, and were
one after the other being educated in the same way as
J. S. Mill, the eldest, then twenty-four years old, had been
trained. "For twenty years/' says Professor Bain, "the
house had been a school, and it continued so while he lived."
In the latter years of his life he was troubled with disease of
the chest, which began to affect him seriously in April, 183G.
He gradually became worse, and expired on the 23rd of June.
Mill's character was in some aspects grand, but scarcely in
any lovable. His absolute honesty, his unswerving devotion
to the cause or opinion which he considered right, however
unpopular it might be, his indomitable energy in overcoming
apparently insuperable difficulties, his philanthropy — all these
are beyond praise ; but his narrowness, his impatience/ his
want of tenderness and sympathy for minds differently con-
stituted from his own — these defects were unfortunately
equally conspicuous, and should qualify our judgment on his
merits.
Part if.
THEIR PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS AND OPINIONS.
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON THE THEORY OF ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS
■ THE PHYSICAL GROUNDWORK OF THE THEORY HARTLEY'S
VIBRATIONS JAMES MILL AND HARTLEY ON SENSATIONS
IDEAS AS COPIES OF SENSATIONS.
The theory of Association of I deas, now so familiar to us as
applied to the different practical fields of language, law, morals,
politics, education, religion, and sociology, was first formulated
as a philosophical system, and made the serious study of a life-
time, by Hartley. Obvious enough it seems when stated, and it
is only when the question of the extent of its application comes
in, that the widest divergency of opinion is manifested. Some
sort of belief in it has always been tacitly recognized as the
ground of prediction in the common affairs of life, and has
been at the root of most of the proverbial philosophy and folk-
lore of ages. Nor were more formal, though isolated, admis-
sions of its validity wanting in the works of pre-Hartleian
philosophers in different countries. Aristotle and Hobbes had
noticed the principle (the latter under the name of Mental
HISTORY OF THE ASSOCIATION THEORY. 25
Discourse). In France, Condillac ( Haiti ey's contemporary)
worked out similar results. The name had been invented by
Locke. 1 One Gay had very briefly, but in a lucid and agree-
able manner, sketched out his ideas on the subject, and applied
the doctrine chiefly to moral phenomena, both in a disserta-
tion prefixed to Edmund Law's translation and edition of
Archbishop King's " Origin of Evil/' and (probably) in an
anonymous " Enquiry into the Origin of the Human Appe-
tites and Affections " (1747), printed in Dr. Parr's "Meta-
physical Tracts of the 18th Century " [pp. 48—170] . Edmund
Law, in his prefatory observations to King's work [pp. lvi,
lvii], dwells with enthusiasm on "the power of Association
which was first hinted at by Mr. Locke, but applied to the
present purpose more directly by the author of the foregoing
Dissertation •" [the Eev. Mr. Gay] , " and from him taken up
and considered in a much more general way by Dr. Hartley,
who has from thence solved many of the principle appearances
in Human Nature, the sensitive part of which, since Mr.
Locke's essay, has been very little cultivated, and is perhaps
yet to the generality a terra incognita, how interesting soever
and entertaining such inquiries must be found to be : on which
account it is much to be lamented that no more thoughtful
persons are induced to turn their minds that way, since so very
noble a foundation for improvements has been laid by both
these excellent writers, especially the last, whose work is, I
beg leave to say, in the main, notwithstanding all its abstruse-
ness, well worth studying, and would have been sufficiently
clear and convincing had he but confined his observations to
the plain facts and experiments, without ever entering minutely
into the Physical Cause of such Phenomena." He speaks,
too, with some impatience of the principle of Association being
1 Locke's Essay, — Conduct of the Understanding, § 40, 4th ed., 1690.
See J. S. Mill's note on p. 377 of vol. i. of the Analysis of James Mill.
26 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
often slighted as vague and confused by later writers, particu-
larly Dr. Hutcheson, 2 and expresses [p. lvii] his own convic-
tion that c: it will not appear of less extent or influence in the
Intellectual World than that of Gravity is found to be in the
Natural." 3
This theory, then, of the Association of Ideas, propounded
by Gay, ushered in by Edmund Law with the exuberant
hopefulness which has always characterized the Columbuses of
philosophy, elaborated by Hartley, and kept alive by Priestley,
the elder Darwin, and Brown, was that which subsecpuently
attracted the attention of James Mill, who added to it from
the richer scientific stores then at his disposal, while stripping
it of certain excrescences not necessary to the vindication and
establishment of its truth, and solely due to the physical tastes
of Hartley.
Let us first find a statement of the doctrine in its very
simplest terms. So far Hartley and James Mill are perfectly
at one; we will take the definition given by the latter. " Our
ideas," he says [Analysis, vol. i. p. 78] , 4 "spring up, or exist,
in the order in which the sensations existed, of which they are
copies. This is the general law of the Association of Ideas,
by which term, let it be remembered, nothing is here meant to
be expressed but the order of occurrence."
Next, what was that physical hypothesis with which, to
Edmund Law's regret, Hartley encumbered his theory, and
which James Mill, as we shall see, cast aside?
Hartley, like many another theorist, strained every nerve
to evolve some grand and comprehensive law which should
- 1 Science of Morals, p. 55, sqq.
:i J. S. Mill uses the same comparison in speaking of the theory. " That
which the Law of Gravitation is to Astronomy .... the Law of the
Association of Ideas is to Psychology." Comic and Positivism, p. 53.
4 Throughout this work the references are to J. S. Mill's edition of
The Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, 1869.
VIBRA TIONS. 27
interpret all the phenomena. His bias towards simplifica-
tion was excessive ; and the consequence was that his foun-
dations were not wide enough to support the superstructure.
Not content with showing- how large a variety of our mental
processes are merely instances of the general law of Associa-
tion as stated above, and how many of our complex ideas
are, on analysis, reducible to simple ideas (the copies, in his
language, of sensations), he endeavoured to prove that the
primary law itself was nothing but the experience of a phy-
sical change in first, the nerves, and then the brain, produced
in the first instance by the impression on the senses of external
objects. For this purpose he assumed, on certain (chiefly
pathological and medical) analogies, that, when sensations are
experienced, vibrations in the infinitesimal particles of the
medullary substance of the brain are set going by external
objects ; and surmised that, on the removal of these objects,
the vibrations survive in the form of miniature vibrations or
vibratiuncules which represent or cause what, from the sub-
jective point of view, we call ideas. The ideas (or diminu-
tive vibrations) would necessarily be of the same nature and
constitution, and have the same arrangement and sequence
of their elements as the original vibrations (or sensations)
themselves.
The vibration theory was suggested, as Hartley tell us, by
Newton's hints as to the relation between motion and sen-
sation, just as, on the intellectual side, the association theory
was suggested by Locke and Gay ; and, as a medical man and
student of physical science, Hartley saw no reason why an
ingenious combination of the two should, not be effected. It
is easy now to see why such a hypothesis in his time could be
nothing but the merest guesswork, since, even at the present
day, its lineal successor, the doctrine of " neural tremors" and
groupings, under the auspices of such able exponents as Gr. II .
2 8 HA R TLB Y AND J A MES MIL L .
Lewes and Dr. Maudsley, does not advance the Association
theory much, which is far better left to stand on its own legs
as the expression of an ultimate psychological law. In his
system of vibrations Hartley had to assume both the causal
nexus and the existence of the alleged cause. The theory
was doubly hypothetical. Granting the existence of vibra-
t ions at all, and, further, their activit} r to the extent and under
the conditions postulated by him, there still remains unproved
their operation in giving birth to sensations and ideas: he at
must shows the probability of the concomitance of the physical
and mental conditions in a large number of cases. His vibra-
tions are like the French chemists' substance X,in being undis-
covered and unproved, though unlike it in the fact that, even
if their existence were proved, it could not be shown that they
caused the phenomena to be accounted for and interpreted.
Hartley, at the outset, anticipates that his readers may see
little connexion between vibrations and the association of
i i leas, and modestly expresses his fear that he will be able to
do but little in the way of combining the two theories, " on
account of the great intricacies, extensiveness, and novelty of
the subject/'' {Observations on Man, vol. i. p. 6. 5 ] " How-
ever/' he sa} r s — and in these words he betrays the weak point
in his attempt — ' ' if these doctrines be found in fact to contain
the laws of the bodily and mental powers respectively, they
must.be related to each other, since the body and mind are."
In the reason thus naively assigned the whole cmestion is
begged.
Starting from Newtonian principles, he first lays down that
the immediate instrument of sensation and motion is to be
found in the medullary substance of the brain, spinal marrow,
and nerves j and, furthermore, that the medullary substance of
. 5 Our references throughout are to the edition of Hartley's works,
in 3 vols.) by his son [1801 1.
VIBRA TIONS. 29
the brain is the immediate instrument of ideas, so that a
change in the former works a corresponding- change in the
latter. But sensations notoriously persist after the removal or
disappearance of the external phenomena which occasioned
them. Now, no motion can persist of itself in any space or
part of a physical body, except a vibratory one. Therefore, he
argues, these surviving sensations must be the result of vibra-
tory motions communicated first to the nerves, and then to
the brain, by sensible objects. Then, as if not quite sure of
the efficacy of his reasoning, he adds, that if the vibrations
could be proved independently by physical arguments, the
persistence of sensation after disappearance of the object
might be proved from vibrations, instead of vice versa. This
latter task he then sets himself to do, and assumes (without
proving) certain probable exciting causes, conditions, and
media of the vibrations, such, for instance, as a very subtle
and elastic fluid or aether, which he holds to be " of great
use in performing sensation, thought, or motion." [Vol. i.
p. 32.] He speaks also of the infinitesimal character of the
particles of the medullary substance operated upon, arid their
uniformity, continuity, softness, and active powers, as favour-
ing his hypothesis. Here again he is taking hints from Sir
Isaac Newton. He also brings forward analogies and illus-
trations derived from the exercise of his own profession, 6 and
attempts to show how the phenomena of pleasure and pain, of
sleep, and of light, are agreeable to his theory, and how
muscular contractions and motions (automatic, semi-volun-
tary, and voluntary, according to his division) are all satis-
torily explained by it. The general conclusion is, that
vibrations and association mutually support one another.
6 He has a section (vol. i. pp. 264 — 2GS) on the Relation of the Art of
Physic to, and the improvements which it is capable of receiving from,
the Vibration Theory, judiciously applied.
3 o HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
" One may expect that vibrations should infer association as
their effect, and association point to vibrations as its cause."
Ultimately, however, he leaves us somewhat in the dark as to
which is to be held the cause of the other, and seems to con-
tent himself with placing the two laws in juxtaposition,
expounding their correspondence and parallelism, and drawing*
the inference that the agreement of the doctrines, "both with
each other and with so great a variety of the phenomena of
the body and mind, may be reckoned a strong argument of
their truth." [Vol. i. p. 114.] He even appears to give up
the idea of a definite causal relation in the assertion that " as
in physics, we may make the quantity of the matter the
exponent of the gravity, or the gravity the exponent of it/'
so, in inquiries into the human mind, "if that species of
motion which we term vibrations can be shown by probable
arguments to attend upon all sensations, ideas, and motions,
and to be proportioned to. them, then we are at liberty either
to make vibrations the exponent of sensations, ideas, and
motions, or these the exponents of vibrations, as best suits the
inquiry, however impossible it may be to discover in what
w r ay vibrations cause, or are connected with, sensations or
ideas/' [Olserv. on Man, vol. i. p. 32.] And he then
abandons himself for a moment to a wild search for a cause
behind the cause, for a hypothetical substance on which to rest
a hypothetical kind of motion, and suggests an infinitesimal
elementary one, intermediate between the soul and the body.
As his work proceeds, however, we find him merely placing
side by side with each law of Association successively enun-
ciated the corresponding law of the vibration theory, by sub-
stituting vibration for sensation, vibratiuncules for simple ideas
of sensation (that is, vestiges or images of sensations left behind
in the brain), and complex miniature vibrations (compounded
of simple miniature vibrations running into one another) for
THE ELEMENTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 31
complex (or the more intellectual) ideas, compounded of simple
ideas- of sensation running- into one another. These laws of
the association, both of vibrations (on the physical or external
side), and of sensations and ideas (on the subjective or psy-
chical side), Hartley (as stated above) believed to apply also
to the association of muscular contractions. Consequently,
he expresses his vibration-association theory in its complete
shape and threefold application in the following- formula or
theorem : —
1. Tf any
Sensation A.
Idea B.
or Muscular
Motion C.
be associated
for a suffi-
cient number
of times with
any other
Sensation
r>.
1 d, the simple
idea belong-
it will at last,
ing to D.
Idea E.
, when occur-
ring alone,
/ The very idea
IE.
Muscular
excite
The very
Motion P.
1 Muscular
1 Motion Pi
By a comparison of the first branch of this law with the
second, it will be seen to express the obvious fact that the
recurrence of one of two orig-inally associated sensations does
not guarantee the recurrence of the other sensation itself,
because such a result depends on the disposition of external
phenomena, independent of subjective conditions, but only
of the ideas corresponding to it : that is, in any case of asso-
ciation, as Mills puts it, the antecedent may be either a sen-
sation or an idea, but the consequent must be always an idea.
\_Anal. i. 81.]
The elements or materials of all our mental states, according-
to both Hartley and James Mill, may be represented by the
following scale or psychological spectrum : —
1. Sensations (impressed by external objects, in most cases,
though not in all).
2. Ideas of Sensations, or Simple Ideas (Ideas surviving-
Sensations after the objects have been removed, or
the Ideas most nearly allied to, and indistinguishable
from, Sensations).
32 HA R TL E V AND JAMES MILL.
3. Complex Ideas (the more purely intellectual Ideas, com-
pounded of the above) .
It is natural, therefore, that both philosophers should com-
mence with some account of the prime data, Sensations, of
which they conceive all ideas to be either copies, or com-
binations (according- to the laws of association) of such
copies, and into which, by analysis, they may ultimately be
resolved.
James Mill does not originate any startling physical theory
of the senses : this, indeed, was not his object. He merely
wished the student to accustom himself to reflect on the
different classes of simple sensations, and learn to discriminate
them not only from one another, but from all other feelings
or states of mind with which, from their very familiarity, they
were in danger of being confused. This was, in his opinion,
a necessary step by way of preparing the ground for an
examination of " the more mysterious phenomena." He
accordingly gives a short account of the five senses of Smell,
Taste, Hearing, Touch, and Sight, to which he adds two fresh
classes of sensations, viz., those which accompany the muscular
actions of the body, and those which have their seat in the
alimentary canal, or the feelings associated with digestion.
In discussing each of these in order, Mill points out that
three conditions are requisite to sensation, — first, its organ,
next, the actual feeling itself, and, lastly, the antecedent of
sensation, or the external object to which it is referred as effect
to cause. "With regard to the muscular sensibilities, he
expresses his surprise at the extent to which this part of our
consciousness had, up to his day, been neglected by all philoso-
phical inquirers in this country except Hartley, Erasmus
Dmwin, and Brown (all of them, it is noticeable, physicians).
He explains this neglect on the ground that they are feelings
in the main leading up to more interesting states of mind, to
THE CLASSES OF SENSATIONS. 33
which the attention is immediately called off, to the swallowing
up of any interest in the former which might otherwise have
been taken. In discussing the sensations of the alimentary
canal, Mill justly (and somewhat dolefully) observes that
i( when they become acutely painful they are precise objects of
attention to everybody," though, in their ordinary form, they
too, as being merely productive of, or preliminary to, more
interesting sensations, are lost sight of and forgotten as soon
as the latter supervene. 7 Hartley's description of the classes
of sensations [Observ. on Man, vol. i. pp. 115 — 268], as
coming from a physician, is fuller and more elaborate ; but,
notwithstanding that it is replete with valuable and striking
suggestions, its scope and aim is far more indetinite, and it
forms a far less coherent and integral part of the general
theory, than that given by Mill. In speaking of the various
senses and sensations, he seems to have no very determinate
object before him. Mill's purpose, on the contrary, was very
plain and intelligible. His # theory being that ideas are
copies, or combinations of copies, of sensations, he begins with
sensations, as being the primary element to which all intel-
lectual operations are reducible, and the most simple and
primitive of all our natural states, no less properly than Euclid
begins with his definitions, and then proceeds to his postu-
lates, axioms, and theorems. And he dwelt on them just long
enough for purposes of definition, and no longer. Hartley, on
the other hand, though he began with sensation, could not
confine himself within proper limits.
In his long second chapter on " the application of the doc-
7 Besides these, Mill notices the Sensations of Disorganization, or of
the approach thereto in any part of the body (such as painful cuts, wounds,
&c, and similar feelings) though here there is neither a specific organ nor
external object of the sensation. Some of his remarks throw light on
Kant's dictum that " pain is the sense of that which destroys life."
D
34 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
trines of vibration and association to each of the sensations and
motions in particular," Hartley seems to have had at least three
objects indistinctly before him at various times : — (1) a division
and classification of the senses (though he brings forward no
very satisfactory fundamenliim divisionis, and often puts
species on the same level as genera) ; (2) to show that the vibra-
tions accompanying the special sensations propagated diminutive
vibrations representing the simple ideas of those sensations;
and (3) to explain how the special sensations contribute to
form our intellectual pleasures and pains " in the way of
association ;" which latter qualification exhibits a certain con-
fusion in his mind, since the inquiry into the tones of mind
produced by sensations is properly a physical, almost a medical,
inquiry, and has nothing to do with Association, which pro-
fesses to interpret the sequences of ideas as dependent upon,
or related to, the sequences of sensuous impressions. 8 . On the
whole, then, we may take Mill's classification of the senses
and sensations to be quite sufficient as a necessary introduc-
tion to the theory of association ; and the many interesting
observations scattered up and down the corresponding part of
Hartley's work need not detain us at present.
Ideas are, as we have seen (when simple), copies, or (when
complex) combinations of copies, of sensations. We have
noticed Mill's succinct account of sensations, the originals :
let us now see what he has to tell us, by way of definition and
explanation, about the copies, images, or ideas, the other
material of consciousness.
Like Hartley, Mill first of all examines the idea in its simplest
form : and, to both philosophers, the idea in its simplest form
8 James Mill falls occasionally into the same mistake, as, for instance,
where he talks of dismal ideas heing associated with (instead of being, as
they are, produced, through direct physical agency, by) intestinal sensa-
tions of discomfort [Anal. vol. i. pp. 101, 102].
SIMPLE IDEAS. 35
is that vestig-e or trace of a sensation which remains in the
mind after the external phenomenon which occasioned the sen-
sation has been removed. Hartley, indeed, at times seems to
be so taken up with this aspect of the simple idea that he
apparently disregards the other and far more important points
of view from which it may be looked at. He confuses, for
instance, the images before the retina of the eye immediately
after the disappearance of a bright-coloured object, with the
thought of that object at any time after its disappearance — a
purely physical with a purely intellectual state or operation.
And even Mill does not distinguish quite sharply enough
between the mere persistence of a sensuous impression in
the mind immediately after the vanishing of- the external
object, and the reproduction or recollection by the mind of
such an impression long afterwards. " When our sensations
cease, by the absence of their objects, something remains.
This something is a feeling which, though distinguishable
from the sensation itself, is yet more like it than anything
else, and therefore may not inaptly be called a copy, trace,
or representation of the sensation/'' To this latter class of
feelings — to every feeling, that is, other than a sensation in
immediate relation to its exciting object — Mill gives the
generic name, Ideas, as opposed to sensations in the above
sense ; and as opposed to Sensation in its other sense of the
mental process, of which each specific sensation is an example,
he proposes with some hesitation a term, which has since been
taken up by Dr. Maudsley and others, Ideation. In this way
we may be said to have Ideas of Sight, Ideas of Hearing,
Ideas of Touch, of Smell, of Muscular Contraction, of Dis-
organization, &c. In each of these classes, we' experience
" something which remains with us after the sensation" [of
Sight, Hearing, Touch, &c, as the case maybe] "is gone, and
which, in the train of thought, we can use as its repre-
D 2
36 HARTLEY AND J A MES MIL L .
sentativc." The sound of thunder, for example, the sensation,
is the primary state of consciousness; the thought of it, when
it is gone, is the secondary state of consciousness.
Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory :
Violets when they die and sicken,
Live still in the sense they quicken.
Here again we have cases of the secondary state of con-
sciousness, as Mill calls it.
Up to this point the idea has been regarded solely in the
light of a remnant of sensation, and ideation as a sort of dis-
solving view, in which the idea represents the fading outline
of the figures which were just now distinct and vivid. But
Mill soon begins to introduce the discriminative or retentive
powers of the mind, though he expresses their operations in
his own peculiar language. On tasting a wine, or observing
a colour, we often have at the same time a. secondary con-
sciousness of other sensations of the same class as, but speci-
fically unlike, the sensations of which we then have a primary
consciousness; we distinguish the two feelings in a train
of thought ; and we say that the former sensations of which we
have equivalents or images in our minds differ from those of
which we have a present experience. Here we see the original
conception of an idea as a mere remnant of sensation, a sort
of weaker impression on the senses, considerably enlarged.
And we shall notice, in the next two chapters, still further
amplifications, when Mill comes to divide the ideas into classes
corresponding in the main with those of Hartley.
37
CHAPTER II.
THE ELEMENTARY POSTULATES AND FIRST PROPOSITIONS OP THE
THEORY OF ASSOCIATION, AS LAID DOWN BY HARTLEY AND
JAMES MILL.
After noticing the persistence of sensations (notably visible
and audible sensations) in the sensorium, fancy, or mind —
which he takes for his purpose to be equivalent expressions —
after their exciting causes have been removed, and then ap-
parently feeling conscious that this proposition does not carry
us very far, since it merely represents a well-known physical
law. Hartley in his eighth Proposition (vol. i. p. 56) begins to
introduce us to the Association theory proper, and lays down
that " sensations, by being often repeated, leave certain Types
or Images of themselves which may be called Simple Ideas of
Sensation " [of Sensation, because, as Mill too says, more like
sensations than anything else; and simple, as contrasted with
complex ideas, to be noticed presently]. He compares this
proposition with the foregoing one [Prop. III.] , and points
out that, whereas, 'according to the latter law, the single im-
pression produces " a perceptible effect, trace or vestige " for a
short time, the repetition, in the former case, produces a more
permanent effect, and generates an idea " which shall recur
occasionally at long distances of time from the impression of
the corresponding sensation/' So, too, Mill remarks the con-
stant interchange of sensations and ideas in our mental
experience, sensations suggesting ideas ; and those ideas sug-
431660
3 8 HA RTLEY A ND J A MES MIL L .
gesting still further ideas more and more remotely connected
with the sensation which set the train of thought in motion,
and more and more nearly allied to sensations long past, till
the sequence of ideas is broken in upon by some sensation
impressed by an external cause independent of us, and a fresh
train is constituted. Then do our ideas follow one another at
hazard, or according to law ? The latter as'suredly ; and the
law of their succession is determined by the order of suc-
cession or the order of co-existence of the corresponding sensa-
tions. Hartley and Mill agree that there are two orders of
sensations — the successive order, or the order which answers
■usually, but not always, to a sequence in time of their objects ;
and the synchronous order, or the order which answers to the
relation of the corresponding objects to one another in space.
When the sensations have been synchronous, the ideas of these
sensations are synchronous; and wdien the sensations have
been successive, the ideas of those sensations spring up suc-
cessively, though not necessarily, of course, in exactly the
same order of succession. From a stone, for example, several
sensations are simultaneously derived — those of hardness,
weight, roundness, colour, size, &c. When, therefore, the
idea of any one of those sensations springs up in the mind
afterwards, the ideas of all the others spring up, says Mill,
simultaneously with it. 1 The sensation of hearing- the thunder,
on the contrary, follows the sensation of seeing the lightning-
flash : when the idea, therefore, of one of these is recalled, the
idea of the other follows in succession, and not simultaneously.
The latter branch of the law is also most aptly exemplified by
the case of committing passages to memory, where each word in
succession suggests the following* word. Of course a far
1 This hypothesis is obviously crude and ill-founded, as Professor Bain
points out [Analysis, vol. i. p. 79, note], since the same individual
sensation has generally a place in many different groupings or clusters. "
ORDERS OF SENSATIONS AND IDEAS. 39
greater number of our sensations, and therefore also of our
ideas, occur in the successive than in the synchronous order.
Also nearly all the sensations occurring either simultaneously
or successively occur very frequently in their respective orders,
and the frequent repetition tends to rivet more firmly the
corresponding sequences and associations of the ideas.
The above doctrines are expressed by Hartley in a somewhat
different way, but to the same effect, in two of the propositions
into which he delights to pack up his philosophy, namely,
(1) the proposition, already noticed, that sensations, by being
often repeated, leave types or images of themselves, called
Simple Ideas of Sensation : this would include Mill's per-
petuation of the synchronous order of sensations in subsequent
ideation, e. g. in the case of the simultaneous sensations excited
by a rose through its different sensible qualities : (2) any
sensations, A, B, C. &c, by being associated with one another
a sufficient number of times, get such a power over the. cor-
responding ideas, a, b, c, &c, that any one sensation, A, when
impressed alone, shall be able to excite in the mind, b, c, &c,
the ideas of the rest. [Prop. X., vol. i., p. 65], This asso-
ciation would include both the case of simultaneity and that
of succession. Hartley gives us the physical counterpart
of the latter of these two laws as follows : Any vibrations,
A, B, C, &c, by being associated together often enough, get
such a power over a, b, c, &c, the corresponding miniature
vibrations, that any one vibration, A, when impressed alone,
shall be able to excite b, c, &c, the miniatures of the rest.
[Prop. XI.]. The former he translates into vibration lan-
guage thus : Sensory vibrations, by being often repeated, beget
in the medujlary substance of the brain a disposition to
diminutive vibrations, or vibratiuncules.
Having explained that sensations associated often enough
tend to generate similarly associated ideas, Mill goes on to
4 o HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
show that there are degrees of strength in the associative link
itself, as there are degrees of clearness in the associated ideas.
The symptoms or criteria of the relative strength of such
links are, in the rnain, their relative permanence, and the
relative certainty and facility with which they are formed.
This may be seen by comparing the bond of association be-
tween names and ideas in a well-known language, science or
art, on the one hand, and an imperfectly known one on the
other. The causes of strength of association of ideas are two :
the vividness of the associated sensations, and the frequency
of their association. This Hartley expresses as usual in terms
of vibrations. [Vol. i., pp. 30, 31].
That vividness and frequency are two completely distinct
•causes of strong and intimate associations is shown by the
fact that a single instance of a connexion of a highly
pleasurable or painful sensation with one which would other-
wise have been indifferent, will often be sufficient to forge an
almost indissoluble link between the latter sensation, when
recurring, or the idea of it, when subsequently springing up
in the mind, and the idea of the pleasurable or painful sensa-
tion. The sight of a surgical operator, or of a place connected
with a delightful meeting, will respectively suggest painful
and pleasurable ideas long afterwards to the patient and to
the friend, although only once coupled with the sensations
corresponding to those ideas. So, too, recently-associated
sensations will, as compared with those associated at more
distant dates, generate a strong association between the
corresponding ideas, or between one of the sensations and
the idea of the other, by reason of the vividness and pro-
minence in the memory of the original sensations, irrespective
of frequency. Conversely, a word frequently associated with
a sensation, or the sight of a particular class of citizen
frequently associated with the sight of a particular kind of
CAUSES OF STRONG ASSOCIATIONS. 41
dress, will create an equally strong- association between the
corresponding- ideas, though any one of the associations of the
original sensations, taken by itself, would have left no impress
on the mind at all.
The next primary law of the association theory is a very
important one. It is that, when several simple ideas are
frequently united together in the mind, they gradually merge
into a complex whole, the several parts of which are practically
indistinguishable, only distinguishable, that is, by a conscious
effort of analysis : or, as Hartley puts it shortly, simple ideas
will run into a complex idea by means of association, in
which case, according to the vibration hypothesis, " we are to
suppose " that simple miniature vibrations run into a complex
miniature vibration. Mill compares the analogous physical
effect of a rapidly revolving wheel, on seven parts of which
the seven prismatic colours are painted, and which appears to
a spectator white ; and Hartley characteristically instances
the apparently simple flavour of a medicine where the tastes
of the several ingredients cannot be distinguished. Such an
apparently simple idea as that of gold is in reality a very
complex idea, — one which the ideas (themselves not simple in
every case), of hardness, colour, extension, weight, have by
frequent union coalesced to form. The complexity of such
abstract ideas as those of Humanity, Poetry, or Civilization,
is more obvious. • This law may be regarded as a case of the
law of the generation of synchronous ideas by similarly
synchronous sensations. Hartley draws attention to this,
and, in his semi-mathematical language, puts the generalization
thus: — A+B+C+D (sensations) often occurring together
[or — though this does not seem so certain — A equally often
occurring with B, C, or D alone, or with, pairs of B + C, B +
D, C-f-D alone] generate the synchronous simple ideas a + b
+ c + d, and these synchronous simple ideas, by their repeated
42 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL
union, coalesce into a cluster or complex idea, abed. He
regards the merging of the ideas of the letters of the alphabet
into the ideas of syllables, and the ideas of syllables into the
ideas of words, — in fact the whole process of learning a
language, — as a conspicuous instance of this law ; and says
that, similarly, the most abstract ideas are capable, with per-
severance, of being analyzed into such simple ideas as are but
copies or images of sensations ; since, as simple ideas run into
complex ones, so complex run into decomplex ideas; but the
complex ideas which go to compose a decomplex idea adhere
together less closely than the simple ideas which go to form a
complex idea, just as letters adhere together more closely to form
a syllable by association than syllables do to form a word, and
these latter again than words to form a sentence. It is to be
noticed that when a complex idea is made up of several simple
ideas, one of which is a visible idea, the visible idea, being the
most glariug, so to speak, will generally serve as a symbol to
suggest and connect the rest, just as the first letter of a word,
or the first word of a sentence, will often call up the entire
word or the entire sentence.
In connexion with this part of the theory, Mill just mentions
the principle (which will occupy our attention hereafter) of
indissoluble association. Two or more simple ideas maybe so
constantly and invariably conjoined that they form what
may, from one point of view, be called a complex idea, with-
out a special name, the parts of which, though specially
named, it is impossible to disconnect, — such pairs of simple
ideas, for instance, as colour and extension, solidity and figure,
two straight lines and unterminated space. The sensations of
colour and figure are so firmly associated with the sensations
from which we infer distance, solidity, &c, that we even
imagine that we see distance and solidity, though in fact we
see only the former, and the rest is inference of a somewhat
COMPLEX IDEAS. 43
complicated character. We here have an instance of a sen-
sation and an idea being so closely and repeatedly united that
they merge into a whole which appears to be a simple
sensation.
Just as simple ideas thus associated cannot be disjoined, so
neither of them can be conjoined by any effort of mind with
the opposite of the other. Here we have the law of the in-
conceivability of the opposite, about which Mr. Herbert
Spencer's views have of late given rise to so much contro-
versy.
Mill further remarks that another instance of the law now
under consideration is the case (already mentioned) of ante-
cedent sensations or ideas leading up so rapidly to a train of
more interesting consequent ideas, that a complex idea results
in which, the supervening ideas form the dominant element,
and the antecedent sensations or ideas are almost entirely
lost.
The main principles of association, as enounced by Mill, are
compared by him to those which Hume put forward. The
two theories, though expressed differently and worked out
from a somewhat different starting-point, are found to be in
substance much the same. Hume considers the elementary
principles, according to which cur ideas are associated, to be
Contiguity in Time and in Place, Causation, and Resemblance.
Causation, however, even according to Hume himself, and
certainly according to Mill, is only a particular case of Con-
tiguity in Time; and Contrast, which Hume mentions as
another possible principle, he himself admits to be derivative,
as being a compound case of Resemblance and Causation.
James Mill, indeed, thinks this analysis unsatisfactory, and
prefers to call Contrast either a case of Resemblance (as when
a dwarf suggests a giant, the two resembling one another in
the fact of both departing from a common standard), or a
44 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
combined case of Vividness and Frequency, as when the
sensation or idea of pain suggests the idea of relief from pain,
or of pleasure, because the sensation of pain has often been
followed by the sensation accompanying relief from pain, and
also, whenever it has been so followed, the associative link
has generally been of a vivid and forcible character. There
remains then Contiguity in Place and in Time, together with
Resemblance. The two former correspond to Mill's syn-
chronous and successive orders; and we have seen that the
simultaneity or sequence of our ideas depends on the simul-
taneity or sequence of our sensations. As to Resemblance,
Mill, in a somewhat hasty generalization, infers that it is
merely a case of the law of Frequency, because when we
perceive an object by our senses we generally perceive other
objects of the same class together with it. This is a very
crude and unphilosophical explanation. We perceive, together
with any given object, quite as many objects of different
classes, at any given moment, as objects of the class to which
it belongs, and, therefore, might be expected to have formed
quite enough counter-associations to dispel the association
which is alleged to be created in this manner.
Reduced then to their simplest terms, Mill's primary laws
of Association come to this. I. Whenever a strong association
is formed between two or more sensations, the recurrence of
any one of these sensations, or of the idea of any one of these
sensations, will suggest the ideas of the remaining sensations
either simultaneously or successively, according as the sensa-
tions, of which the suggesting sensation was one, were con-
nected together in a synchronous or successive order. II. The
strength of the association is caused by either (1) the frequency
of the association, or (2) the vividness of the sensations asso-
ciated, or one of them, or (3) a combination of both. III. After
simple ideas have occurred together a great many times
MILL'S PRIMA RY LA WS OF A SSOCIA TION. 45
simultaneously, or even successively, in an order corresponding
to that of the associated sensations, they are apt to coalese into
a single complex idea, which, from the close adherence and
interfusion of the parts composing 1 it, will appear to be a simple
indecomposable idea ; and when the association has been con-
stant and invariable, those parts or elements will in fact, as
well as appearance, be inseparable by any effort of imagination.
IV. Complex ideas thus formed may, by a similar process,
merge into decomplex ideas ; and in this way are formed the
most abstract ideas which the human mind can frame.
Thus, having, with Hartley's guidance, determined the
constitution and construction of the materials of thought, viz.
Sensations, Simple Ideas, Complex Ideas, and Trains of Ideas,
Mill has paved the way for the consideration of the principal
operations of the human mind in making use of these mate-
rials. And first he examines the process by which (through
the formation of links of association between ideas and sensible
symbols) thought is communicated from mind to mind. This
subject demands a chapter to itself.
46 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
CHAPTER III.
THE COMMUNICATION OF IDEAS — LANGUAGE — NAMING.
Hartley attaches considerable importance to the process of
associating- impressions, made by written words and uttered
sounds on the senses of sight and hearing" respectively, with
the corresponding ideas ; and James Mill (always more pre-
cise and methodical than his predecessor) gives the theory of
Naming a definite and a considerable place in his system. In
all the more intricate and complicated states of human con-
sciousness, to which, after the explanation of the simple and
familiar states, we are now about to proceed, " something- of
the process of Naming is involved/' This artifice, therefore,
craves immediate attention.
In order to communicate the trains of our thoughts to
others, as well as to record for our benefit and use our own
past trains in the order in which the ideas composing- them
actually occurred, it was found absolutely necessary to employ
sensible signs or marks. Mind cannot work upon mind
directly. One person can only devise aud use visible or audible
signs, which shall impress themselves on the senses of another
person, and, by means of predetermined associations, call up
in his mind ideas in a certain order, and at the same time
signify to him that those ideas are passing, or did at some
previous time pass, in his (the first person's) mind. Nor can
we at will recall any set of ideas we please, still less in the
order in which on some past occasion they occurred to us. If
VISIBLE AND A UDIBLE MARKS OF IDEA S. 47
we wish to recall an idea, that idea must be present to our
minds in the very act of willing to recall it ; and, of course,
we cannot will to will to recall an idea. We have no power
over the occasions of our ideas. But by our power over the
occasions of our sensations, that is, natural objects, we can
devise such an order of them as must necessarily, at any time
we wish, raise up a corresponding 1 order of sensible impres-
sions. By making-, therefore, certain sensible impressions
stand for certain ideas, we can ensure the possibility of raising
up in our minds at any future time both the connexion
and the order of the ideas which have formed part of any of
our past trains of thought.
For the first of the above-mentioned purposes of language,
namely, the immediate communication of sensations or ideas
to others, audible signs (owing to their rapidity and variety,
and the flexibility of the human voice) are preferable to visible
signs, or the language of action and pantomime, which savage
tribes use to a considerable extent, and which, of course, is
useless in the dark. For the latter purpose, the permanent
recording of thought, the converse is the case : visible marks
are preferable to audible, durable signs to evanescent. Man-
kind first of all invented, by way of visible marks, picture-
writing or hieroglyphics, the association here being a direct
one between a portrait-representation and the sensible object,
the idea of which is intended to be presented to the mind.
Gradually the hieroglyphics became less directly pictorial, and
more technical ; and began to depend more on the various
combinations of certain fixed types or picture-symbols, than
on the successive imitations in each case of separate sensible
objects ; till, finally, men arrived at a new method of pre-
determining the associations requisite for the recording of
thought, that, namely, whereby different arrangements of a
few letters (which stand for certain simple sounds or motions
4 S HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
of the vocal organs preparatory to the emission of sound), are
associated with the various audible sounds which constitute
the evanescent signs by which ideas and their order are com-
municated to others. Thus the permanent signs have fixed
laws of association with the audible, and the audible again
with the ideas which they are intended to convey. The
former, therefore, are secondary marks of the ideas, the latter
are immediate and primary.
It was of the greatest importance, to man, in the first
instance, to acquire the means of communicating to others the
sensations affecting him, in order to secure the co-operation
and assistance of his fellow-men in coping with the forces of
nature. He, therefore, first devised audible signs of these
sensations, such as hot, cold, black, white, pain, pleasure, sweet,
bitter, &c. It next became advisable, if only for purposes of
economy, instead of repeating on each occasion the marks of the
various separate sensations simultaneously affecting him in the
perception of a sensible object, to invent sounds which should
symbolize the entire cluster of sensations. Hence the names
of External Objects, (the sun, the sky, &c.,) or Clusters of Sen-
sations, or, in the language of later philosophy, " permanent
possibilities " of clusters of sensations. Of these clusters some
included a greater, some a less, number of sensations. Men
advanced, no doubt, gradually from the latter to the former.
It was then further found necessary to make these marks of
sensations on the one hand, and of clusters of sensations on
the other, stand for classes of sensations, and classes of
clusters of sensations. Mill puts this again on the ground of
economy, though, as we shall see, this was not the only motive
which prompted the invention of class-names.
In the next place, marks for Ideas were required. Ideas,
as we have seen, are either Simple or Complex. And, for
purposes of Naming, the Complex Ideas are further divisible
MARKS OF COMPLEX IDEAS. 49
into those as to which the mind has not exerted itself to
form the combination, but the cluster of ideas has been copied
directly from a cluster of sensations found ready made, so to
speak, in the natural world ; such ideas, that is, as those of
external objects, rose, house, river, &c. ; and, secondly, those
ideas in respect of which the mind has exercised its active
powers in putting together arbitrarily various copies of sen-
sations, and has itself constructed the idea of a cluster of
sensations, which cluster does not answer to any object in fact
existing in the order of physical phenomena ; such ideas, for
instance, as centaur, mermaid, sea of glass, snark, &c, or
again language, piety, nation, &c. The former of these may
be called Sensible Complex Ideas, or copies of clusters of sen-
sations, the latter Mental Complex Ideas (answering to
Locke's Mixed Modes), or clusters of copies of sensations.
The names of the Mental Complex Ideas as well as those
of Simple Ideas and those of Sensible Complex Ideas stand
for classes, as well as individuals, in order to be as ex-
tensively applicable as possible, and to economize the use
of marks. But in the two latter cases, the name (according
to Mill, though this seems decidedly doubtful) stands both
for the sensation, and the idea of the sensation, for the
cluster of sensations, and the idea of the cluster of sensa-
tions; whereas, in the case of Mental Complex Ideas, the name
of course only stands for the idea, since there is in the order
of nature no cluster of sensations, corresponding to the idea.
However, in escaping one sort of ambiguity (whether real or
not), we are met by another; for, since the idea of the cluster
is formed arbitrarily, each man frames his own idea of the
cluster, and therefore cannot be sure when using the name
corresponding to it that he is communicating to another the
idea which he himself possesses, since there is no actual cluster
of sensations experienced, or capable of being experienced, to
50 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
which reference may be made as a standard. One man's idea
01 religion or of patriotism is not another man's idea. Half
the debates and controversies, political, religious, and philo-
sophical, which have occupied the attention of the world,
divided a house against itself, distracted humanity, and often
culminated in bloodshed and war, have arisen in large measure
from the impossibility of one man conveying to another by
means of names the exact complex idea in possession of his
own mind.
As soon as a name had been invented to stand for all the
individuals of a class, it was found that, in the desire for
economy, the name had been made to express too much. Men
wished to distinguish between varieties of a class, and to
signify sub-classes by signs. For this purpose adjectives were
invented. This device, besides sufficiently effecting the ends
of economy, had this further advantage, that cross-divisions
were rendered possible, as well as (with the assistance of the
copula) predication, which is a distinct means, or rather
symbolizes a distinct means, of adding to the sum of our
knowledge. (This latter feature in the use of adjectives Mill
does not seem to properly appreciate.) Were names always to
be invented for the smaller parcels into which the main genera
are broken up, a language would become too copious for
serviceable use ; the appending of adjectives, however, to the
names of the classes, when occasion demands, serves the same
purpose, while the adjective is available for breaking up, not
one class only, but several, into appropriate sub-classes. If
substantives, consecpaently, are marks, adjectives are marks
upon marks, as Mill says. Verbs are similar marks upon
marks, and are essentially adjectives, but " receive a particular
form, in order to render them at the same time subservient to
other purposes." Mill's analysis of the moods and tenses of
verbs corresponds with his analysis of the nature and use of
CLASS NAMES. 51
adjectives, and exhibits the same incompleteness. He con-
ceives the verb to be merely a name qualifying' its subject,
carving- a sub-class out of the class represented by the name
of that subject, and stating that the particular phenomenon
adverted to belongs to that sub-class. He ignores the fact
that a proposition with a verb in it does more than merely
name ; it involves a predication or affirmation, and is designed
to convey information from one person to another as to the
occurrence or order of sequence of certain sensations in the
mind of the person communicating the information, dependent
upon the occurrence or order of sequence of certain natural
phenomena. If I inform another that the sun rose at 5 a.m.
yesterday, I do not merely carve out of the class of rising
suns a sub-class of suns rising at 5 a.m., and name yesterday's
sun as belonging to that sub-class. I convey to him infor-
mation as to the sequence of my sensations in a particular
order and manner. And, similarly, if I say that the rose
which I saw yesterday was a yellow one. To subdivide great
classes into smaller ones, and save labour and multiplication
of names, is not, as Mill seems to think, the sole or most
important object either of verb-framing or adjective-framing;
nor are verbs merely adjectives so fashioned as to imply " a
threefold distinction of agents, with a twofold distinction of
their number, a threefold distinction of the manner of the
action, and a threefold distinction of its time."
Besides the device of special marks to call attention to some
one prominent sensation in the midst of a cluster or bundle of
sensations, or to denote that a particular sensation or sequence
of sensations was experienced along with the cluster of all
those sensations usually comprised in its appropriate class-
name — the provinces of adjectives and ordinary verbs respec-
tively — a symbol has been invented by means of which, when
coupled with a name denoting a sensation, or a cluster of
e 2
52 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
sensations, we signify the fact that the sensation, or cluster
of sensations so denoted, was at some past time in fact
experienced by some sentient being- — or is now being so
experienced, or might then have been, or may now, or at any
future time, be experienced by any sentient being bringing
himself within the range of possibility of being affected by
them. This is the verb denoting Existence, the Verb Sub-
stantive as it is called. When we say that a thing exists, or
is, we mean that we may have sensations from it. This mark
is, therefore, the most comprehensive and generical of all the
secondary marks that have been invented.
But there is an unfortunate peculiarity attending the named
signifying Existence in most languages, namely, that this
same verb is also used for the copula in pi*edication. Predi-
cation, according to Mill, serves two purposes ; first, to mark
the order of the ideas in a train of thought which we wish to
communicate or record — (it will readily be seen that this
account is insufficient ; we wish the order to be believed in as
having corresponded to fact) ; — secondly, to signify that a
certain name (the predicate) is the mark of the same idea of
which another name (the subject) is also the mark — (here
too, the essential element of information as to matter of fact
is omitted). A name merely brings an idea of a sensation,
or of a cluster of sensations, before the mind ; a predication
denotes an order of sensations and ideas, and, supplementing
Mill, we may say, that it conveys information and contains
an assertion ; it represents, in J. S. Mill's words, " some co-
existence, or succession of phenomena experienced, or sup-
posed capable of being experienced." [Anal. vol. i. p. 162.
Editor's note.] Now, whenever we predicate, we employ the
word, "is;" and we predicate quite as often of sensations
merely supposed, for the moment, capable of being expe-
rienced, as of sensations actually experienced, or believed
THE FALLACY OF THE COPULA. 53
capable of being- experienced. Yet, in the former case, where
the subject of the predication does not, in fact, exist, nor ever
has existed, the copula " is," from its association in other
connexions with the idea of existence, induces the habit of
belief in the existence, in rerum natura, of what is in fact,
a nonentity. In this way endless confusion of thought has
arisen. James Mill points this out very elaborately, and was,
indeed, the first to do so in any detail. Still further evi-
dences have, since his day, been forthcoming from the Posi-
tivists and others, to show the monstrous hypotheses, theories,
and even systems, of philosophy for which this terrible little
word is responsible. The Fallacy of the Copula was at the
bottom of most of the false views of the ancient Greek, espe-
cially the Platonic, philosophy. It has induced the personi-
fication, even the deification of essences, qualities, attributes,
&c. It has been the great king-maker of the metaphysical
world : and from it alone such conceptions as Time, Space,
Chance, Fate, Nature, hold their ontological dominion.
Mill's further remarks on predication by means of Genus,
Species, Differentia, Proprium, Accidens, contain nothing
new or remarkable. His account, however, of the different
kinds of trains of thought, which are represented by predi-
cation, deserves notice. In communicating* or recording we
have occasion to mark either (1) the order of sensations expe-
rienced by us at any time, or (2) the order of ideas in a train
of thought which has passed through our minds. In the
former case the order which we desire to communicate or
record, may either be the order of succession in time, or of
position in space. In the latter, the ideas, the sequence of
which we wish to represent by predication, are generally
related to one another, either as cause and effect, or in the way
of resemblance, or lastly as included under the same name.
When a man forbears to strike a match near a barrel of gun-
5 4 HA RT LEY AND J A 31 ES MILL .
powder, Mill says that the train of ideas urging 1 forbearance
is merely a sequence, or rather a set of sequences, of ideas : —
"I strike the match on a box" — "the stroke produces a
spark " — " the spark ignites the gunpowder " — " the ignition
of the gunpowder causes an explosion." This set of sequences
is all that is involved, according to Mill, in the predication,
" This gunpowder will explode if I strike the match against
the box." The analysis is here obviously, almost grotesquely,
deficient, from the omission once more of the element of
conviction. All the above ideas might successively pass
through the mind without giving rise to the belief which
would warrant a predication of the kind pointed out. \_Anal.
i. 187. J. S. Mill's note.] Predication of Resemblance is
in the same way regarded as merely naming, and nothing
else. And just as propositions or predications are nothing
but naming, so also is the syllogism by which a third propo-
sition is elicited from two of such predications as premises.
All idea of there being an inferential process, or of fresh
information being conveyed in syllogizing, is abandoned.
The successive predications: "every tree is a vegetable" —
"every oak is a tree" — "therefore, every oak is a vege-
table," are, according to Mill, naming, and nothing but
naming, throughout. The same criticism which applies to
his account of predication will, of course, apply to his account
of syllogism, on which we may have something further to say
hereafter, and also to his corresponding view of arithmetical
and geometrical propositions, as being merely verbal. When
(according to Mill), we any that 7 + 5 = 12, or that the three
angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, we merely
call 7+5, and the three angles of a triangle respectively, by
other names, the marking power of which is more precise and
well known to us than that of the names which we first assign
to them.
NAMES OF NAMES. 55
There is one other kind of predication to be noticed, namely,
that in which the subject is a name, and the predicate the
name of a name, — predications, for example, which contain
descriptions or definitions of terms, such as " argument,"
" metaphor/' " oration," &c. It is somewhat curious that,
having- specially called attention to this class of predications,
Mill failed to see that it is only to this class, as distinct from
the others, that his theory of Predication as a mere naming
operation is applicable. In such cases as these, and in such
only, we really do not mark any sequence of sensations or
ideas as having been actually experienced, or even as having
been the possible object of experience : we here import no
element of belief into the predication, and we do, in fact, what
Mill wrongly says that we do in all predications, — " signify
that a certain name is the mark of an idea of which another
name is also the mark."
Mill's further remarks on the other grammatical forms of
language, such as Adverbs, &c, have no very necessary rela-
tion to his general system, besides being based on the obso-
lete, though ingenious speculations, of Home Tooke, as con-
tained in his Diversions of Purley. We pass on therefore to
Hartley's account of the connexion between words or names
and ideas.
Hartley does not treat the various classes of words after
James Mill's fashion, or show how names are first given to
sensations, then to clusters of sensations, then generalized into
class-names, out of which sub-classes are carved by means of
adjectives and verbs : he proceeds on a rather different tack,
and prefers, in accordance with the more physical bent of his
studies and observations, to give a sort of natural history of
the process by which in the growing mind ideas are gradually
associated with words, and thought wedded to language.
For, as he says, words and phrases must excite ideas in us by
56 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
association, and can excite them in no other way. Words
may (physically) be considered from four points of view.
They may be treated as impressions made upon the ear; or as
the actions of the organs of speech ; or, again, as impressions
made upon the eye by written characters ; or, lastly, as
the actions of the hand in writing. And the above is the
chronological order of the different ways in which children
gradually become conversant with their use. The first of
these relations in which words necessarily stand to the mind
of a child, affords him some rough notion of their bare mean-
ing, sufficient for the common purposes of life : the second
makes the knowledge so acquired handy and serviceable : the
third enlarges it, and renders it copious by association
with other words in the way of definition, and description :
the last renders the mind " careful in distinguishing, quick
in recollecting, and faithful in retaining, the new signi-
fications of words" acquired by reading. Thus Hartley's
very true account of the distinctive advantages of the methods
by which a child learns a language, Hearing, Speaking,
Reading, and Writing, corresponds exactly (as regards the
last three of these) to Bacon's maxim : " Speaking maketh a
ready man : reading maketh a full man : writing maketh an
exact man."
When a child's attention is directed to a particular object,
(say, his nurse) the name of that object will be pronounced to
him. This will occur frequently, till a bond of association is
formed between the sensation of hearing the sound of the
name and the sensation of seeing the face and form of the
nurse ; and the child will then, whenever he hears the nurse's
name pronounced (supposing him, that is, to have acquired
sufficient voluntary power over his motions) turn his head in
that direction ; and thus the process of association of the
name with the visible idea of the nurse will rapidly be accom-
GROWTH OF LANGUAGE IN CHILDREN. 57
plished. Later still, the converse process will take place, and
the sensation of seeiug the nurse will excite the audible idea
of the sound of the name. He will next notice that the name
of the nurse will still be repeated in her presence by those
around her, notwithstanding change of dress and other acci-
dental adjuncts, and that the name of fire, &c, will be pro-
nounced notwithstanding that the cluster of sensations of heat,
light, &c, may be accompanied on the different occasions of
its being named, by different sensations impressed by adjacent
objects. He will thus learn to distinguish between the strong
associations of the names of nurse and fire with the con-
stitutive elements of these objects respectively, and the less
strong counter-associations of these names with the variable
surroundings of the objects. In this he will be unconsciously
performing the process (to which we shall come presently) of
Abstraction. He will be creating, or rather re-cognizing for
himself, one of those class-names of which Mill gives such
a different account. The next stage in his mental progress
will be that of associating abstract names, such as whiteness,
with the ideas of the attributes common to several white
objects, while by means of adjectives he will learn to make
cross-divisions of clusters of sensations. He will, at the same
time, be forming complex ideas out of simple by the process
already mentioned : his idea of the nurse will comprise not only
the simple visible idea of her face and form, but also the simple
audible idea of the sound of her voice, and the simple idea of
the taste of her milk, &c. The use and meaning of particles
will be learnt mainly from their association with other names
4o which meanings have already been attached, they being, like
the x, y, z of algebra, " determinable and decipherable, one
may say, only by means of the known words with which they
are joined" [Hartley, vol. i. p. 274]. The attempts made by
the child himself to express his own wants, then reading, and
5<S HAR'ILEY AND JAMES MILL.
lastly writing, complete the process of associating- ideas with
language.
Though Hartley modestly confesses himself [Obs. on 31an,
vol. i. p. 277] "a mere novice in these speculations," and
thinks that he has rendered " by no means a full or satis-
factory account of the ideas which adhere to words by asso-
ciation," because, as he says, " it is difficult to explain words
to the bottom by words, perhaps impossible," — yet it will be
admitted that he must have studied the groivth of association
very carefully in children — a study of which evidence is
afforded in several parts of his work — and that his lucid expo-
sition proved of obvious service to James Mill in his more
detailed theory of Naming.
Words are, according to Hartley, divisible into four
classes : — •
'1. Those that have ideas only : (excluding of course the visible and
audible ideas excited by the sight and
hearing of the words themselves.)
/ 2. Those that have both ideas and definitions: (including under " defi-
nitions," descriptions, and explana-
tions by any but synonymous terms.)
3. Those that have definitions only.
V,4. Those that have neither ideas nor definitions.
In the first class are comprised the names of simple sen-
sible qualities, of what Hartley calls Simple Ideas of Sensation
and Mill Simple Ideas, such as "white," "soft," "hot," &c.
These are felt : they cannot be defined. No more can the names
of right-hand and left-hand, fee, in any terms that do not
involve a definition in a circle. 1 Most names of clusters of
1 On this ground Kant argues against the possibility of spatial relations
being abstracted from particular and individual spaces. That amusing
gossip, Sir Thomas Browne, in his Beligio Medici (p. 17, 7th edit.), says
" whether Eve was framed out of the left side of Adam, I dispute not;
HARTLEY'S DIVISION OF WORDS. 59
sensations (MilFs Sensible Complex Ideas), that is, of most
objects of the natural world, vegetable, animal, and mineral,
apprehended by science, belong- to the second class ; because,
besides having ideas corresponding to them, they are capable
of being denned by terms representing an analysis of those
ideas into ideas of the sensations comprising the aggregates
or clusters. To the third class belong what Mill calls Mental
Complex Ideas, representing clusters of ideas of sensations
connected together arbitrarily by the imagination (such as
"centaur," "yahoo," &c), abstract general terms, algebraical
quantities (roots, powers, surds, &c), the technical terms of
science and art, and, generally, those names of names which
Mill especially notices. Particles, which have a meaning or
possibility of explanation only in connexion with other words,
come under the fourth head. Hartley (in pursuance of a
favourite analogy of his) compares rather neatly the above
four classes to four corresponding kinds of mathematical
relations, (language being, as he says, after all, only a kind
of algebra). The first class would thus answer to purely
geometrical propositions, such as do not admit of being ex-
pressed algebraically ; the second to propositions which admit
of being thrown into either form, geometrical or analytical ;
the third to propositions involving equations of the higher
orders, chances, quadratures, &c, which cannot be demon-
strated otherwise than algebraically ; the fourth to the
algebraical signs representing addition, subtraction, equality,
&c., which have no meaning apart from their relation to
other symbols. But as, even in the case of purely algebraical
propositions, geometrical illustrations and analogies are advan-
tageously employed to render intelligible what is otherwise
because I stand not yet assured which is the right side of a man ; or
whether there be any such distinction in Nature." There is not : hence
the indefinibility.
60 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
exceedingly abstract and obscure; so fables, metaphors, alle-
gories, parables, and myths, will often render vivid, compre-
hensible, and easily remembered, the most subtle and purely
intellectual conceptions and modes of reasoning". In fact, it
is doubtful whether, except for such helps, the deeper truths
of religion would ever become intelligible to the masses whom
they are designed to reach : and the most influential and
penetrating philosophies have been those which have made
use of figures, metaphors, and analogies the most ; as, for
instance, Plato's doctrines, as compared with those of Aris-
totle, and the Baconian system as compared with the Kantian.
Indeed, in the case of words of almost all kinds, not those
representing abstract ideas alone, men are continually mis-
taking one another, because they do not mean the same
things by the same words, different ideas being associated
with one and the same symbol according to the different
surroundings and circumstances of the individual using it.
Words, in the first place, may be associated by different
speakers, with different sensible impressions ; though this
mistake is not common, and, when it does exist, is usually
the result of a physical defect, such as colour-blindness, and
is not, like the other misapprehensions of the meaning of
words, an " idol of the tribe/' or of " the theatre." Secondly,
the ideas and definitions attached to a word in one man's mind
may, owing to fuller, exacter, and more scientific knowledge,
or richer artistic appreciation on his part, exceed in compre-
hensiveness the ideas and definition attached to it in another
person's mind. A yellow primrose means, both to a botanist
and to a poet, infinitely more than it did to Peter Bell. To.
a Max Miiller the word "mill" means a chapter in the
history of the Aryan race; to an ordinary miller it represents
nothing but the means of his livelihood. It is easy to see
how, in the communion of thought between scientific and
INTERPRE TA TION OF IDEA S. 6 1
non-scientific minds, artistic and non-artistic imaginations,
confusion will inevitably arise, since both may use the same
name, while each annexes to it his own meaning' — a meaning"
which is really the result of, almost part of, his own life.
But confusion and misinterpretation (as we have already seen)
chiefly arise in the employment of names of the third class —
names of Mental Complex Ideas — which have definitions, but
no ideas directly answering to them ; though, of course, the
terms of the definition are usually names (some of them, at
least), of simple ideas of sensation. Here not only is it the
case that the uninstructed mind will have a different defini-
tion from that of the scientific mind of the name used in
common by both : and that even when the definition is identi-
cal in words, the simple ideas represented by the explanatory
terms are often so numerous, that the chances of mistake
incidental to the use of the above-mentioned names of the
second class are indefinitely multiplied : 2 but it is also true
that two cultivated minds, but cultivated in different ways,
brought up in different schools of thought, and possessed by
opposing theories, are even more constantly misunderstanding
one another, and arguing at cross purposes. Neither takes
the pains to get within the circle, and imbibe the atmosphere,
so to speak, of the other's mental habits, and ways of looking
at things. To an Associationist and a disciple of Kant, for
instance, the names, " Cause, Will, Motive, Self, Idea," would
suggest even more widely different ideas than they would in
the case of the philosophic and non-philosophic minds. Can
any one suppose that James Mill, for instance, or even J. S.
Mill and Mr. Herbert Spencer, have ever really understood the
2 Take the word " cause " for instance. To the philosopher and scientific
man this term means something far more precise than to the untrained
intellect. In the latter case it includes a variety of relations, rigidly
excluded in the former, such as occasion, condition, etc.
62 HA R TLB Y AND J A MES MILL.
Kantian or Hegelian stand-point ? or that Coleridge and Mr.
Stirling ever completely appreciated the point d'appui of the
Associationist ? In some few men, such as Goethe, and, in a
less degree, G. H. Lewes, one sees some capacity of interpreting
each view in terms of the other — a sort of " point of indiffe-
rence," where true appreciation of both sides may be possible;
but such men are very rare. Hartley pathetically expresses
a hope, rather than an expectation, that " since children learn
the use of words most evidently without having any data,
any fixed point to go upon, philosophers and candid persons
may learn at last to understand one another with facility and
certainty." [Obs. on Man, vol. i. p. 285.] In the fourth
class of names mistakes must obviously be of rare occurrence,
rarer even than in the first, and " could not arise at all," says
Hartley, " did we use moderate care and candour." Indeed
in an even more hopeful, if not in a slightly ironical, strain
he subsequently expresses his opinion, that "it seems possible
and even not very difficult, for two truly candid and intelli-
gent persons to understand each other upon any subject."
In connexion with this part of his subject Hartley has some
judicious observations on the difficulty of translating one's
native into a foreign language, as compared with the ease
with which the converse process is effected, which contrast he
adduces as an illustration of that law of association by which,
when two sensations or two ideas occur together in the order
A, B, or a, 6, respectively, the sensation B, or idea b, on re-
curring, will not excite the idea a, with the same facility or
regularity as that with which the sensation A, or the idea a,
will call up the idea b. He also has ingenious comments and
suggestions on the subject of a philosophical and universal
language — a kind of speculation which has engaged the
attention of philologists and grammarians, since the building
of Babel first elevated comparative philology into the dignity
ANALOGY AND ME TA PHOR. 63
of a science to the present day — and on the subject of a philo-
sophical dictionary to assist "candid and intelligent" persons
in understanding' one another ; both of which schemes may
be noticed hereafter, together with other curious Hartleian
fancies.
We must not omit, before concluding this chapter, to notice
Hartley's remarks on analogies and figurative language. " A
figure," he defines as " a word which, first representing the
object or idea A is afterwards made to represent B, oil account
of the relation which these bear to each other." But this is
clearly a process applicable to every formation of a class-name.
Indeed Hartley, though not very distinctly, admits as much,
and says that, when the analogy is very complete, the expres-
sion framed on it is considered a literal one (as in the case
of class-names) ; when not very complete the expression is
called a figurative one. If we suppose that the word " man "
has been applied to several individuals, A, B, C, &c, one
after the other, and that then the appearance of an indivi-
dual X suggests the word " man/' and he is denoted by it,
because ot the analogy of X to A, B, C, &c, we have an intel-
ligible law of association, and one which partly supplies the
deficiencies in Mill's account of the framing of class-names
with the single deliberate intention of economizing words. The
perception of analogy between the individuals comprising a
class is, it may be thought, one very necessary element in this
mental operation. Of course, as Hartley observes, when a
word appropriated ordinarily to the individuals of one genus
or species, is applied to an individual belonging to another ;
the nearer the two genera or species are to one another in all
essential features, the nearer the use of the word as so applied
approaches literalness ; and the less features the two genera
or species have in common, the nearer the use of the word
approaches analogy proper or metaphor, either of which, when
64 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
duly expanded and improved by means of art, may become a
simile, a fable, a parable, or an allegory. Thus a name usually
applied to the animal kingdom will with more literalness, and
less metaphor, be applied to a member of the vegetable, than
to a member of the mineral, kingdom. Expressions, it is to
be remarked, in their original employment and application
figurative become, from constant use, literal ; and these ex-
pressions, literal, so to speak, by second nature, can by further
and more extended applications, become analogical again.
With his keen eye for the educational uses, which the principle
of association of ideas niay and should subserve, Hartley
notices how in allegories, fables, parables, and other emblema-
tic modes of speech, all the properties, whether beauties or
defects of, and the feelings of desire or disgust excited by, the
images are transferred by association to the things and con-
ceptions imaged. " Hence," he concludes, with an almost
Platonic sense of the importance of a judicious myth, or
ryevvaiov i/reOSo?, " the passions are nursed to good or evil,
speculation is turned into practice, and either some important
truth felt and realized, or some error and vice gilded over
and recommended."
65
CHAPTER IV.
THE THEORY OF ASSOCIATION AS APPLIED TO EXPLAIN THE
MORE IMPORTANT PROCESSES AND OPERATIONS OF THE MIND.
Among the different powers or faculties of the intellect (as a
great many philosophers would call them), or the different
mental operations and processes (to use the term which Mill
would himself prefer), the most general and comprehensive,
the one which — if we are to begin from the beginning, and
work down from genus to species — immediately suggests
itself, is Consciousness. Mill accordingly considers this in
the first place. But " can it be called a special feeling, or
mental process, at all ? " he first asks. No : because " to be
conscious of a feeling " is only another way of saying, " to feel
a feeling/' which again is a tautological, redundant, and cum-
bersome way of saying " to have a feeling/-' Similarly the
feeling of an idea, and the consciousness, or the being con-
scious, of an idea are only different ways of expressing the
same fact, namely, the having of the idea. Consequently to
Mill Consciousness means nothing but Feeling in general. It
is not a special feeling, operation, or state, distinct from
other feelings, operations, or states; and to suppose (with
lieid, for instance) that it is, only tends to introduce confusion
and mystery into what is otherwise clear and intelligible.
To feel, to remember, to reason, to believe, to judge, are
severally identical with the processes described as " being
conscious " of feeling, remembering, reasoning, believing, or
¥
06 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
judging. The term Consciousness is merely a convenient
generical mark. [Anal. vol. i. cli. v.]
Mill holds similar opinions as to the meaning' of the term
Reflection. [Anal. vol. ii. pp. 176—180.] He thinks that
it, like Consciousness, is merely a class-name. Accepting
Locke's definition of the word — "that notice which the mind
takes of its own operations " — lie again insists that the having
a state of consciousness, and the knowing, or the observing,
or the taking notice of, that state, are all one and the same
thing. The notice is the consciousness, and the consciousness
is the notice. Consequently Reflections Consciousness. When
we say that we attended to this sensation more than to that,
we mean that we felt this sensation- more than that — that
this, in fact, was more a sensation than that. The so-called
Idea of Reflection has, therefore, according to Mill, nothing
m} r sterious about it. Its formation, as in the case of Con-
sciousness and all other class-names, is merely the result of a
previous process of generalization from particular instances, —
in this ease, particular instances of remembering, believing,
judging, imagining, &c. The supposition that there is any-
thing in the Idea of Reflection other than this has arisen from
the unfortunate double use (already noticed) of the word Idea,
to signify both a particular copy of a sensation, that is a
fleeting state of consciousness entertained one moment and
dismissed the next, and also the state of having ideas in
general, which should more properly be called Ideation.
The identification of feeling (including under the term the
having a sensation and the having an idea) with the act of
attention to feeling, is a cardinal tenet of Mill's system, and
is continually being reiterated by him. Most later Associa-
tionists dissent entirely from this position. Mill is on the
whole consistent in his belief, though he does not appear to
be conscious of all the objections which are capable of being
CONSCIOUSNESS AND REFLECTION. 6j
urged against it : at least he does not notice them all, or seem
to appreciate the importance of those which he does notice.
Take the case of reading from a book, or playing a musical
instrument; this supplies a ready objection, which does not,
however, seem to have occurred to Mill. It might reasonably
be urged that we must have had the sensations of seeing the
letters composing the several words, while reading, or of
touching the keys or strings of the instrument, while playing,
and yet we cannot be said to have attended to those sensa-
tions. Mill's statement is, notwithstanding, completely un-
qualified, to the effect that to talk of being conscious and at
the same time not attending to that consciousness, is to use
as contradictory an expression as if we were to talk of being
conscious and not being conscious at one and the same time.
The objection here noticed did present itself to Hartley, as
well as to the later psychologists, such as Mr. Herbert Spencer,
who takes the bull by the horns, and denies that we ever are
conscious of the sight of the letters, or of the sight and touch
of the keys, in the cases supposed ; but he thinks that these so-
called sensations of sight and touch are really organic states,
which though not sufficient to excite corresponding sensa-
tions, are yet just sufficient to hold together the links in the
associative chain. \_Anal.\xo\. i. p. 232. J. S. Mill's note.]
Conception, again, according to Mill, is a generical term,
but not so generical as Consciousness and Reflection. The
former marks a large class of feelings, but the latter terms
mark all classes of feelings. Which, then, is the particular
class of feelings (using Feeling always in Mill's large sense)
denoted by Conception ? In brief — all kinds of complex
ideas. Conception, as the name imparts, is " the taking
together " of things : the term, therefore, is only applicable to
complex ideas, whether of External Objects (Sensible Com-
plex Ideas), or of ideas of sensations arbitrarily put together
F 2
68 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
(Mental Complex Ideas). Here again Mill objects to the
term, the use of which so strongly illustrates the irresistible
force of association, as well when directed into wrong, as when
directed into right, channels. The expression seems to attri-
bute activity to the mind. Though to have a complex idea
is in reality exactly the same state as to conceive, yet the use
of the term " I conceive," being in form active, imports into
the notion of Conception an element which does not belong to
it, and leads us to fancy that the mind is taking a more origi-
native part when this form of words is employed than when
we say " I have a complex idea/'
For Mill's views on the subject of Classification we shall
have been somewhat prepared by his theory of Class-names,
which has been already described. The misapprehension,
which he conceives to have existed from the times of Plato
and Aristotle to his own, of the nature, object, and signifi-
cance of Classification, was merely in his opinion, the outcome
of the equally prevalent misconception of the meaning of
General Terms or Class-names. Hence it was that " the
most eminent philosophers " were bewildered, and " the
human mind enfeebled" [Anal, vol. i. p. 248]. Mill will
have nothing to do with the Platonic ISea, or the Aristotelian
etSo? (between which he sees little difference), or the Forms
and Essences of other philosophic systems. At modern
" Categories " and Hegelian " Notions, - " and all such fond
things vainly invented, he would doubtless have been inex-
pressibly shocked, had he troubled himself to read German
philosophy. He cannot understand why so much u mystery "
should have been made about the process. The individuals
included in a class have, in fact, nothing in common whatso-
ever. To say so is to use a misleading figure of speech. We
do not — as the ancient philosophers tell us, and as even Hart-
ley appears to think — leave out of view the variable accidents
CONCEPTION AND CLASSIFICATION. 69
and surrounding's attaching to different particulars, and fix
our attention exclusively on the essential qualities in which
these particulars agree. This is not the process at all : Ab-
straction is not the foundation of Classification. Even the
Nominalists, who thought that so-called General Ideas were
nothing hut Names, saw that this was not the case, and (so
far) were more in the right than the Realists, who attributed
to a General Idea — though that Idea was regarded by them
as entering into the composition and partaking in the nature,
of the several members of the class represented by it — an
independent and separate existence. Just as Class-names
were invented according to Mill (though probably all schools
of philosophy would now hold his view to be erroneous),
solely for purposes of convenience and economy; so Classifica-
tion, or the construction of a class, is merely the forming of a
very complex, and therefore necessarily somewhat indistinct,
idea compounded of the ideas of that large aggregate of indi-
viduals, with which, from those motives of economy, the
class-name has been successively associated. Mill thus appa-
rently believes the idea of a class to be a complex idea in
every sense in which the idea of a horse, or the idea of a cen-
taur, is ; and that whenever a class is thought of, a hazy idea
of a mass of undefined individuals, to which the class-name
has habitually been applied, is instantly called up. Whether
this explanation of the process of Classification is more or
less " mysterious " than the accounts given by Plato, Harris,
Cudworth, and the other Platonists from whose works Mill
cpuotes long extracts, we must leave the reader to judge.
The process of classification, says Mill, is only one among
other modes of forming a complex idea by means of asso-
ciation. By association the name of an individual external
object — say St. Paul's — is connected constantly with the idea \J
of it : the name never occurs without calling up the idea, or
7 o HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
the idea without calling- up the name. This is the simplest
case of all. To take a rather more complicated instance : —
a child hears the word " foot" pronounced first in connexion
with the sensations which he derives from one of his feet, then
with those which he derives from the other : and by degrees he
finds the name pronounced indifferently in connexion with
either set of sensations. Consequently, the word " foot " soon
begins to call up in his mind the idea of either of his feet — at
one time the one, at another time the other. It has already
been explained — to take another example — how the ideas of
synchronous sensations are so welded together by frequent
association as, though in fact several, to appear only one
(Sensible Complex Ideas). So, too, of the ideas of several
successive sensations, the same law holds good ; and we thus
get the complex ideas of a musical tune, a hunt, a horse-race,
&c. And, to proceed further, several sensible complex ideas
may be combined into a yet more complex, but still sensible,
idea ; as (e. g.) the ideas of several trees into the idea of a
forest, or the ideas of several soldiers into the idea of an
army ; and also the different complex ideas of successive sen-
sations may be united into a still more complex idea — the
ideas of several tunes into the idea of a concert, the ideas of
several sentences into the idea of a discourse, or the ideas of
several days into the idea of a year. And we may even obtain
a very complex idea in both respects — complex, that is, both
as regards the union of synchronous and the union of succes-
sive sensations. Such an idea is the idea of Humanity (in one
of its senses), which comprises the present together with all
successive generations of men, past and to come. It is only a
step further to the process of forming' a class, which is nothing
more or less than the process of associating" one name, say
"vegetable," with one external object after another, 1 to save
1 With this further peculiarity, that the idea of, or sensation derived
CLA SSIFICA TION. 7 1
the trouble of calling- the several objects by several names, and
so swelling the extent of language beyond all capacity of
remembering it. The name " vegetable/' therefore, in this
case, is not a name having a very simple idea — the idea of a
quality perceived by a certain special activity of the mind to
be common to a variety of objects (as the Realists thought) ;
nor, on the other hand, is it a name having no idea at all (as
the Nominalists held) ; but it is " a word calling up an inde-
finite number of ideas, by the irresistible laws of association,
and forming them all into one very complex and indistinct
but not, therefore, unintelligible idea." [Anal. vol. i. pp.
265, 2G6.]
Classification, then (so far), Mill has pronounced to be
merely a device for purposes of abridgment. He even dis-
tinctly says [p. 260] that " it is obvious and certain that men
were led to class solely for the purpose of economizing in the
use of names. Could the processes of naming and discourse
have been as conveniently managed by a name for every indivi-
dual, the names of classes and the idea of classification would
never have existed." But later on in the chapter he seems to
become somewhat conscious that this hypothesis will not suffice
to account for the facts. After all, men classify according to
some principle. There is something that not only leads them
to classify, but guides them in classifying. We have a tardy
recognition of this defect in the theory at p. 268. But, in
answer to the question, What is this principle of classification ?
he first tells us again what the purpose is — naming with
greater facility than would otherwise be possible. But expe-
rience teaches us what method of grouping will best advance
this end. Under the guidance of that experience it is that
class-names are, by a somewhat perfunctory and unreflecting
from, each such external object, is, on each successive occasion, associated
back a<rain with the name.
72 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
process — though Mill calls classification a " mighty operation
of the human mind " — determined. But we are still unan-
swered as to the principle of classification. We have been
told its object — economy ; we have been told its basis — asso-
ciation ; and we have been told that experience supplies the
principle. Bnt what, then, is the principle ? We are finally
told in the last pages of the chapter. [Pp. 270, 271.] " It is
easy to see what principle it is which is mainly concerned in
classification, and by which we are rendered capable of that
mighty operation; on which as its basis the whole of our
intellectual structure is reared. That principle is resem-
blance." If this is Mill's view, it is more than ever inex-
plicable why he should have stopped short here, and have
refused to entertain the theory which is the logical and
legitimate issue of that view — the theory which most philo-
sophers up to the present time, including Hartley, and even
the Nominalists, 2 have held — namely, that according to
which abstraction is made the ground of classification. Ab-
straction is as necessary to classification, according to almost
all philosophers, except Mill, as classification itself is —
according to several, such as Mr. Herbert Spencer — to
ratiocination. Mill, however, marks off classification from
both the one and the other by a broad and distinct line —
indeed, is compelled to do so by his peculiar view of the
former as subserving solely the uses of economy in naming.
However, our business is not to criticize here, and we pro-
ceed to Mill's account of Abstraction, which, if not acceptable,
is at all events clear, definite, and consistent with the rest of
his philosophy.
In the operation of naming — as has been pointed out above
— we first assign names to clusters of sensations, or individual
- Mill is mistaken in supposing that the Nominalists denied any idea cor-
responding to a class-name, or any process corresponding to Abstraction.
MILL ON A BS TRA CTION. 7 3
objects ; next, we generalize these, to represent classes of
objects ; lastly, finding that the class-names have served the
purposes of economy at the expense of adequate representation
of important varieties of feeling, we carve cub-classes out of
classes, and species out of genera, by framing adjectives. But,
having done this, we are led to extend the operation in another
direction. Having carved out of the class " rose " the sub-
class " yellow rose," we perceive that for the very same reason
that we call a rose yellow, we may call a gate yellow, or a ball
yellow. In the cluster of ideas represented by the name
" rose " I single out one, that of colour, and colour of a par-
ticular kind, for special attention. But the sensation and the
idea of yellow occurs in connexion with other clusters ; con-
sequently, by degrees the name " yellow " tends to call up
not only the idea of yellow rose, but also the ideas of classes
of other yellow objects ; and thus the adjective applied to one
class of clusters after another, in all of which the idea cor-
responding to that adjective is an ingredient, is associated
with all those classes indifferently, just as the idea cor-
responding to a class-name is associated with all or any of
the individuals of the class indifferently. The word "yellow"
is therefore associated with numberless qualifications of the
idea of yellow by other ideas which in different cases are com-
bined with it. These different qualifying" ideas, together with
the idea itself of yellow, are at last commingled, or massed,
into one indefinite and vague complex idea, just as the ideas
of the different individuals composing a class are welded into
a complex idea of a similarly indeterminate character. In the
former case, we get the formation of the idea corresponding to
the adjective, in the latter, of the idea corresponding to the
substantive, in language. And, in both cases, the idea and
the name exert a reciprocal influence on one another. As the
substantive "man" calls up the ideas of a variety of indi-
74 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
vicinal men, while any individual man calls up the idea of the
name "man/' and it again calls up another individual man;
so the adjective "yellow" calls up a variety of classes of
clusters where yellow colour is an ingredient, any of these
clusters calls up the name "yellow," and the name again calls
up the idea of some other cluster in which the idea of yellow
is a prominent feature. The adjectival name, it will be
observed, notes (in James Mill's language), or especially
marks and is associated with, the constant and invariable
sensation or idea of yellow; it connotes, or marks along with
this principal idea, certain secondary ideas, to wit, those of the
variable clusters with which the name is indifferently asso-
ciated. Drop the variable and connoted clusters, the conno-
tation, as Mill calls it, from the adjectival names or the
concretes, " yellow," " bitter," " large," &c, and the process
of abstraction is performed ; and if a suitable mark is appended
to the adjectives to indicate this elimination of the variable
clusters, such as (in English) the suffix " -ness," the abstract
names " yellowness,'-' " bitterness," &c, are formed. Ab-
straction is this, according to Mill, and it is nothing more.
It is thus, though analogous to classification, a perfectly dis-
tinct process ; and the latter is not necessarily related to, or
dependent upon, the former.
Hartley's numerous corollaries resemble the postscript of a
lady's letter in this, that his best guesses and suggestions
are often contained in them. Accordingly, we find in some
corollaries to Proposition lxxix. [vol. i. p. 273] some interesting
reflections on the process of abstraction. He notices, first, how
a particular element in a cluster of sensations or ideas, to
which a name is attached, may force itself on the attention
more than its other ingredients. Generally this element is a
visible idea, but sometimes it is otherwise. This prominent
idea, he further remarks, will generally be found to be a
HARTLEY ON ABSTRACTION. 75
prominent idea, not only in one, but in several kinds of
clusters. Hence such ideas as " white/' " whiteness/ - ' for
instance, after having been associated with the different visible
appearances of milk, linen, paper, &c, " get a stable power of
exciting the idea of what is common to all, and a variable one
in respect of the particularities, circumstances, and adjuncts."
Thus, though Hartley does not sufficiently recognize the
mind's activity in paying special attention to the common
element in a variety of objects, and speaks rather of that
element forcing itself upon the notice of the mind, yet he
particularly asserts that it is this something common to all
the objects of which the mind takes cognizance, when it
performs the function of abstraction. He, in fact, adopts the
most considerable feature in that theory which his successor
pronounces to be " mysterious."
To return to Mill. Having expounded what in his view
Abstraction is, and what was the purpose for which it was
primarily resorted to, namely, the formation of subordinate
classes, he admits that this mental operation does, in fact,
serve a still more useful purpose. [Anal. vol. i. p. 314.]
The relation or order of ideas and sensations most important
to mankind is the relation of antecedent and consequent, or
the order of succession. On the knowledge of this relation
between the various phenomena presented in the natural and
the mental world, depends nearly all that part of human
science which is available for the uses of life, and, through it,
the welfare or the reverse of men. If, therefore, we observe
a certain sensation, or cluster of sensations, follow another
cluster of sensations, it becomes of paramount importance
to us to mark what particular ingredient of all those
which go to form this latter cluster produces the former
sensation, or cluster of sensations. Now for the purpose of
experimenting on the effects of any such ingredient, we must
76 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
be able to isolate it as far as possible not only from the re-
maining ingredients of the particular cluster, in which we first
observe its existence, but from the remaining ingredients of
other clusters in which it is equally to be found. It is neces-
sary, therefore, to mark the ingredient thus found in company
with these different "variable adjuncts/'' as Hartley would
call them, by a special name, and separate it in our thoughts
(where we cannot separate it physically), in order to reason
out its effects (where we cannot watch them). And this is
Abstraction ; which is thus seen to be one of the necessary
preliminaries to Prediction, while Prediction is necessary to
Science,to Happiness, to the business of life — even to Life itself.
We now come to those processes of mind which, though
closely marked off from one another by most schools of philo-
sophy, James Mill, owing to his having committed himself to
certain rigid principles relating to the formation or the having
of ideas, experienced some difficulty in satisfactorily distin-
guishing. We allude to Imagination, as contrasted with
Belief on the one hand, and Memory on the other.
Imagination, in Mill's view, differs from Conception in that,
whereas the latter relates to the having of complex ideas, the
peculiarity of which generally is that their component simple
ideas are synchronous, the former represents the combining of
ideas in a less or greater number (whether simple or complex)
successively. This is the process of Imagination : any particu-
lar imagination (the term being, like sensation, used in two
senses) is, therefore, a train of ideas, while any particular con-
ception (here again there is a corresponding double meaning)
is a single, though a complex, idea.
Imagination, like Conception, is often loosely used in as
wide a sense as Consciousness itself. But in strictness, of
course, both the one and the other are far less extensive in
scope than Consciousness, and are related to it only as species
IMA GIN A TION. 77
to genus. Imagination is often applied in an exclusive sense
to the poet's special gift, but this is merely a popular restric-
tion which philosophy cannot notice. In the essential mean-
ing of the term, there is no person who has not Imagination,
because there is no person who has not trains of ideas in his
mind at any given waking moment. The poet differs from
other men in his imagination, because to him trains of ideas
and the formation of such trains are ends in themselves,
whereas to the lawyer, soldier, or physician, it is ordinarily
otherwise. But this does not make the constitutive features
of imagination any the less identical in all these cases. Ima-
gination is none the less the having or entertaining of suc-
cessive ideas, whatever may be the nature, interest, or object
of these ideas. In a philosophical sense, the lawyer who con-
siders how he will frame an opinion or conduct a case, the
general planning a campaign, the scientific man solving a
problem, the chess-player at his game, is as much exercising
his imagination as the poet, who sees before him " shapes
more real than living man, nurslings of immortality."
Another inexact use of the term Imagination is apparent,
whenever it is applied (as it was by Dugald Stewart) solely to'
the putting together of ideas in new combinations — in such
combinations, that is, or successions of ideas as have not been
suggested by previous combinations and successions of sensa-
tions. Dugald Stewart further thought that such combina-
tions should be destined and directed to some end : and this
latter element also Mill very properly repudiated.
Hartley's views on this subject differed little if at all from
those of Mill. He too was of opinion that the term Imagina-
tion simply represents a succession of ideas linked together
according to certain laws of association, often unknown or
unobserved by us. But, following his usual method, he
treats this operation of the mind more physically, perhaps,
78 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
than psychologically, and has proceeded in his investigation a
very short way, when he informs ns [vol. i. p. 383] that " in
all the cases of imagination and reverie the thoughts depend,
in part, upon the state of body or mind," and he goes on to
allude to the importance of "a pleasurable or painful state of
the stomach/' &c. He flies off at a tangent to those unex-
plored fields of physical inquiry (such as dreams, prophecies,
visions, and the like), and embarks on those " strange seas of
thought " which had such a fascination for him. He does not
keep to Mill's severe and philosophical view of the essence and
office of Imagination. It may suffice, therefore, just to call
the reader's attention to his occasional acute observations,
such as that the various scenes in a dream are linked together
by association, and, to a certain extent, according to the laws
of association, but that we are not offended at the wildest
sequences of images, because the counter-associations, which
would under ordinary circumstances dispel them, are in abey-
ance during sleep; — to his explanation of the phenomenon in
dreaming which has within the last few years been discussed
under the name of levitation, and of somnambulism ; — to his
curious and intelligent remark that the wildness of dreams is
necessary to the health of the intellect in one sense, because
they tend to break down the accidental associative links,
which otherwise might become so cemented by continuance as
to be rendered indissoluble, without having, so to speak, any
title to this durability, and thus induce even madness in time ;
and to the characteristic physician's caution, with which he
concludes the chapter, to the effect that men may test their
health by the pleasantness or the unpleasantness of their
dreams. We now pass on to the two philosophers' analysis
of Belief, that of James Mill being almost the turning-point
of his whole system, while Hartley's is full and exhaustive,
though not so clear as that of his successor.
79
CHAPTER V.
BELIEF, AS INTERPRETED BY THE LAWS OF ASSOCIATION.
In Belief are included Memory and Judgment ; and with
Judgment are connected the steps and means by which we
arrive at it. Evidence and Ratiocination. But after consider-
ing 1 Belief, the genus, it will be necessary, before considering
Memory, the first of the two species mentioned, to investigate
the elements which have to be added to those comprised in the
mental operation of Belief — (the differentia, that is) — in order
to constitute Memory. This will involve an examination of
the Ideas of Time and Personal Identity. We propose ac-
cordingly in this chapter to give Mill's and Hartley's account
of the following intellectual states, and in the following
order : — Belief [Time, Personal Identity] : Memory: Judgment
[Evidence, Ratiocination].
Belief, we have implied, is related to Memory, on the one
side, and to Judgment on the other, as genus to species.
This, however, is not strictly in accordance with Mill's views,
at least as regards the relation of Belief to Memory. He
says, indeed, in the chapter on Belief, that "it encroaches on the
provinces both of Memory and Judgment :" and even in one
passage [vol. i. p. 359] admits Memory to be " a case of
Belief," but in the chapter on Memory he nowhere uses such
language ; and he appears not to hold this view seriously, at
all events to the extent to which J. S. Mill holds it, who
thinks that Memory necessarily implies Belief, and cannot
So
HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
exist without it. 1 Moreover, while he treats Judgment under
Belief, in his arrangement of intellectual processes, he treats
Memory quite apart as a thing by itself: though, according
to the more sound view of the editor and commentators of the
Analysis, there was no reason why the latter should not have
had the same rank and place assigned to it as the former. It
will be convenient for purposes of exposition to adopt what
should logically have been, rather than what was, James
Mill's classification of Belief and the states connected with it.
The accompanying table may serve as a clue to our succeeding
observations.
Belief: f I. Belief in events, real existences.
' 1. Belief in present events or existences :
(a.) Belief in immediate existences present to
our senses.
(&.) Belief in immediate existences not present
to our senses, either
( (a) Which we have not perceived
< [Testimony].
[ (/3) Which we have perceived.
Belief in fast events or existences :
( (a.) When the event or existence has heen the
ohject of our senses at some past time.
[Memory, Time, Personal Identity.]
(b.) When it has not.
(a) Belief of Testimony [Evidence].
(/3) Uniformity of Law of Nature
[as in 3].
3. Belief infuture events or existences : [Anticipation-
inseparable association of like consequents with
like antecedents].
»II. Belief in the Truth of P ropositions : Judgment. [Ratioci-
nation and Evidence.]
Belief in events or real existences is, then, the first of
1 See Analysis, vol. i. p. 342, note, and pp.411 — 413, where Belief and
Memory (as involving it) are both contrasted with Imagination.
BELIEF IN PRESENT EXISTENCES. 81
Mill's two grand classes of Belief. And, first, as to belief
in present events and real existences, which may either be in
immediate relation to my senses at the time of belief, or
not.
Of belief in the former kind of existences Mill's account
is brief and perfunctory. It is based on the ever-recurring'
formula — " to have a sensation or idea, and to believe that I
have it, is one and the same thing." The two states of con-
sciousness are not in any way distinguishable. Consequently,
belief in the sensations derived from objects present to my senses
is neither more nor less than the experience of those sensations.
If it be objected that belief in a sensation implies something
added to the sensation, namely, the associated idea of the
Self; and that, in this sense, sensation may be distinguished
from the belief in it; Mill replies that the idea of the Self is
associated with the former just as much as with the latter.
It, like the ideas of Position and Unity, is as much, and as
inseparably, combined with the sensations of sight, for in-
stance, derived from an object, as with the belief in the sensa-
tion. Sensation, then, in such cases, is itself belief. The
curtain here is the picture.
But belief in the external object from which we derive the
sensation is not the same thing as, and contains more elements
than, belief in the sensation. When I am said (in ordinary
language) to see a rose, I actually see colour alone : but the
object, rose is a combination of colour, extension, figure, &c.
Therefore, though I imagine that I see extension, figure, &c,
I in reality only infer them ; and that I fancy to myself that
I see them, is due to association in one of its strongest forms.
Rapid and continually repeated passages of thought from the
sensation of colour to the ideas of extension, form, distance,
position, bulk, &c, lead us to suppose that we become, in the
very experience of the sensation, immediately possessed of
G
82 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
that information as to the object, which is really the result of
association of (in the first instance) visual sensations with
tactual sensations, sensations of muscular pressure and re-
sistance, and so on. The association in this case produces
each of the well-known effects which always follow its opera-
tion, when very forcible : namely, first, the blending of the
associated feeling's into a single complex feeling ; secondly,
the riveting of the associative link so fast that it cannot be
broken, and that the mental illusion is rendered permanent and
indissoluble ; just as the optical illusion of seeing a stick pre-
sent a bent appearance in the water is permanent and innate,
so to speak, though the appearance is all the time known not
to answer to the fact. This mental illusion is more espe-
cially incidental to the sensations of sight, because sight is the
primary and leading element in the clusters of sensations im-
pressed upon us by external objects ; though there are also
similar illusions of less power connected with the other senses,
as (for example) when we fancy that we hear distance, whereas
we hear only modifications of sound, and infer the distance of
the object. Visual sensations, however, call up the resi-
dues of the clusters with greater facility, frequency, and
certainty than any of the sensations proper to the other
physical organs.
Therefore, when I see an external object, my belief in its
existence amounts to nothing more than this : that, with the
sensation of colour impressed upon my organs of sight, I have
inseparably associated the ideas of a variety of other sensa-
tions ; and with them I further have inseparably associated
the idea of myself as having them ; that is, I believe that in
certain circumstances I should have any one of these sensa-
tions. By walking to the object, I should have the sensation
of distance ; by touching it, that of hardness or softness ; by
the putting forth of muscular energy, I should have the
THE UNKNOWN CAUSE OF SENSATIONS. 83
sensations of resistance, solidity, or impenetrability; by
touching-, and the expenditure of muscular force combined, I
should have that of extension and figure.
To our supposed perception, inference, or belief of the ex-
istence of an unknown cause of such a cluster of sensations as
is described above, nothing in rerum naturd corresponds. The
Substratum, as it is called, of certain qualities in the object,
which produce sensations in us, is merely a fiction of asso-
ciation. We are always observing sequences. The order of
succession in phenomena, or rather in our sensations and ideas,
is more important to us than any other order. The tendency,
consequently, in our minds is to find an antecedent to every
consequent, and, if we cannot find one, to invent one. We
are compelled by a law of our nature " to look before and
after." This is another case of inseparable association. " The
perception or idea of an event instantly brings up the idea of
its constant antecedent : definite and clear if the antecedent is
known, and indefinite and obscure if it is unknown." [Anal.
vol. i. p. 352]. Now constant antecedent is Cause, and
Cause is nothing" else. Therefore the habit of seeking for
such constant Antecedents is of itself quite sufficient to account
for the belief in the existence of a supposed Object, as Sub-
stance, Cause, or Substratum of its various qualities (cor-
responding to the various sensations in us), though that
Object or Substratum, except as a convenient and compre-
hensive name for the clusters of sensations with which we are
simultaneously affected, is non-existent.
Now as to the belief in the present existence of objects not
in immediate relation to our senses. Of this there may be
two cases, according as the objects have or have not been pre-
viously at any time perceived by us. The former is the only
case which it is necessary to examine now ; since the latter,
being an instance-of Belief in Events on Testimony, may con-
g 2
84 HA RTLEY AND J A MES MIL L .
veniently be considered below in connexion with the subject
of Belief in Past Events on Testimony.
What then is implied in my belief in the present existence
of Westminster Hall, which, though not now present to my
senses, I have seen at some previous time in my life ? I
imply (for one thing) that if I were at this moment at or near
Westminster Hall, I should derive the same sensations from
it as I have derived on previous occasions. Put in this
form, the belief is a case of Anticipation of the future on the
analogies of the past, which will be considered as the third
main head of beliefs in real existences. But it may be put in
another way. In the belief in the present existence of West-
minster Hall is involved my belief, that if any creature
endowed with organs of sense like my own is at this moment
in or near Westminster Hall, he or it has sensations analogous
to the sensations which I myself have experienced when so
situated. The explanation of this mental condition is to be
found once more in the laws of Association. There is an in-
vincible association between the idea of an animal body and
sensation. First the association is created between the idea
of my own human body and the ideas of my own sensations, —
then between the ideas of human bodies other than my own,
and the ideas of sensations analogous to my own, — then,
similarly, as to the other creatures lower and lower in the
scale of the animal kingdom, till we stop short at vegetables,
and there the association, to any considerable extent (except
in fetichism and poetry, the lowest and the highest intellectual
states), fails us. "It is apparent," Mill therefore concludes
[Anal. vol. i. p. 358] "that the case in which I believe
other creatures to be immediately percipient of objects, of
which I believe that I myself should be percipient if I were
so situated as they are, resolves itself ultimately into this par-
ticular case of my belief in certain conditional sensations of
BELIEF IN PAST EXISTENCES. 85
my own/' that is, again, to the case of Anticipation, which
we reserve for the present.
Our Belief in Past Existences is, in other words, our pre-
sent idea of something" existing, and the assignment of it to a
time past. Here again we have an obvious ground of sub-
division into the two cases, — first, where the object in the past
existence of which we believe has, secondly, where it has not,
been present to our senses. The former of these kinds of
Belief is, according to Mill, neither more nor less than
Memory. Just as the belief in the present existence of an
object now in relation to my senses is Sensation, and nothing
else, so the belief in the past existence of an object which
was then present to my senses is Memory, and nothing more. 2
Remembering a past event, and believing it, are merely two
different names for one and the same state of conscious-
ness. What, then, we have to ask, is involved in the process of
Memory ? Hartley and Mill both give answers to this ques-
tion from their respective points of view, — Hartley, as usual,
looking to his favourite vibration-theory, and relying largely
on physical analogies and proofs, Mill looking to the
principles of Association alone, which he wisely accepts as
elementary, without seeking to go behind them for a more
recondite solution.
Memory, says Mill, can only take place through the medium
of ideas. Every act, or (as he would prefer to call it) state of
memory, involves an idea. But it also involves more than
this. The state of memory cannot exist without the idea ;
but the idea can exist without the state of memory. A
further necessary element is association — association of ideas
in trains according to its ordinary laws. This is manifest on
2 Here Mill plainly declares Memory to be a species of Belief, and
though it is not treated by him in this connexion, this is clearly its proper
and philosophical place.
86 HARTLEY A ND J A MES MILL .
an analysis of the process called " trying- to remember "
(Aristotle's " avdfivr}<n<i" as opposed to passive memory or
" fivy'ifjir)," the mere recurrence of associated ideas without the
exercise of any volition on our part). When we try to
remember a thing-, we run over every idea which we think
may have a chance of recalling to our minds, by means of its
previously contracted associations, the idea of which we are
in quest. Each idea which we have experienced has, we
know, been the centre of several threads of association ; we
therefore try several ideas at random, in the hope of one of
them eventually having a path to the idea which we require.
In some cases, of course, we take the precaution to determine
the associations beforehand, as in the familiar devices of
underlining passages in a book, tying a knot in a handker-
chief, &c. Similarly, in order to remember the sequence of
words, we repeat them, because we know that repetition is
one of the most effective agents in generating association.
Hence it is, that if we try to remember words which we have
learnt, in any other order than that in which we committed
them to memory, we find it difficult, if not impossible, to
do so. Mill gives an interesting example of these pre-
determined associations for the purpose of securing accurate
remembrance, in the practice of some of the ancient orators,
who used to create an artificial relation in their own minds
between the different parts of a temple, or other building*, in
the sight of which they were about to speak, and the heads of
their intended discourse. By means of occasional glances at
the temple, they were thus enabled in a double sense to work
up from the foundation to the coping-stone of their orations.
Of course, the success of such an experiment would depend
on the relation which the speaker's power of remembering
pictorial simultaneous representations bears to his power of
remembering audible successive sounds. Men vary very
MEMOR V. $7
much in this respect. Some will remember a lecture better
than an essay, and an acted than a written play. Even in
reading 1 a book some men, with more or less conscious effort,
shape to themselves audible ideas of the sounds of the words ;
illiterate persons even reproduce the audible sounds them-
selves ; while others read so rapidly that they are not con-
scious to themselves of forming' any other than a visible idea
of the written symbols. 3
Tdeas and Association, then, are necessary to constitute
Memory. But are these all ? Imagination involves these,
as we have already seen ; and, if these were the only essen-
tial ingredients, receptive or representative imagination —
imagination, that is, of clusters of sensations, Aristotle's
" al<j6i]TLKi) cfravTaaia" — would involve as much as " fjLvijfir)";
and the active or creative imagination, which frames and
deals with clusters of ideas after its own fashion — Aristotle's
" fiovXevTifcr) (pavraala ,> — would, if this were the case, be
tantamount to lf avafivrjais." What, then, must be added
to ideas and their association in trains to make passive
imagination equivalent to passive memory, and active or
deliberative imagination equivalent to active memory or re-
3 Professor Max Miiller notices an ingenious attempt (by Don Sinibaklo
de Mas in his Ideographic) to create direct associations between ideas and
pictorial or visible emblems, by constructing a language consisting of 2C00
figures, framed on the pattern of musical notes, and capable of innumer-
able variations in meaning, corresponding to those effected by the parts
of speech, according to the position of the head of the note {Science of
Language, vol. ii. p. 48). This would have commended itself to Hartley.
Mr. Slmte (in his Discourse on Truth) is, however, afraid that, even as
it is, men are more and more losing their power of associating ideas with
audible emblems, and tend more and more to assimilate visible signs in
preference to them. The whole subject of the differences between the
pictorial or local, and the successive or eventual memory, is gone into
by Mr. Francis Galton, "Mental Imagery," in Forin, Rev., September,
1880, and Mind, July, 1880.
88 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
collection ? The answer is : The element of recognition.
" Suppose that my present state of consciousness is the idea
of putting- my finger in the flame of the candle. I recognize
the act as a former act; and this recognition is followed by
another, namely, that of the pain which I felt immediately
after. This part of my constitution, which is of so much
importance to me, I find it useful to name. And the name
I give to it is Memory." [Analysis, vol. i. pp. 319,320].
But this recognition is a somewhat complex process. What
are its elements ? Can it be reduced to a case of Associa-
tion?
We may remember either sensations or ideas formerly ex-
perienced by us. In remembering a sensation — say, the having
seen an object at some past date — the following conditions are
implied : first, a visible idea of the object; secondly, the idea
of my having seen it. 4 And the former irresistibly calls up
the latter idea, and in this we have (so far) merely another
case of inseparable association.
But into what elements is the idea of my having seen an
object resolvable ? First of all, we may break it up into :
(1) the idea of my present (the remembering) self; (2) the
idea of my past, the then sentient, and now remembered, self.
These two ideas are connected at the moment of memory.
How? By running over the intermediate states of con-
sciousness, and (by means of a rapid process already referred
to) uniting the two terms and the intervening links into one
very complex idea. And this, again, is association.
The remembrance of ideas admits of an exactly similar
4 To these J. S. Mill would add — the belief (independent of the evidence
of others) of my having seen the ohject. And in this he would he clearly
right ; but James Mill thinks that there is nothing elementary or unana-
lyzable in Belief itself, which he regards as in every case reducible to
Association of ideas in the last resort, as will be seen in the sequel.
REMEMBRANCE OF PAST IDEAS. 89
explanation. I remember, for example, my idea of Charles I/s
execution. In doing so, I have, —
(1) The ideas of the various acts and objects related and described in
the account of the execution ;
and
(2) [Inseparably associated with the above], the idea of my having
had those ideas.
And (2) again includes, —
(a) The idea of my present self remembering : 1 United by asso-
(b) The idea of my past self conceiving : Uiation into one
(c) The idea of the intervening states of consciousness: J complex idea.
To put the matter comprehensively (so as to include the
remembrance both of past sensations and of past ideas), the
necessary elements in the memory of our past experiences, of
whatever kind, would seem to be as follows : —
' i. The idea of my past self
sentient or conceiving = /-The idea (of a past sensation : or,
pas
ea (of a past sensa
(of a past idea.
The idea of the Self.
ii. The idea of my present
self as remembering = rThe idea of the Self
The idea of [Remembering =] Asso-
ciating,
iii. The intervening trains
of ideas, the calling
up of which depends
upon Association.
So that the memory of past experiences has now been
resolved to Ideas (one of which must always be the Idea of the
Self), and Association. Nothing, therefore, now needs eluci-
dation, in connexion with memory, except this constant factor,
the Idea of Personal Identity, after analyzing* which we may
90 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
(since there can be no Memory without involving- it in some
way) examine the idea of Time.
Neither of the two important metaphysical problems of
modern times connected with the investigation of the concep-
tions, ideas, or forms (as they are variously called) of the
Ego and of Time, attracted the attention of Hartley; con-
sequently we must be taken as here presenting" the views of
James Mill alone.
Personal Identity, or the Identity of the Ego, must be ex-
plained on the same grounds and by the same method as the
Identity of other human beings, and this again on the same
grounds as the Identity of other animal existences ; and the
Identity of animal existences in general can be explained in
no other way than the Identity of inanimate objects. [Anal.
vol. ii. pp. 164 — 170.] It is necessary, then, to satisfy our-
selves as to the essence of Identity, generically considered,
before we can show the nature of that particular species of it
called Personal Identity.
Now when I say, that the object which I now see is the
same which I saw ten years before, or that the words which
I now read were written by a certain author 2000 years ago,
or that the object which was seen 2000 years ago by one man
was the same which was seen 1000 years ago by another, —
Belief is involved, and nothing else. The first example pre-
sents one case of Belief, the secoud another, and the third
another ; but all alike are Belief. The reader will be some-
what surprised to find here what looks very like the inter-
pretation of a thing by itself. One of the kinds of Belief,
namely, Memory, is alleged to involve, among other elements,
the Idea of Personal Identity ; and this idea, as being merely
a case of Identity in general, is then found to be a case of
Belief. The definition in a circle is rendered still more con-
spicuous when we find that, of the three instances of Identity
BELIEF IN IDENTITY. 91
given above, Mill would call the first an instance of that
specific kind of Belief which is called Memory [the other two
being- cases of Belief in Evidence or Testimony, or of Belief
in the Uniformity of Nature, or of a combination of both] .
And as to Identity in general, Mill's own statement is : —
" As we have already shown wherein Belief, in all its cases,
consists''' [it must be remembered that the chapter on Identity
was written after all the cases of Belief had been examined —
an arrangement from which we have seen reason to depart]
" we have implicitly afforded the explanation of Identity "
[Anal. vol. ii. p. 165] : — while, in the chapter on Memory,
he says, " It is in this process that Memory consists
No obscurity rests on any part of this process, except the
idea of self, which is reserved for future analysis
All this will be more evident when what is included in the
notion of Personal Identity is included.''' [Anal. vol. i. p. 360.]
Belief and Identity cannot, on Mill's own showing, be both
capable of analysis. Either Belief must involve the idea of
Personal Identity as an ultimate and irreducible element, or
this latter must similarly imply Belief. In the face of the
contradiction in terms patent in Mill's own language, we will
not attempt to guess which element he really thought the
unanalyzable one. 5 Let us examine, however, his reduction of
Personal Identity to a case of Identity in general.
We have already seen what is implied when we say that
the inanimate external object which we now perceive, is the
5 J. S. Mill, in his notes to the Analysis, evidently considers that the
idea of the Self involves Memory, while Memory involves Belief, and that
this Belief is the ultimate element. Judging from the frequency with
which he insists on this view, by way of correction on numerous other
occasions where James Mill leaves out of account this ultimate factor in
a variety of mental processes, we may, perhaps, conclude that it was
Personal Identity which the latter, if pressed, would have admitted to be
irreducible.
92 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
same object as that which we have previously perceived.
But what do I mean when I say that some object having
growth and life is the same now, when present to my senses,
as it was when I perceived it at some former date ? Whether
that object be a vegetable, an animal of the lower orders, or
a human being other than myself, I mean the same thing :
I express my belief that there is a certain series (known by
experience) of antecedents and consecpaents, which is called
the life of that object; that this series is capable of being
marked off and distinguished from all other similar series ;
and that my present perception is the last link in that par-
ticular series, and no other. In all these cases the Belief
involved is one thing, and the essential thing : the evidence
for that Belief is another thing, and may be of various kinds.
The belief in the identity of another human being is often
evidenced by observation, that is, sensation and memory of
sensation; or, in other words, it is often evidenced by itself;
but more often it rests on evidence and testimony of another
kind as well. Now, when I use the word " same" in connexion
with my own life, do I imply anything beyond this belief?
Nothing whatever. The Belief is the same, and the evidence
is the same. So far as my memory extends, my belief in my
own identity rests on consciousness and memory, that is (as
before), it rests on itself; it is its own evidence. When I
get beyond reach of my memory, then my belief in my own
identity is supported by exactly the same kinds of external
testimony as my belief in the identity of any other person, as
to whom observation has not been possible.
We have said that, within the range of memory, the
evidence for my own identity is Consciousness and Memory,
the evidence for the identity of other men is Observation and
Memory. In the latter case we have the memory of past
observed facts, in the other we have the memory of past
PERSONAL IDENTITY. 93
states of consciousness, added, in each case, to a present
sensation. But observation itself is nothing but a state of
consciousness. Therefore the memory of a series of states of
consciousness, coupled with an existing- state, is the evidence
in both cases.
But the states of consciousness remembered in the two
cases, though they are equally evidence, become evidence in
different ways. And here we come upon a real distinction
between the intellectual phenomena of the two processes. In
the one case, we remember past states of consciousness in
ourselves as pointing to the contemporaneous or prior exis-
tence of states of consciousness in others, or as marks of those
states in accordance with the laws of association which
decree that certain signs, to wit, impressions of certain
sensations in us, shall call up in our minds the ideas of
certain sensations of others signified by them : whereas, in
the other case, we remember states of consciousness in our-
selves for their own sakes, and not as pointing to anything
else. To use the language of the law-courts, our own states
of consciousness are equally the evidence in either operation ;
but in the former they are secondary evidence, in the latter
they are primary. In the former, they are imperfect means
of inferring the continuity and separate existence of a series
of states of consciousness, constituting the thread of life of
the person (other than the Ego), in whose identity we assert
our belief: in the latter, they are, in fact, themselves the
thread of life of the person (the Ego) in whose identity we
believe. The difference then between Belief in the Identity
of others, and Belief in Personal Identity, is not in the evi-
dentiary materials, but in the manner in which these materials
evidence the existences or events to which credence is given.
In the idea of Time, which falls to be considered in
connexion with Memory, Mill sees none of the mystery
94 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
which, according' to him, other philosophers have found
in it. Its supposed necessity he regards as merely another
result of inseparable and irresistible association, since the
idea of succession, or of the relation of antecedent and con-
sequent, is inseparably associated with the idea of every
object. Any theory of Time, as one of the forms imposed by
the mind on the matter furnished by sensation, he would,
consequently, reject; though he agrees with Kant so far
as to deny with him that Time is an inherent property
or attribute of objects. Time is nothing but the abstract
name of all successive order, just as Space is of all simul-
taneous order, [Anal. vol. ii. p. 132], and it is formed no
otherwise than as other abstract names are formed. With
the idea of every present event we associate the idea of an
antecedent, with this latter idea the idea of an antecedent to
that, and so on f ad infinitum/ The idea of the present
event, coupled with the ideas of the antecedents so associated
with it, make up our idea of the Past, which therefore implies
infinite concrete past successions of objects ; it notes, that is,
in Mill's phraseology, or primarily marks, successions ; it
connotes, or secondarily marks, objects. Omit the connota-
tion, as must be done to form any abstract name, and we get
the successions, without the objects, — or Time Past in the
abstract. In the above process put consequent for antecedent,
and by similar steps we arrive at Time Future in the abstract.
Next, regard all real or possible events (or objects, in Mill's
language), whether past, present, or future, as successive,
lump them together, and we obtain the idea of concrete Time
in general ; that is, the successions with the objects. Take
away the objects, and we have left the successions without the
objects, or the idea of abstract Time in general. Thus Time
is an abstract name, the corresponding- concrete to which is
ultimately built upon nn indissoluble association, which forces
TIME IN RELA TION TO MEMOR Y. 95
us, in contemplating- any event, to go beyond it and look on
both sides of it. Whether the above process would not rather
give us the abstract idea of Successiveness, and not that of
Time at all, we will not here stop to inquire.
The connexion of Time with Memory in Mill's system will
be best seen in his own words [Anal. vol. ii. p. 120] ; —
" Pastness is included under the term Memory. . . . Memory
is a connotative term ; what it notes is. the antecedence and
consequence of the several parts of that which forms the chain
of remembrance ; what it connotes are the feelings them-
selves, the objects remembered. When what it connotes is
left out, and what it notes is retained, we have the idea which
is expressed by Pastness/' Mill would presumably consider
an analogous connexion to exist between Anticipation and
Futureness. But Anticipation (as we shall see presently)
rests on Belief in the Uniformity of Nature, and this again
on Association, and the association is based on felt and re-
membered cases of succession. There is nothing, therefore,
as we are expressly told, in Time distinct from Memory and
Sensations.
Hartley differs with Mill, and agrees with Reid and most
other philosophers, in considering Memory to be a faculty,
and not an idea framed in a particular way. It is " that
faculty by which traces of sensations and ideas recur, or are
recalled, in the same order and proportion, accurately or
nearly, as they were once presented." [06s. on Man, vol. i.
p. 374]. After this somewhat loose and unsatisfactory
definition, Hartley gives us some desultory remarks, prin-
cipally of a pathological character, on the relation between
the state of the faculty of memory and the state of the brain ;
in the course of which he takes occasion to notice that such a
connexion would tend to support the vibration theory, since
vibrations in the medullary substance of the brain may be
96 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
presumed to be affected by such causes as disease, concussions,
liquors, poison, &c.
Hartley appears to hold with Mill, that the exercise of
Memory depends almost entirely upon Association ; but he
does not enter into any examination of the idea of the Self in
connexion with this part of his theory. He answers the in-
evitable query as to the nature of the difference (on this
hypothesis) between Memory and Imagination in much the
same way as his successor. " Let it now be asked/' he says
[vol. i. p. 377], "in what the recollections of a past fact,
consisting of an hundred clusters " [complex ideas] " differs
from the transit of the same one hundred clusters over the
fancy, in the way of a reverie ? I answer, partly in the
vividness of the clusters, partly and principally in the
readiness and strength of the associations, by which they are
cemented together." The notions of Personal Identity,
Belief, Time, as incidental to Memory, are here ignored;
whereas Mill would say that, in every such process as is above
described, the idea of the Self, then sentient, and now re-
membering, would be irresistibly called into being. Hartley
supports his contention, by instancing the remarkable fact, —
which Mill also notices, but explains more completely and
philosophically, — of a man, by frequent repetition, coming at
last to believe a fictitious story told by him to be true. This
phenomenon, says Hartley, is attributable to the "magnify-
ing " of the ideas and the associations by the narrator. Mill
on the other hand, in accordance with his more careful ex-
position of the idea of the Self as one of the constituents of
Memory, asserts the operation to be due to the loss of one
association, and its replacement by another. The narrator
used to associate the ideas of the events imagined by him
with the idea of himself as imagining or inventing them :
this association becomes weaker and weaker, till it finally
HARTLEY ON MEM OR Y. 97
expires altogether, and a new association, namely that between
the ideas of these events and the idea of himself as ex-
periencing them, takes its place. It must be admitted, how-
ever, that the cause of this latter association supplanting' the
former, would appear, from Mill's account, to be something-
very like Hartley's " magnifying " the one, and ceasing to
pay attention to the other.
Hartley also refers sagaciously to the case of a man in
doubt as to whether his trains of ideas are recollections or
reveries. But this phenomenon too might be accounted for
more satisfactorily on Mill's, than on Hartley's, hypothesis.
The latter is of opinion that such a doubt, (when the ideas are
in fact those of remembered events), represents a diminution
of the associations between these ideas, and (when the ideas
are in fact merely imagined) an increase of the same : but
Mill would maintain that such a state of mind would in the
two cases respectively indicate either a diminution or an
increase of the association between the ideas of the events and
the idea of the Self as percipient of them. In madness and in
dreams, to both of which Hartley is particularly fond of
referring, the vividness mentioned is often magnified to an
extent which causes the mental picture or image of an action
or object to appear the recollection, in some cases, and, in
others, the present sensible experience, of it. Mill \_Anal. vol.
i. p. 321] explains such phenomena in delirium, madness, or
dreams to be the result of a mistake of present ideas for
present or past sensations, just as in the above-mentioned case
of repeated fiction past ideas are mistaken for past sen-
sations.
Hartley's account of the attempt to recollect a thing
(ui'(ifiin]ai<i) proceeds on the same lines as the foregoing
notices of intellectual phenomena. When a person desires to
remember the name of a visible object or of a person, he
11
98 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
" recalls the visible idea, or some other associate, again and
again, by a voluntary power, the desire generally magnifying
all the ideas and associations ; and thus bringing in the asso-
ciation and idea wanted at last " [vol. i. p. 381]. He points
out, however, with his usual accuracy of observation, but with
no attempt at explanation, that if the desire be very great,
an opposite effect is produced. Mill's analysis of this operation
we have already noticed. Though more precise in his
language than his predecessor, he probably meant much the
same thing'.
The state of the memory on reeovery from concussion of
the brain, or as existing in aged people (where it is retentive
of old, and oblivious of recent, impressions), in idiots (where, in
a mechanical form, it is often very extraordinarily developed 6 ),
and in children, is explained by Hartley for the most part
on the principles of the theory of vibrations. In this part of
his subject we have the usual abundance of disconnected, but
ingenious, observations, and hints, often not worked out, but
always containing much suggestive matter. He remarks,
for instance, in one place [vol. i. p. 376], "that the visible
impressions which concur in the past fact " [remembered],
" by being vivid and preserving the order of place, often con-
tribute greatly to preserve the order of time, and to suggest
the clusters which may be wanting : " [the help afforded to
one another by pictorial and audible images is, as we have
seen, made a subject of particular attention by Mill]. Again :
" when a person relates a past fact, the ideas in some cases
suggest the words, whilst in others the words suggest the
G Instances of this are given by Mr. Verdon in his Essay on Forget-
fulness in Mind, vol. ii. p. 412. See also on Memory, and its different
hinds, Mr. Francis Galton in his English Men of Science. The latest
views (those of Taine, Maury, Wundfc, &c.), as well as his own, on the
subject of dreaming, are given by Mr. Sully in his article on " The Laws
of Dream-Fancy " in the Cornhill Magazine (November, 187G).
TESTIMONY. 99
ideas. Hence illiterate persons do not remember nearly so
well as others, 'caeteris paribus/ " The statements that there
are limits beyond which the separate powers of the memory
to receive readily, and to retain durably, cannot coexist
[vol. i. p. 381] ; and that all our voluntary powers are
analogous to memory, and usually decay and increase " pari
passu " — whence he concludes that the whole powers of the
soul may be referred to the memory in a large sense, and
that, though (as explained above) a strong memory may co-
exist with a weak judgment, a strong judgment cannot co-
exist with a really weak memory — are also deserving of
attention.
We next come to the case of Belief in those past existences
or events, which have not at any previous time been present
to the believer's senses. For such a form of Belief, either
Testimonjr, or faith in the Uniformity of Natural Laws, is
the foundation. First, as to Testimony or Evidence. In
some cases (as has been pointed out), namelj 7 , where the
event or existence is believed in from our own experience,
sensation or memory is both evidence and belief. But, in the
class of cases now under consideration, the Evidence is distinct
from the Belief. It is none the less, however, Association
which, according to Mill, constitutes the Belief, — the asso-
ciation, that is, between the ideas of the evidencing facts or
events and the ideas of the facts or events evidenced. 7
The evidentiary circumstance may be in immediate relation
7 Sir T. Browne [Beligio Medici, p. 45, edit, supracit.] marks off the
two classes of Belief here distinguished, with his usual delight in laying
aside Large tracts of faith in which his simple soul may spatiate : " I am
confident," he says, '• and fully persuaded, yet dare not take my oath of
my salvation : I am as it were sure, that there is such a city as Constan-
tinople, yet for me to take my oath thereon, were a kind of perjury,
because 1 hold no infallible warrant from my own sense to confirm mo in
the certainly thereof."
i oo HA RTLEY A ND J A MES MIL L .
to the thing evidenced, or it may be several removes from it, and
only connected with it by means of a long" train of associated
links, uniting together (as in so many other instances) to form
a single complex idea. When a sailor sees the print of a man's
foot on the sand in a desert island, and concludes that a man
has recently been there, there is immediate association of the
evidence with the event evidenced, of the idea of the mark of
a foot as consequent with the idea of the advent of a man as
antecedent. But if the sailor tells his experience to his com-
panions who have not yet set foot on the island, to them the
belief is founded on the association of the idea of their in-
formant's affirmation with the idea of the footprint, which
idea is again associated with the idea of the existence of a
man in the island. Human testimony, it is to be observed, is
qua Testimony, the same as any other Testimony. The
Watchman calling' the hour is evidence in no other sense than
the clock striking it. The links in the chain may be, and in
complicated inferences are, extended to great length ; but
nothing, according to Mill, is implied in the inference con-
stituting this mode of Belief, beyond Association, however
numerous the links may be. What then, it will be asked, is
the state of Doubt, when two conflicting hypotheses suggest
themselves to the mind ? Simply a struggle between an asso-
ciation and a counter-association, wherein the weaker even-
tually goes* to the wall; but, meantime, the conflicting
associations hinder each other from acquiring the fixity and
inseparability necessary to produce Belief. Thus, if our ship-
wrecked sailor should happen to see a monkey on the island,
he will begin to doubt ; that is, the idea of the footprint in
the sand will now call up two ideas instead of one, the idea of
a monkey and the idea of a man; and it will call up either
indifferently, and therefore will be associated permanently
with neither, till further evidence comes in on one side or the
UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 101
other, such as, for instance, the discovery of some instrument,
a kettle or a knife, which could only have been constructed by
human agency. There would then be two- ideas' to 'call up
the idea of a man, which would therefore acquire greater
fixity and permanence; since the two ; exciting ideas," after
frequent repetition, will (as has been explained already) " run
together," as Hartley says, into one complex, or rather
decomplex, idea calculated to call up the idea of a man with
greater vividness and force, than the single complex idea of the
footprint will call up the idea of a monkey. There is nothing
in any inference as to the reality of a past event or existence
beyond what is involved in the above simple instance. There
is, according to Mill, merely "the antecedent, consisting of
all the events which are called evidence," and " the con-
sequent, consisting of the event or events evidenced," together
with " that close association of the antecedent and consequent,
which wo have seen already in so many instances, constitutes
belief." {Anal. vol. i. p. 432],
We may also believe in past events of which we have had
no experience, owing solely to our faith in the Uniformity of
Natural Laws : and, in so doing, we rely on precisely the
same grounds as those on which we rely for our belief in all
future events. This latter is the third of Mill's forms of
Belief in real existences, and to its consideration we now
proceed.
In anticipation, then, is anything to be discovered beyond
Ideas and Association ? Mill answers once more in the
negative. The basis of our Belief is, in such cases, the in-
separable association of like consequents with like ante-
cedents, and nothing beyond. In believing that an event will
happen, I have an idea of that event, in the first place, —
that is, the event must be such as has been suggested to me
by the analogies of past experience, — and, further, inseparable
102 HARTLEY AXD JAMES MILL.
association between antecedent and consequent comes into
play. I cannot think of an event without the idea of its con-
sequent on the one ' side being- called up, as naturally and
constantly as the idea of its antecedent on the other ; to do
so wnukl^je/jn^'oyJhi^ to Mill; to have an idea and not to
have it at the same time. And there are two good reasons
for the inseparability of the conjunction : — the constant re-
currence of successive phenomena in experience, with nothing
to suggest counter-associations or counter-analogies ; and
also the interesting character of such successions to us, deter-
mining, as they do, our pleasures and pains, and, through
them, our happiness in life. " The union has in it all that I
mark by the word necessity ; a sequence constant, immediate,
and inevitable.'" [Anal. vol. i. p. 366]. I cannot, therefore,
have the idea of the present, without having the idea of its
consequent, the future : I cannot think of the events passing
before me to-day, without thinking of those which will follow
to-morrow. And, when I think of these, owing to an irre-
sistible compulsion put upon me by Association, I am said to
believe in them. Thus there is found to be nothing special
in that form of Belief called Anticipation of the Future from
the Past ; it, like every other case of Belief in Events or
Existences, rests on Indissoluble Associatiou. When we be-
lieve that the sun will rise to-morrow, or that a stone just
hurled will fall to the ground, we perform, or rather undergo
(as Mill might prefer to put it), the same mental process, as
when we infer the distance of objects from the manner in
which the eye or ear is affected by certain modifications of
light or sound, or when an association otherwise separable by
sensations and will becomes for the nonce indissoluble during'
the absence of these sensations, and the abeyance of the will,
as in dreams, or during the temporaiy belief in ghosts which
takes possession of a child in the dark. It remains to be
ASSENT TO PROPOSITIONS. 103
seen whether anything' other than Ideas and Association can
be found to form the basis of the second great branch of
Belief, namely, that in the Truth of Propositions, or Judg-
ment. And here we shall be able to resume company
with Hartley, who devotes several pages to this head of
Belief, though under it he includes a variety of matters, which
Mill more philosophically treats as cases of Belief in events.
The Belief in the Truth of Propositions is, in the opinion
of James Mill, Belief in Verbal Truths merely. " Propositions
consisting of general names are all merely verbal ; and the
belief is nothing more than the recognition of the coincidence,
entire or partial; of two general names " \Anal. vol. i. p. 392].
But what the recognition of a coincidence is has already been
seen. Having an idea, or cluster of ideas, and then having
that idea or cluster of ideas again, is itself neither more nor
less than the recognition of their identity. " To have two
clusters of ideas, to know that they are two, and to believe
that they are two, this is nothing more than three expressions
for the same thing. To know that two clusters are two
clusters, and to know that they are the same
is the same thing with having them " [vol. i. p. 433].
When we express our assent to the proposition that "an oak
is a tree," or that " all oaks are trees," we recognize a partial
coincidence between the two general names " oak " and
"tree." When we say that we believe that "all men are
rational animals," there is a recognition of entire coincidence
between the general name " man " and the general name
"rational animal." In the latter proposition, the first of the
two names calls up the complex idea of man, — this is a case of
ordinary association, — the second name calls up the complex
idea of " rational animal," — this is another case of ordinary
association. The next and only remaining step in the process
of Belief is that wherein the two successive ideas arc recosrnized
104 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
as identical in the mere fact of their succession to the same
mind. In assenting to a proposition of the former kind, the
process is a little less simple, but still generically the same.
The association of the two general names with the two com-
plex ideas is of course the same : the difference consists
merely in the fact that only a part instead of the whole of the
complex idea called up by the Predicate is recognized as iden-
tical with the whole of the complex idea called up by the
Subject. One part of the first complex idea is recognized as
being the same as, the other part as being distinct from, the
whole of the second cluster, in one and the same event,
namely their succession to the same mind.
After this exposition of the nature of assent to propositions,
we shall not be surprised to find that Mill's account of the
syllogizing process — on which his successors have expended so
much pains, and evolved so elaborate and various theories —
was summary in the extreme. As has already been noticed,
he believes that the credit given to the conclusion of a syllogism
is given in no other way, and for no other reason, than the
credit given to a proposition. The association is mediate in-
stead of direct ; but it is none the less association of ideas
called up by names on which the belief is grounded. To infer
that, because statesmen are men, and men are mortal, therefore
statesmen are mortal, is simply to recognize the identity of a
part of the complex idea suggested by the name " man," a
part (only a smaller part) of the complex idea suggested by
the name " mortal/' and the whole of the complex idea sug-
gested by the name "statesmen;" and to recognize this
identity is the same thing, under another name, as having the
ideas "man," "mortal," "statesman," in succession.
Hartley's doctrine of Assent to Propositions is somewhat
dilli vent from that of Mill, and even more crude. Just as
words have complex ideas attached to them, so sentences,
BELIEF— RATIONAL AND PRACTICAL. 105
being* composed of words, have decomplex ideas attached to
them. Such a decomplex idea often, and notably in the case
of propositions, contains other elements than the complex ideas
suggested by the separate words composing the sentence : that
is, the mere combination of these complex ideas is the cause of
an additional complex idea — that, namely, of assent or dissent —
being added to them. 8 The association is analogous to chemical
composition, where two elements when mixed together produce
a substance possessing additional properties to those possessed
by either of them in their original and independent state.
"And," he adds, " it would be of the greatest use, both in the
sciences, and in common life, thoroughly to analyze this matter,
to show in what manner, and by what steps, i.e. by what im-
pressions and associations, our assent and dissent, both in
scientific and moral subjects, is formed." \Observ, on Man,
vol. i. p. 79] . Later on in the work he devotes several pages
[vol. i. pp. 324 — 367] to the consideration of the subjects
sketched out above, and makes some attempt of a not very
systematic kind to furnish the sort of analysis indicated. The
assent which is capable of being accorded to propositions may,
in Hartley's view, be either rational or practical. It is prac-
tical, when made the basis of action. In this sense, it may be
remarked, according to some later exponents of the Asso-
ciation theory (such as Professor Bain) all belief is practical ;
indeed, is only determined to be belief by the sole criterion of
its sufficiency to support and give birth to action. Hartley
says that some propositions, such as those of mathematics,
admit only of a rational assent ; whereas others receive only
the practical, without the rational. It will be, perhaps,
thought more true to say that every proposition, of whatever
8 In his Latin Treatise, Conjectures Qucedam de Sensu, Motu, et
Idearwm Genera done,'' he lays down boldly that " Assent and Dissent
are nothing but decomplex ideas excited by propositions."
io6 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
kind, whether scientific, religions, or moral, admits of an assent
or dissent both rational and practical ; and that, where it ad-
mits of the one, it must necessarily admit of the other. The
mathematical axiom that " things which are equal to the same
thing are equal to one another,"" or that "two straight lines
cannot enclose a space," is quite as much practically believed,
that is, acted upon, by any one who chooses between two
diverging roads in a country walk, as the proposition that
Ci benevolence is lovely, and selfishness odious" is practically
believed by the philanthropist in doing an act of charity.
One element or side of the assent may be thrown into the
shade by the other, the practical by the rational, or the internal
by the external : but every practical assent must rest ulti-
mately, however unconscious or unquestioning the believer may
be, on a foundation of rational assent; and every rational assent,
or body of beliefs, or creed, must necessarily express itself in
action, except where there are counterbalancing or restraining
influences which deflect it from the straight line of motion
which it would, of its own accord, follow. In this case the
practical assent is given none the less, but other practical
assents, resulting from other rational assents, work with it.
Hartley's formal definition of rational assent, with which
only of course we are at present concerned, is somewhat per-
plexing. u Ilational asseut to any proposition is a
readiness to affirm it to be true, proceeding* from a close asso-
ciation of the ideas suggested by the proposition, with the
idea, or internal feeling, belonging to the word truth ; or of
the terms of the proposition with the word truth/' \_06serv.
en Nan, vol. i. p. 824]. This is unsatisfactory enough : nor
are we much helped when he explains why he calls such assent
rational, and not verbal, as (like Mill) he would himself have
apparently proposed to call it. He does so because " every
person supposes himself always to have sufficient reason for
BELIEF IN AXIOMS. 107
such readiness to affirm or deny." Judging- from these words
alone, something more than association would appear to be
suggested by Hartley himself in order to constitute belief in
propositions. Nobody can suppose himself to have a reason
for the association of two ideas. They are, or have become,
associated ; — and that is all that can be said about them.
It will be seen that Mill explains Assent to Propositions on
his own theory of the equivalence of Recognition of the Identity
of two ideas to the mere succession to one mind of the ideas
recognized as identical. Hartley had evolved no such theory
to fall back upon; and, in consecuience, is reduced to the
necessity of committing himself to the doctrine that the ideas
conveyed by the terms of a proposition, when combined together,
propagate or strike out another idea which is not in any of the
former ideas taken singly. Both Mill and Hartley repudiate
necessity in propositions, and consider so-called axioms and
necessary truths to be, in fact, merely verbal. Here again,
however, there is a difference discernible in the two views.
Hartley appears, unlike Mill, to mix up with his association
theory of assent to verbal propositions, such as axioms, what
is known as the experiential theory of their origin. Thus
though he speaks of such propositions as " 2 + 2 = 4- " being
merely verbal, he also talks of " the entire coincidence of the
visible or tangible idea of twice two with that of four, as im-
pressed upon the mind by various objects/' and says : — <: ice
■see everywhere that twice two and four are only different names
for the same impression."
There is no more difficulty in the complicated than in the
simple cases of assent to mathematical propositions. The co-
incidence of ideas is the basis, in the latter; the coincidence
of ideas and terms together, or of terms alone, in the former.
But rational assent to propositions, it may be said, is often
based on memory, authority, &c. Here, says Hartley with
io8 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
James Mill, the working of the association-process is only
thrown a step further back. The memory or authority, on
which Ave rely itself achieved its credit on the strength of
association.
Just as in analyzing rational assent, Hartley feels himself
bound to discover the presence of a new factor, after the com-
bination of the complex ideas suggested by the terms of a
proposition, — namely the idea or "internal feeling " of truth;
so also he resorts to an equally forced and awkward ex-
planation of practical assent, in holding, that the decomplex
idea, together with the "internal feeling " of truth called into
being by it, somehow tack on to themselves another complex
idea — that of utility — before practical assent (in the large
majority of cases, at least) is granted. To this extent, he
allows that a practical assent even to mathematical pro-
positions is possible.
Under the heading of Assent to the Truth of Propositions,
Hartley, as we have before remarked, includes Belief in the
Reality of Events, apparently on the ground that every event
may be expressed as a verbal proposition. It would have
saved a great deal of confusion, if both Mill and Hartley
(instead of devoting themselves, the one almost exclusively
to the verbal side of propositions, and the other to the ex-
perience and inferences from particulars, on which these
propositions are based) had recognized the double point of
view from which every belief of whatever kind may be re-
garded, first, as a belief in an event, fact, or existence ;
secondly, as a belief in the identity of the terms of the pro-
position stating it. In the proposition, for example, "all
men are animals," it is the ignoring of the fact underlying
the verbal statement which makes its explanation so ap-
parently easy. If Hartley and Mill (for, in this case, Mill
shares in the peculiar error of his predecessor) had gone on to
LANGUAGE AS AFFECTING BELIEF. 109
treat of the belief in the fact, they would have dived deeper
into the experiential basis of knowledge (symbolized by pro-
positions) afterwards so elaborately discussed by modern
philosophers, such as J. S. Mill and Mr. Herbert Spencer,
and might have discovered that the proposition is just as
much the epitomized result of a previous process, and the
counterpart of a belief in events or existences based on in-
ference, as the Syllogism (which James Mill also treated as
purely verbal) is the epitomized result of a series of inferences
from particular phenomena. Mill would further have seen
that, conversely, the forms of Belief in real existences, which
he treats with such systematic and pains-taking analysis,
may be expressed and summarized in verbal propositions, — ■
indeed in the latter part of his chapter on Belief in Verbal
Propositions, he seems half-conscious of this, — and that
Belief may be treated from two sides, but cannot, philo-
sophically, be split up into two classes, one of which is to be
called verbal, and the other real.
Hartley shows, in a variety of ways, what importance he
attaches to the particular terms in which propositions are made
to represent events or facts. " Terms or words are absolutely
necessary to the art of reasoning," \_Observ. on Man, vol. i.
p. 330]. A sceptic is merely a man who varies from the
generality of his fellows " in the application of a certain set
of words, viz. truth, certainty, assent, dissent." This last
very curious expression shows the hold which the " verbal "
theory had obtained over his mind ; — an influence which is
also reflected in the long disquisitions on Language in which
he is perpetually indulging, and in the frequent claims which
he puts forward (in this very connexion, amongst others) for
a philosophical language, to fix the ideas to be associated with
words on clear and intelligible principles. We shall see that
this influence was by no means without its effect even on
i io II A R TIE Y AND JAMES MILL.
James Mill, though his error was usually in the opposite
direction, when we find him treating some of the most
obscure and intricate intellectual processes and faculties,
and metaphysical conceptions; as merely -' names requiring
explanation."
And not only would Hartley like to see all beliefs in events
and natural laws reduced to the recognition of identity in
terms, but he would go further, and have them expressed
algebraically. Algebra, he says in an earlier part of his work,
is only a superior kind of language, and language an inferior
kind of algebra : and in accordance with this view, he here
devotes a section of his work to the algebraical expression of
the laws of evidence, and brings in the theories of De Moivre
and others to illustrate his views. 9 He has some interesting
remarks (adopted by Bentham and J. S. Mill) on the dis-
tinction between a chain of dependent, and a centre of cor-
roborative or independent evidence, the one becoming weaker
as the number of links or media are increased, the other
gaining strength with the multiplication of independent
sources of evidence contributing their several streams to the
same destination. Valuable hints are also thrown out on
Induction, Analogy, and Hypothesis, which have long since
been developed into exhaustive theories in the hands of recent
philosophers. These we may have to notice hereafter.
9 " It appears not impossible," he says on p. 352 of vol. i., " that future
generations should put all kinds of evidences, and inquiries, into mathe-
matical forms, and, as it were, reduce Aristotle's 10 Categories, and Bishop
Wilkins's 40 Summa Genera, to the head of quantity alone." On Bishop
Wilkins, and his Philosophical Language, vid. sup.
1 1 1
CHAPTER VI.
LEADING METAPHYSICAL CONCEPTIONS, FORMS, AND RELATIONS,
AS ACCOUNTED FOR ON THE THEORY OF ASSOCIATION.
SAMENESS — SIMILARITY — SUCCESSION — CAUSALITY — EXTEN-
SION MOTION — QUANTITY — QUALITY — ANALOGY — INDUC-
TION.
This part of his subject James Mill calls " the explaining of
certain marks or names." The title is peculiar — (" it is almost,'''
says J. S. Mill, in the Anal. vol. ii. p. 2, note, "as if a treatise
on chemistry were described as an explanation of the names
air, water, potass, sulphuric acid, &c.") — 'and quite in ac-
cordance with the general tenor of his views. Equally
characteristic is his method of treating" the above-mentioned
metaphysical conceptions. They are all, from his standpoint,
merely abstract relative terms. Now all abstract ideas are,
as we have seen, merely concretes with the connotation
dropped. Mill therefore first of all sets to work to unravel
the different concrete pairs of related terms, and then shows
how, in this, as in other cases, the corresponding abstractions
are formed from them.
In analyzing relative terms Mill (following his usual plan)
begins with the most simple and ordinary instances. What,
he asks, is implied in the relations, Eather-Son, Husband-
Wife, Light-Dart, Greater-Less, Convex-Concave, Trustee-
Ccstui que Trust, &c. (where the related ideas are differently
named) • or again in the relations, Equal-Equal, Like-Like,
ii2 HARTLEY AND JAMES .MILL.
Sister-Sister, Friend-Friend, &e. (where the related ideas bear
the same name) ? The peculiarity of such sets of names as
the above is that they always exist in pairs. " There is no
relative without its correlate, either actual or implied " —
implied often in modern languages, but usually expressed in
the ancient. 1 Now we give names in pairs for no other
reason than because the things corresponding to the names
are found in pairs. We associate in name what we frequently
perceive associated in fact : and we give pairs of names to
some pairs of things rather than to others on grounds of con-
venience : in this, as in other cases, language abbreviates
where it is most useful and important to do so. Now we can
only name in pairs what enters into our minds either as
sensation or idea. Ideas are, as has been shown, either Simple
or Complex ; and Complex Ideas are either Sensible or Men-
tal. Simple Sensations and Simple Ideas we name in pairs,
',' (1) when we take them into simultaneous view as such and
such, (2) when we take them into simultaneous view as ante-
cedent and consequent." [Anal. vol. ii. p. 8.]
In the former of these two cases, we name sensations or
ideas as like or unlike one another : (for the relations Same-
Same, Different-Different, are not, according to Mill, philo-
sophically or accurately named, the former, because no two
sensations can be the same as, but only very like, one another,
the latter, because every two sensations are different from one
another to some extent). Now — as has often been noticed
before — in saying that two sensations are like or unlike, we
merely imply that these sensations have occurred in succession
to the same mind. To have two sensations following one
another is to be conscious of a change from one to the other;
and to be conscious of a change is sensation and nothing else.
1 E.g. " a gift to my son," translated into Latin, would be "dono dedit
pater filio," &c.
SEQUENCES OF SENS A TIONS AND IDEAS. 113
Without such consciousness, the mental life would be as non-
existent as if there were no sensation at all. A sentient being
is a being with sensations in a continual state of flux, as the
old philosophers said : and being conscious of the flux is
nothing more than being subject to it. To have the sensations,
red, green, yellow, in succession, is to recognize that each of
the sensations after red is a new sensation. Similarly, to
have a sensation and an idea in succession is to know them
severally, that is, to distinguish them. Now, if after ex-
periencing the above sequence of colour-sensations, I have the
sensation of red a second time, it immediately calls up by
means of association the idea of the previous sensation of red :
I therefore have the sensation of red and the idea of red in
succession ; to have them in succession is to recognize their
difference, whether slight or considerable. In this ease the
difference is recognized as slight : and slight difference is all
that is meant by similarity. To have similar or different
sensations is, therefore, to know them as slightly or widely
different from one another. The same kind of reasoning will
equally apply to consecutive ideas of sensations, or simple
ideas. And in applying relative names to such sequences,
(whether of two sensations, of a sensation and an idea, or of
two ideas), there is nothing more involved than in the ap-
plication of the absolute names, red, green, yellow, &c. —
nothing, that is, beyond te having the sensations, having
the ideas, and making marks for them." [Anal, vol. ii.
p. 17.]
We are also in the habit of marking successive simple sen-
sations and simple ideas as following one another, or standing
to one another in the relation of antecedent and consequent.
The following mental train takes place when a sensation A
is recognized as the antecedent to a sensation B. First, sen-
sation A, next sensation V>, fhen, thirdly and necessarily, the
1
ii4 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
idea of sensation A called up by sensation B, through asso-
ciation in a certain manner: last comes Naming. When
three sensations A, B, C, follow one another in succession, the
process is (1) sensation A, (2) sensation B, (3) idea of sen-
sation A called up by sensation B, (4) sensation C, (5) idea of
sensation B called up by sensation C, (G) idea of sensation A
called up by idea of sensation B. Bub here the idea of sen-
sation A is not called up immediately by the sensation C.
Consequently the sensation A is not recognized as antecedent
to the sensation C. So we arrive at the following proposition
[Anal. vol. ii. p. 21] : " when two sensations in a train are
such that, if one exists, it has the idea of the other along with
it, hy its immediate exciting power, and not through any inter-
mediate idea, the sensation, the idea of which is thus excited,
is called the antecedent, the sensation which thus excites that
idea is called the consequent."
Next as to the relations of complex ideas ; and first as to
Sensible Complex ideas, or the ideas of external objects.
What is implied in naming these in pairs ? The modes in
which we so name them are divided by Mill into four classes,
according as we regard the members of such pairs, (1) as
havings an order in space, or (£) as having an order in time,
(3) as agreeing or disagreeing in quantity, (4) as agreeing or
disagreeing* in quality. Now just as by dropping the con-
notations of the related pairs of simple sensations and ideas,
we have arrived at the abstract relations Similarity, and Ante-
cedence and Consequence, so by first finding the concrete re-
lated pairs proper to the above four classes, and then dropping
the connotations, we shall arrive at the abstract relatives,
[Forms or Categories they would be called in other systems],
Position [and Extension], Causality, Quantity, and Quality.
With regard to Mental Complex Ideas, we may name con-
crete pairs of relatives and correlates, according as we regard
SIMILARITY. 115
the members of such pairs (1) as consisting of the same or
different simple ideas (2) as standing- to one another in the
relation of antecedent and consequent.
Taking the three classes, therefore, of sensations and ideas
above enumerated, and the Relative Terms proper to them, it
will be found that we have to show how the followino-
Abstract Relations are established, — Similarity (on which we
have already said something), Causality, Extension [Position],
Quantity, Quality [Homogeneity]. We propose to give
Mill's account of these in the above order : with Quantity we
may conveniently investigate his theory of Numbers, and
Equality ; while in considering Extension and Position we
may also consider his conception of Space as a privative term
(in contradistinction to Time, which most philosophers rank
with it as analogous), as well as his views on the subject of
Motion. Afterwards we may point out in their proper place
some observations of Hartley on Similarity and Causality,
together with their respective cognate ideas, Analogy and
Induction.
The process involved in calling two sensations like one
another has been explained. Now the abstract term Simi-
larity or Likeness must, like any other abstract term, note a
quality, and connote the objects possessing that quality. It
is easy to see what is connoted by the abstract term in this
case : it is the two sensations, or the two series of sensations, 2
compared. What is noted is that inseparable, though not
indistinguishable, part of the entire process, which consists in
comparing the two as like or unlike. Leave out the con-
noted part of the process, and retain the notative, and we get
Similarity.
2 Because the series " red, red," can be distinguished from the series
" red, green," as much as the single sensation "red" from the single
sensation " green," and in exactly the same way.
I 2
1 1 6 HA R TLB Y A ND J A MES MILL.
Next, as to Causality. Here too we must first discover the
nature of the concrete related pairs, before we can determine
that of the abstract relation. Now it is a cardinal tenet of
Mill's system that, in his own words, "all our sensations
are derived from objects And, reciprocally, all our
knowledge of objects is the sensations themselves
Therefore a knowledge of the successive order of objects is a
knowledge of the successive order of our sensations.'"' [Anal.
vol. ii. p. 37]. But it has already been shown that having
two sensations or ideas successively is the same thing as
knowing them to be successive; or rather the latter is an
inseparable and inextricable element in the whole series of
sensations or ideas contemplated as successive. This ele-
ment, which, though never isolated in fact, can be isolated in
thought, is that which is noted by the related pair, Ante-
cedent - Consequent : the rest of the process, that is, the
having the two sensations or ideas, (so far as the having them
can be distinguished from the recognition of their successive-
ness), together with the ideas or sensations themselves, is
what is connoted. Drop the connotation, and we have Suc-
cessiveness, or Priority and Posteriority (when taken together) .
It is to be observed that Priority or Posteriority alone will
not suffice, because either has a special connotation of its
own, — it connotes the other,— just as a concrete object called
prior connotes an object posterior, and vice versa. In the
case of single-worded, as opposed to double-worded pairs of
related terms, the compound names (such as Likeness-Like-
ness, Equality-Equality, Friendship-Friendship) would also
strictly be required in order to express the corresponding
abstract relations, and it is only because their use would
involve a tiresome reduplication that they are dispensed with,
and the single name used instead.
When we pair together two successive sensations or ideas,
CAUSALITY. 117
and contemplate the former as immediately, as well as con-
stantly, preceding" the latter, we use the related terms Cause-
Effect, and not merely Antecedent-Consequent. In express-
ing- the latter relation, we often find it convenient to miss or
slur over the intervening links, when they are not (as often
happens) unknown; but in determining" a causal relation, we
seek to find the immediate antecedent, and seek so pertina-
ciously that (according* to Mill) we often insist on inserting
between the real Cause and the real Effect an imaginary
Cause of our own devising, such as Power, &c, in the vain
endeavour to bring ourselves, so to speak, nearer to both the
one and the other of the two extremities of the chain of
succession.
As instances of Antecedent and Consequent, Mill very
curiously classes such pairs of related ideas as Doctor-Patient,
Father-Son, &c, any of which, when taken together, he con-
tends, makes up a complex idea consisting of a long chain of
ideas of which Doctor or Father, &c, is the " terminus, a quo,"
and Patient or Son, &c, the " terminus ad quern." Two
brothers, or Brother-Brother, mark a still more complex idea,
being- equivalent to a train of ideas taken twice over, the
prior extremity the Father being the same in the two cases, the
latter extremity different. There are a large variety of paired
names, which represent more or less long trains of ideas
between, and including, the two extremities noted by them.
In the relation First-Last, the extremities are as far as pos-
sible distant from one another: in Father-Son, Owner-Pro-
perty, Guardian-Ward, &c, they are still very distant : in
Prior-Posterior, they may be any distance from one another.
But the peculiarity of Cause-Effect is that the extremi-
ties are in juxtaposition. The chain therefore consists of
the extremities only, and there is either no link between
them, or, if so, its existence is unknown. This pair there-
n8 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
fore of concrete interrelated terms notes immediate (and
constant) juxtaposition in the way of succession, of two sen-
sations or ideas, or of a sensation and idea ; and it connotes
those sensations or ideas which are contemplated as thus
immediately (and constantly) successive. Leave out the
connotation, and we get that which is represented by the
abstract relative compound term, Causingness (or Causa-
tiveness)-Causedness, or the corresponding single name,
Causality or Causation.
As we apply the terms Antecedent-Consequent, Cause-
Effect to those ideas of clusters of sensations called external
objects ; so also do we apply them to those clusters of ideas in
the formation of which the mind takes a more active share :
" thus we say that Evidence is the cause of Belief, or Vil-
lainy of Indignation." [Anal. vol. ii. 67]. Thoughts, as
well as things, may be regarded as standing to one another in
an order of succession, or in a causal relation. For in any
train of ideas — and, in Mill's opinion, there cannot be more
than one train present at the same time to the same individual
— thoughts succeed one another ; — each thought is therefore,
at all events, the proximate antecedent to the rest. But can
we say that it is also the constant antecedent — for constant
as well as proximate antecedence is necessary to causation —
in face of the fact that different minds have different series of
ideas, notwithstanding that the starting-point may be the
same ? We can, answers Mill, for this reason. Our trains
of feelings do not consist only of ideas, but of sensations also ;
and those sensations are impressed by surrounding objects
and contemporary events, the number and different orders
and relations of which are infinite, and independent of our
volition in the great majority of cases. This will be sufficient
to account for the variety of trains starting from the same
idea in different minds. The degree of force possessed by the
POSITION AND EXTENSION. 119
initial idea in suggesting its particular successor may still,
for all we know, be constant ; but it so happens that the
results are various, because other factors and influences unite
with that idea to moderate its operation. Of these factors
James Mill has mentioned sensations alone, but he might just
as well have added ideas, since, as J. S. Mill points out, the
mind is never completely occupied by a single idea ; and also
the constitution, formed habits, and temporary state of the
mind to which the series is present. But these qualifications,
though they would have left intact the statement that one
antecedent idea, if unmodified by other circumstances, must
inevitably produce the same consequent idea in every mind —
would have very much weakened, indeed utterly destroyed,
the value of the proposition for purposes of psychological
analysis. It is all very well to tell a marksman . that, if no
other laws were to act in company with the First Law of
Motion, his arrow would inevitably hit the bull's-eye. The
proposition is true, but trivial. So here.
Thus much, then, on the causal relation between successive
thoughts. The relation called Position, and the cognate rela-
tion of Extension, next demand attention. As before, the
related concrete terms must be determined before the relation.
Examples of such related terms are naturally among the
most familiar to us of any — High-Low, Right-Left, North-
South, Behind- Before, &c. These cannot be defined except
in terms involving the thing to be defined. But that which
cannot be defined so as to avoid a circle may, notwith
standing, often be conveniently described in other ways, for
the purpose of bringing its meaning home to us with clear-
ness.
The Synchronous differs from the Successive Order, — Space
from Time, — in one very important respect. The latter is
always, as it were, in one direction ; and when a series of sue-
120 HARTLEY AND J A MES MIL L .
cessive events is represented figuratively in terms of space, no
other symbol can be used but that of a line : whereas objects
in synchronous order can stand to one another in several
other relations than that of Lineness or Linth. 3 But as being"
in a line with one another is the simplest of all spatial rela-
tions between objects, let us examine what this is a little
more closely. If we take a single particle of matter as centre,
and attach to it another particle, we get the most elementary
case of synchronous order. Add to these successive particles
along the direction of the same radius, and we still have the
same relation between the various component particles of the
line thus formed, which will be of greater or less length,
according to the number of the particles. Now the name of
this supposed physical line notes, according to Mill, the par-
ticles of which it is composed, and connotes the direction. On
taking away the connotation, we get the abstract relation, for
which some such name as Lineness is required. If we then
attach to the imaginary central particle other particles not
only along the direction of one radius, but along those of
every possible radius, an analogous account may be given of
the abstract relations of Figure and Bulk. The Position of
any given particle will be its order in relation to the central
and every other particle in the mass.
It remains to inquire, what are the sensations which give
the cognition of sj^nchronous order. They are, according to
Mill, tactual and muscular. And in the very complex idea of
3 These are the terms that Mill coins, to avoid, as he says, the ambi-
guity of the double use of the word Liue, first to represent a concrete and
physical, secondly, an abstract or mathematical line. It is obvious that
he is here confusing two very different things, — an abstraction and an
ideal, the former representing a quality of which concrete objects of a
class are all more or less in possession, the latter a limit to which they
more or less nearly approach. This confusion vitiates Mill's whole
theory of spatial relations.
SPACE. 121
muscular resistance is included at least tins much : — the will
to move the muscles, the exertion of that will, and certain
sensations in those muscles, in virtue of which we call an
object hard or soft, resisting- or non-resisting-. These, then,
are the sensations capable of being- derived by a sentient being
from any particle of matter. Now let us take our central
particle again, and the radius of which that particle forms
one extremity ; and let us suppose a person endowed only
with tactual and muscular sensibility (in order to exclude
foreign and non-essential conditions) to be brought in contact
with the aggregate of particles composing the line in ques-
tion. Then such a person, just as he would have two different
states of feeling- according- as the finger touching the line was
still or in motion, or according- as the motion of his finger
was slow or swift, so would he have two different states of
feeling-, according as the finger moved along the whole line or
only along half of it. And thus it is that " after certain
repetitions of particular tactual sensations, and particular
muscular sensations, received in a certain order, I give to
the combined ideas of them this name Line. But when I have
got my idea of a line, I have also got my idea of extension.
For what is extension, but lines in every direction ? " [Anal.
vol. ii. p. 34]. The explanation of Plane Surface is analogous.
It is to be remembered that we never perceive objects
except in space, that is, except in the synchronous order.
Position therefore becomes so inseparably associated with the
idea of any object, that belief in the necessity of the relation
of space has thereby, and thereby only, according to Mill,
been engendered. It will be convenient now to examine the
supposed necessity, and generally the nature of that which we
call space.
Space is held by Mill to be not an abstract relative, but an
abstract privative term. By "privative" terms Mill really
122 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
means negative: (the term "privative" being properly limited
to indicate the absence of some element or quality usually
present in an object and necessary to its completeness as such
object) ; and in the ensuing exposition, to avoid misunder-
standing, we shall use the term " negative. "
In the idea of an object, (such as Light, Sound, Know-
ledge) is included the idea of its existence, or the belief that a
sentient organism existing at such and such a time and place
would have certain sensations or ideas. In using the corre-
sponding negative terms (Darkness, Silence, Ignorance) we
couple with the idea of the object the idea that such an
organism would not have those sensations or ideas at any
time or place, or at all events at the time and place to which
we refer the term. Now the latter idea, — its association with
the former being, so to speak, strained and violent, — is forced
into a prominence which overshadows it ; whereas, in making
use of the corresponding positive terms, we find that the idea
of the object so completely absorbs the accompanying idea of
its existence, that we should never, except on careful analysis,
notice that the former idea co-exists with the latter at all.
The comparatively small number of negative terms in a
language is accounted for, in the same way as the com-
parative paucity of relative terms, by reference to the princi-
ples of convenience which led men to name only what was
most important to name, — (though some languages, the ancient
Greek for instance, are richer in negative terms than others).
From the above distinction between Presence-affirming and
Absence-affirming Names, Mill devises a simple explanation
of those bugbears of the ancient, to whom we may add some
modern, philosophers, Being, Nothing, &c. From the notion
that a name must represent some positive existence, " to
fX7]8ev " and the like, have often been elevated to the rank of
Substances and Entities of much mysterious importance. It
SPACE. 123
is true that even Nothing- must name something ; but what
it names is the idea of Everything — all possible objects —
coupled with the idea of their non-existence. 4
On these principles Mill proceeds to expound the somewhat
more complex negative idea of Emptiness, which is the idea
of Fulness together with the idea of its absence. But the idea
of the absence of Fulness Mill shows, by a curious process of
reasoning, to be equivalent to the abstract name corresponding
to "solid extended body " or "bulk." For the ideas of linear,
superficial, and solid extension are in each case the ideas of
linear, superficial, and solid surfaces or bodies, with their con-
notation (which in each case is Resistance) dropped. But in
the last case of " bulk " or i( solid extended body,' - ' we obtain a
strange result; — we seem, in dropping the connotation of the
idea Resistance, to drop everything that constitutes the idea.
This, however, is not so : we have remaining the place for
Bulk, namely Position, or Space with a limitation. If we
drop the connotation of infinitely extended solid bodies, we get
the abstract term Infinite Space.
It will be seen from the above account that, in defining such
notions as Nothing, Space, &c, Mill seems to hesitate whether
he shall call them abstract names derived from concretes in
the ordinary way, or negative ideas, equivalent to the ideas of
the corresponding positive terms coupled with the idea of
their absence. It cannot clearly be gathered from his expo-
sition, whether he regards Space as the abstract term corre-
sponding to all concrete extended objects, or, like Emptiness,
* J. S. Mill here points out the insufficiency of this explanation, ni d
says (what is unquestionably true) that negative terms do signify some-
thing positive : they signify a state of consciousness : Silence, for example,
a state of consciousnes, when there is no sound affecting the organs of
hearing, and Nothing a state of consciousness when we are not affected
by sensations from any object.
124 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
to be the negative of au idea of infinitely extended bulk. To
have said, with J. S. Mill, that it is the ideal negative of an
ideal positive would have been the simpler and truer way out
of the difficulty : but he was precluded from taking' this course
by his peculiar and rather confused views on the subject of
abstract terms.
Mill concludes his observations on Space by a neat summary
of the various indissoluble associations which combine to en-
gender and form our ideas of that abstraction. " First of all
with the idea of every object, the idea of position or place is
indissolubly united. Secondly, with the idea of position or
place, the idea of extension is indissolubly united. Thirdly,
with the idea of extension the idea of infinity is indissolubly
united. 5 Fourthly, by the unfortunate ambiguity of the
Copula " [see above, ch. iii.] " the idea of existence is indisso-
lubly united with Space, as with other abstract terms." And
all these elements, the ideas of Position, Extension, Infinity,
and Existence, " forced into combination, by irresistible
association, constitute the idea o£ Space." [Anal. vol. ii.
pp. 114, 115].
Intimately connected with Space is Motion. It is also, as
appears on analysis, closely related to Time. It is the abstract
name corresponding to the concrete " moving body," the idea
of the body being dropped, and the idea of that which con-
stitutes it a moving body being retained. Now the idea of a
moving body comprises the following ideas (1) the idea of a
line, whether straight or otherwise ; since every moving body
6 In this way: we can never think of a finite line, surface, &C, without
thinking of something heyond it, just as we can never think of an event
without the idea of its antecedent or consequent heing hrought up, or of a
numher without thinking of one more heyond it. Infinity is, therefore,
that state of consciousness in which the idea of something heyond is asso-
ciated with the idea of any given finite line, surface, or hulk, &c.
MO TION— TIME. 1 2 5
must move in a line of some sort, — (2) the idea of a body, —
(.") the idea of position (or extension in every direction, which
talcen abstractly, is Space), since the particles composing- the
line have each of them position, — and (4), since the body must
move successively from one position in the line to another, the
idea of Succession, which in the abstract, coupled with the
idea of infinity, is Time.
Now how do we acquire our knowledge of moving bodies ?
Not by the sense of sight, any more than we see figure or
distance : that we imagine sight to be the source of our per-
ception of moving bodies is due, as in the other cases, solely
to association. We in fact derive the idea of moving bodies
from the same kinds of sensation as those from which we
derive our idea of extended objects, that is, from tactual and
muscular sensations. If we touch a (physical) line at any one
point we experience the sensations in virtue of which we call
it tangible. If we move our finger along the line we have the
sensations (tactual and muscular) and the ideas — (for in all
cases of succession, the ideas of past sensations must co-exist
with or rather follow immediately upon present sensations) —
in virtue of which we call it extended. But these are the
very sensations and ideas in virtue of which we call our finger
a moving body. So that according as we regard the object
or the finger principally, we have the idea Object Extended,
or the idea Finger Moving. Drop the connotation, and
the result is the abstract name Extension, on the one hand,
and the abstract name Motion on the other, [that is the four
elements mentioned above, excluding* the second].
The term Quantity is, like the others, an abstract relative
term. The concrete related terms corresponding to it are As-
Great, So-Great, Quantus, Tantus. These are equivalent to
Equal-Equal. Then what use have the former terms? If
they had no use, says Mill, somewhat gloomily, it would not
120 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL,
be surprising-, " considering by whom languages have been
made/' But in the present case there is a use. In the pair
of related terms Equal-Equal, either may be taken as the
standard of the other. But of the other pair, Quantus must
always stand for the measure of Tantus. Quantitas then, if it
had kept its original meaning, would (dropping the conno-
tation of Quantus, which has reference to some specific body
taken as a standard) involve the idea of some amount of body
being taken as the standard of some other body ; and it would
thus connote Tantitas, just as Priority connotes Posteriority.
But the idea so implied has been dropped, and there has been
substituted for it the idea of some amount of body being taken
as the standard of all other bodies ; or rather, not even this
has been permanently substituted, but Quantity has at length
become an absolute, instead of a relative, abstract term ; and
is used to represent any portion of extension, weight, number,
heat, or anything, in fact, which can be measured by a part
of itself.
What do we mean when we use the terms More-Less,
Longer-Shorter, &c. ? Such names may be applied to a variety
of things, the simplest of which to take, for purposes of ex-
planation, is Extension. Tactual and muscular sensations give
lis the line. We have certain sensations of this kind in ex-
tending the arm a certain distance, and certain other sensations
of this kind in extending it further. To have these different
sensations in succession is to recognize their difference. Having
recognized the difference, we find it important to name it.
The pair of sensations are accordingly named in relation to one
another Shorter-Longer. So of superficies, and bulk. When
we apply the terms Part- Whole to objects, the idea of division
is involved. The term Division when applied to a physical
line comprises the ideas of the feelings of contraction of the
muscles, and resistance after the contraction (the act of
Q U AN TIT V— NUMBER. 1 27
dividing'), the idea of the sight of the line before division (the
antecedent of the act), and the idea of the sight of the line
after division (the consequent of the act) . It is found con-
venient to assign a pair of related terms to the antecedent and
consequent above indicated ; the former we call the whole line,
the latter the part of it. Whole and Part, of course, connote
each other. Taken together they make a complex idea in-
volving the three stages or elements of the above process.
The same remarks hold good [mutatis mutandis) in the cases
of Surface and Bulk. The division, of course, need not be
physical in all cases : it may be imagined.
Similar reasoning applies also to Weight, Heat, &c. ' ' More
heavy, " Less heavy," are names given to objects from which
we have derived separate and successive sensations differing
from one another by the more or less muscular resistance, in
a particular direction, which they involve. " More or less
muscular resistance " must, it would thus appear, be accepted
as ultimate and unanalyzable. Whether any very important
object is gained by stating the expression " more or less
heavy" in other terms — for that is what the alleged anal}'sis
comes to — may very well be doubted. It is true, as J. S.
Mill says, that this, like all other relations of quantity, exists
only as it is felt, — and to this extent James Mill's descrip-
tion, rather than explanation, is important — but it must be
understood that differences of quantity are really irreducible,
however much we may choose to translate them into different
language.
Mill's conception of Numbers proceeds faithfully upon the
foregoing lines. He does not regard them as the names of
objects, but as expressing and naming a process, — the process
of addition, of putting one object to another. "One" is
merely the name of this operation once performed ; " two," of
the operation once more performed ; " three," of the operation
128 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
once more performed, and so on. Mill seems to have been
quite unconscious that, in this account, he was interpreting
the thing- by itself. It may be, however, that he meant the
above as a description, not as an analysis. But, if so, he ought
to have recognized, more emphatically than he has, the ulti-
mate character of numbers ; and not have left his statement,
that there is nothing mysterious about numbers, open to the
construction — " there is nothing unanalyzable about num-
bers." Of course, in one sense, there is nothing mysterious
about them, any more than there is about Time, Space, an
Idea, or a Sensation ; that is, we all know when we experience
a sensation, or have an idea, and what is the difference between
walking one mile and ten, and what is the distinction between
missing a train and catching it. But in the only other sense
which the word "mysterious" can bear in this connexion,
namely, that of ultimateness, Numbers — judging from the
fact that Mill himself is driven to define them in a circle —
are "mysterious/'
Numbers (Two, Three, Four, &c.) connote, says Mill, the
objects to which these numerals are applied. When we drop
the connotation we get the corresponding abstract names ;
but, unfortunately, there is only one name for both the con-
cretes and the abstracts. When we say, " two roses and
three roses are five roses/' we use the concrete names ; when
we say, "two and three are five," we drop the connotation,
and retain only the idea of the process ; and it would be more
correct to say, " twoness and threeness are fiveness." It will
strike the reader that in this, as in other instances, Mill has
formed a wrong conception of abstract names. Numerals are
always concrete names.
The ordinal numbers (First, Second, Third, &c.) note a
certain position, (if the objects, one of which is described in
relation to the others, are in synchronous order), a certain
QUALITY.- 129
link (if they are in the successive order) : they connote the ob-
ject which has the position, or forms the link. The abstract
term is derived in the ordinary way from the concrete.
Quality is the last metaphysical category, or (to keep to
Mill's own phraseology) abstract relative term, which has to
be discussed. Qualities of objects are the names of the
sensations which we derive from them — (the name "quality"
notes this much) — and also of the unknown causes of these
sensations — (and this is the connotation). We know about
objects only the sensations, the effects, but we suppose a
cause to produce these effects, owing" to what some would call
a mental instinct, others a " category," or law of thought,
others, the actual independent existence of the Cause, but
what Mill would ascribe to the working of association, and
association only.
There are, it is to be observed, two kinds of qualities,
strictly speaking : there is that kind, in virtue of which we
say that an object has a certain colour, form, consistency, &c.
— the " sensible" quality : and there is also that kind, in
respect of which we are not properly said to derive our sensa-
tions from the objects themselves, which possess them, but
from certain powers or properties in the objects. Thus, when
we say that aqua regia dissolves gold, or has a gold-dissolving
quality, the aqua regia is not itself the immediate antecedent
of my sensation, but is one remove from it. The order
is : Antecedent, aqua regia ; Consequent, gold dissolved by
aqua regia; Second Consequent, myself perceiving the gold
so dissolved. But, in the other sense of the word " quality,"
the object is not distinct from its qualities : beyond the
qualities, it is nothing.
Qualities, in this latter sense, are, as we have seen, the
sensations which we derive from the objects, together with
the association of their ideas with the idea of something as the
K
1 10 HA RTLEY A ND J A MES MIL L .
cause. This something turns out, on analysis, to be nothing
but sensations regarded as antecedent to those experienced
by us at any moment from an object. When I am affected
by any object, say, through the sense of smell, I associate
with the idea of such sensation the ideas of the sensations of
colour, figure, size, weight, position, &c, which I imagine
myself capable of deriving from the object, and presuppose
their indissoluble union. And this is all that really takes
place in the mind, according to Mill, during a supposed
reference of sensations to an unknown cause, or to the object
as their cause, however much we may be led by the perma-
nent illusions of association to fancy otherwise*
When we affirm that one object is Talis-Qualis another — ■
of like nature with another — we mean that we derive from
the two objects like sensations, — whether of one kind only
(that is, in respect of one quality), or of several (that is, in
respect of several qualities) , or of all those kinds which we are
capable of deriving from the objects compared (that is, entirely,
or in respect of all the qualities which constitute the object,
excepting only the relation of dimension). 6 And what having
like sensations is, has already been shown.
Talis-Qualis, then, are names applied to objects in respect
of every kind of sensation derivable from them, except that
of dimension. And they differ from Like-Like in the one
peculiarity, in which Tantus-Quantus differ from Equal-
Equal, — that is, the objects denoted by Qualis and Quantus
are always taken as standards, whereas in the case of the
other two pairs either member is the measure of the other.
The abstract name Quality is formed in exactly the same
way as the abstract name Quantity. Qualitas, moreover,
(like Quant itas, and all relative, as distinguished from
6 For which a special pair of related terms, viz., Tantus, Quantus, has
•been invented.
QUALITY. 131
ordinary, abstract terms) did originally connote something-,
namely Talitas, its abstract correlate : but from its having
been from the beginning employed to express first one feature
in an object which required to be specially marked, and then
another, the term acquired in its rapid locomotion a migra-
tory tendency, so to speak, which eventually enabled it to
slip the bonds imposed by its original connexion with its
correlate, and it thus became " the generical name. of every-
thing in objects, for which a separate notation is required."
[Anal. vol. ii. p. 60.]
Mental, as well as sensible, complex ideas can, when put
together in pairs, be contrasted as same or different, like
or unlike, &c. We call them by these names, when the
members of any such pair are composed of like or unlike
simple ideas. 7 And what it is to call two simple ideas like or
unlike, has been seen already.
We may even style one complex idea greater than another,
as when we say that the delicacy of Portia is greater than
that of Antigone, or the statesmanship of Julius Caesar than
that of Charlemagne. We make such quantitative compari-
sons on analogous grounds to those, on which we call three
yards greater than two. Just as in using the latter expres-
sion, we mean that one yard would have to be put to two, in
1 Or because there would have to be added to, or subtracted from, the
idea of one member of the pair, some generically different idea or ideas,
in order to make it like the other of the two complex ideas compared: e.g.
to the idea of a horse has to be added the idea of wings in order to con-"
stitute that of a Pegasus : from the idea of a man has to be subtracted
the idea of an eye, and other ideas substituted, in order to frame the idea
of a Cyclops : from the idea of Firmness the idea of sound judgment bus
to be subtracted, in order to establish the idea of Obstinacy. It is for this
reason only that we call the sensible complex ideas Horse, Mail, and the
mental complex idea, Firmness, different from the mental complex ideas,
Pegasus, Cyclops, Obstinacy, respectively.
K 2
132 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
order to produce in us the same muscular and tactual sensa-
tions which we experience in moving our finger along a
physical line of three yards in length : so, in the former
mode of speech, we mean that further ideas of states-
manlike qualities would require to be added to, or asso-
ciated with, those suggested by the name of Charlemagne, in
order to realize or come up to the combination of qualities,
which we connect with the idea of the character of Julius
Caesar.
Hartley does not formally discuss Qualities, and the cognate
relative terms so elaborately handled by his successor. His
incidental remarks, indeed, on this head show him to have
been (as far as he went) substantially at one with Mill. His
analysis, however, was not very penetrating or detailed. The
general conception of Quality was common to the two philo-
sophers, though Hartley puts his case in a somewhat different
form from that of Mill. He lays down that the explanation
of the assent to the proposition, " Gold is soluble in aqua
regia," is that the idea of gold has come to suggest the idea
of solution in aqua regia, and vice versa. (Observ. on Man,
vol. i. p.' 329). This is tantamount to saying, with Mill,
that the name "solubility in aqua regia" notes the specific
quality, and connotes the other properties of gold, from
which we derive sensations, regarded as the antecedent or
cause of that specific quality. Hartley, however, makes no
distinction between such propositions as the above, and such
as " milk is white," &c, which Mill carefully marks off from
one another; and therefore presumably would not discrimi-
nate between the kind of quality called whiteness in milk,
and the kind of quality, or power, called gold-dissolving in
aqua regia, or solubility by aqua regia in gold.
In connexion with the subject of Quality, we ought not to
omit to mention Hartley's observations on a relation which
INDUCTION—ANALOG Y— HYPOTHESIS. 1 33
is intimately bound up with that of Similarity in Qualities,
namely Analogy.
Hartley uses the term Induction as equivalent to a higher
type of analogical reasoning. When we see a piece of coal
before us, and observe that the sensations in us (and, there-
fore, qualities in the object) of Form, Colour, Consistency,
&c, are mostly similar to those derived from, or noticeable in,
other pieces of coal, we immediately infer that, if fire be
applied to it, it will burn and be reduced to ashes. Such an
inference is grounded on what Hartley calls " the highest
probability, which may be termed induction, in the strict
sense of the word." But when the qualities, in respect of
which the similarity between the objects is observed, are com-
paratively few, we call the process analogy and not induction.
In science Analogy can only be admitted provisionally, and
where induction is impossible. " Coincidence in mathematical
matters, and induction in others, wherever they can be had,
must be sought for as the only certain tests of truth " [vol. i.
p. 343]. Hartley's view of analogical inference as that mode
of reasoning, whereby we argue that, where A has one or
more of its properties or qualities similar to one or more of
the properties or qualities of B, therefore A will resemble B
in some or all of their remaining qualities, coincides very
nearly with J. S. Mill's account of one of his modes of the
argument from analogy.
On Hypothesis (which does not come within Mill's scheme,
and would probably have been relegated by him to the " Book
of Logic," which he mentions in the last page of his "Analysis,"
as distinct from analytical psychology), Hartley, who in
this, as in so many other matters, follows Newton, makes a
number of sound observations. He notices its different kinds ;
the provisional hypothesis, awaiting tests and " experiments
crucis," before its validity can be established, and the hypo-
134 HARTLEY A ND J A MES MILL .
thesis sanctioned by analogies, but not yet elevated to the
rank of an ascertained law : he distinguishes also between
that form of hypothesis, in which the supposed cause is a real
one, or is known to operate in the natural world, while its
causal connexion with the phenomenon to be explained is
assumed, and that other form, wherein the effect is known,
and the law governing- it, but the cause (e.g. an impon-
derable a?ther in astronomy) is assumed, though not met with
among physical phenomena. In connexion with this branch
of his subject he shrewdly remarks — (what has since been
observed by Faraday, and other scientific men most compe-
tent to judge from their own experience) — the dangerous
fascination of a hypothesis which has once been allowed to
dwell in the mind, and explains it on principles of association.
" The ideas, words, and reasonings belonging to the favourite
hypothesis by recurring and being much agitated in the
brain, heat it, unite with each other, and so coalesce in the
same manner, as genuine truths do from induction and
analogy" [vol. i. p. 3-16]. Tn this statement is wrapped up
a warning especially useful in these days of hypothesis run
mad. On much the same principle Mill, as we shall see
below, explains the operation of the Will, and of a desired
End in connexion therewith, as giving rise to action.
In Hartley's interesting, but somewhat ill-arranged " farrago
libelli/' we are constantly coming across matters and hints
which take us by surprise. Here, for instance, at the end of
the section on " Propositions and the Nature of Assent," we
somewhat unexpectedly meet with a topic, which has had an
important place in the systems of various philosophers from
Plato to Mr. Herbert Spencer and Comte, namely, the Classi-
fication of the Sciences. Hartley's division is rudimentary,
of course, but not withoiit interest, as reflecting his general
views. He distributes knowledge in general into seven
leading branches. The first of these is significant as an illus-
HARTLEY ON THE SCIENCES. 135
tration of the belief, common to him with Mill, in the import-
ance of names. Under Philology, or the knowledge of words
and their significations, he places together, oddly enough,
Grammar, Criticism, Rhetoric, and Poetry. In ancient
treatises on Poetry (as in Aristotle's Eoetica), there is cer-
tainly a good deal of grammatical disquisition; but we should
scarcely have expected from Hartley an arrangement so un-
scientific, as to include in one class of science both Grammar
and Poetry. The second branch is Mathematics or the doc-
trine of Quantity; the third Logic, which he defines, quite in
the Baconian manner, as the art of using words as symbols,
("as counters, not as coin," Hobbes would say), for the
purpose of discovery in all departments of knowledge. Logic
presupposes the two foregoing classes to some extent. The
fourth branch is Natural History, which he terms, as Bacon
again termed it, " regular and well-digested accounts of the
phenomena of the natural world." Civil History is the next,
(in which are comprised histories proper of every kind), followed
by Natural Philosophy, which depends upon the application
of Mathematics and Logic to Civil and Natural History, with
a view to the determination of the laws on which the external
and physical world is governed, and thereby the acquisition of
Foreknowledge and Power, or the means of predicting and
producing phenomena. The seventh and last sphere of know-
ledge is Divine Philosophy, or Religion, which treats of,
amongst other things, the Summum Bonum, the highest end
of life, and, as such, includes Ethics and Politics, and even
(Hartley appears to hint) may, through the conception of
Pinal Cause, be applied with advantage even to the analysis
and interpretation of natural phenomena. The insertion of
this last branch of science serves to show us how widely diffe-
rent Hartley's standpoint was from that of Mill, in relation
to ethical, political, and generally to practical speculations.
1 36 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL
CHAPTER VII.
THE "ACTIVE POWERS " OF THE HUMAN MIND.
We now come to an entirely new section of the Association
Theory, that, namely wherein are discussed our sensations and
ideas, not merely as existing 1 in our minds, but in their effect
upon action. We have done with the intellectual faculties
and phenomena, and now come to the moral energies or active
phenomena, of human nature. 1 And in the Association system
of philosophy, as in all others, we shall see that the practical
doctrines follow closely the lines of the theoretical.
Sensations may he either pleasurable, painful, or indifferent.
They are known to be such only as they are felt : they are
distinguished from one another in the feeling" them, and by
no other process. We do not, however, attach so much im-
portance to our ideas of the pleasurable and painful sensations
as we do to the causes of them, because, as Mill says, the
sensations, so to speak, " provide for themselves," whereas it
is of the greatest interest to us to discover their causes or
constant antecedents in order that we may learn how to pro-
duce or remove them, according as the sensations consequent
upon them are pleasurable or painful. Moreover, the conse-
1 " Active phenomena of Thought " is a very loose expression : but it
is obvious what Mill means by it. Instead of intellectual and active phe-
nomena, Hobbes expressed the distinction by the terms, Cognitive and
Motive Powers.
DESIRE AND A VERSION. 137
quent sensations are not nearly so numerous or various as
their actual and possible antecedents. These considerations
are sufficient to account for the absorbing' attention paid by
us to the antecedents of sensations, whether proximate or
remote, and for the fact of the association between the sensa-
tions and the causes throwing- the interest so heavily on to
the side of the latter, as even to lessen or completely obliterate
the interest originally attached exclusively to the former, — a
phenomenon instanced by the familiar case of the miser.
Ideas of pleasurable or of painful sensations are, like the
sensations themselves, known only by being experienced.
They are respective^ identical with those states to which we
give the names of Desire and Aversion. To have the idea of
a pleasurable sensation is, according to Mill, one and the same
thing as to have a desire for it : to have the idea of a painful
sensation one and the same thing as to have an aversion to it.
But these two expressions are also, by an ambiguity of lan-
guage, applied to our ideas of the causes of the sensations, as
well as those of the sensations themselves. We are said to
have a desire for water, when in reality, the object is indiffe-
rent except in producing relief from thirst, the pleasure of
which relief is what we in fact desire. From the fact that
the names which, in strictness, belong only to the ideas of the
sensations are (through association) transferred to the ideas
of their antecedent, Hartley explains the derivative character
of all intellectual pleasures and pains, which, in his scheme,
are those of ambition, self-interest, sympathy, theopathy, and
the moral sense. The " originals" which we really or pri-
marily desire are sensible pleasures, but out of our secon-
dary interest in the associated causes of these pleasures, are
gradually generated independent desires for the "intellectual"
pleasures. \Observ. on Man, vol. i. pp. 416, 417.]
The idea, then, of a pleasurable or painful- sensation is the
138 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
same thing" as the desire for, or aversion to it, together with a
eonnotative reference to the absence of the sensation, the idea
of which is in our minds. The absence may be either because
the sensation is past, or because it is to come, — generally the
latter; Desire and Aversion however are the only terms in
use to express both the one and the other of these two
possible cases. It follows that the number of our desires and
aversions is equal to the number of our pleasurable and painful
sensations.
When a pleasurable or painful sensation is contemplated
as future, but not as certainly about to be experienced, the
state of consciousness with which it is regarded is called Hope
or Fear. When such sensations are contemplated as certainly
about to be felt, the states of consciousness, with which they
are respectively regarded, may be described (though unsatis-
factorily) by the terms Joy and Sorrow. When such sensa-
tions are contemplated as past, the attitude of the mind is
almost neutral. But besides the sensations, the causes of
those sensations, may be regarded either as past or future. If
as past, the idea or thought of them, unlike that of the sensa-
tions in an analogous case, is called Antipathy or (less con-
veniently) Hatred, in the case of past causes of painful, and
Sympathy or Love (both most inexact terms) in the case of
past causes of pleasurable, sensations. If as future and cer-
tain, the state of consciousness is termed Hatred, Horror, or
Aversion in the one case, and Joy in the other : if as future
and uncertain, the state of consciousness is called Dread in the
one case, and Hope in the other. The reason of our regard-
ing with such interest the past causes of past sensations,
while we look back with comparatively tranquil feelings on
the past sensations themselves, is to be found partly in those
associations to which allusion has already been made, but
principally in that particular form of it, whereby the thought
CAUSES OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 139
of a past antecedent and consequent is no sooner raised in us,
than the mind becomes, so to speak, possessed with the idea
of the relation of antecedent and consequent in its generic
character, and divested of any limitation as to time, and so
passes naturally, and even irresistibly, to the idea of future
antecedents and consequents. Then from the idea of a future
antecedent of a painful sensation, it arrives finally at the idea
of a future painful sensation : " and thus the feeling- partakes
of the nature of the anticipation of a future painful sensation."
[Anal., vol. ii. p. 202]. The cause of a past pleasurable sen-
sation is, it is to be observed, not so attractive an object of
contemplation and reminiscence, as the cause of a past painful
sensation is a revolting and disagreeable one ; and that because
the sensation itself in the former case is not so pungent as in
the latter. But of course the cause of the extinction of a past
pain is often a subject of the most livgly and absorbing in-
terest.
Just as the causes of pleasures and pains are more inte-
resting, for the reasons already given, than the pleasures and
pains themselves ; so the remote causes of them are often
more interesting than the proximate, — both for the same rea-
sons, and owing to this further fact, that the more remote
causes, such as Money, necessarily carry with them a larger
number of associated ideas of pleasures and pains ; since they
are associated primarily with all the proximate causes of them
(Money, for instance, with Food, Health, Comfort, Power,
Art, &c), and through each of these mediately with several
sets and combinations of sensations. After these preliminary
remarks, Mill discusses the different causes of our own plea-
sures and pains in separate classes. Wealth, Power, and
Dignity have this feature in common, that they all advance
our happiness as instruments in securing for us the good
offices of our fellow-men, and hardly at all in any other way.
1 40 HARTLEY A ND J A MES MILL.
In the achievement of these results, Wealth operates mainly
through the opportunities which it affords of rewarding 1 others ;
Power (according- to Mill) through the opportunities which it
affords of inflicting evils and imposing burdens on others ;
while Dignity expresses " all that in and about a man which
is calculated to procure him the services of others, without
the immediate application of reward or of fear/ 5 together with
(though in a less marked degree) a disposition to make a
good use of Wealth and Power (which is Virtue) , and Know-
ledge and Wisdom, which enable him to direct the disposition
into proper channels. All the three conditions above enume-
rated procure for their possessor respect and admiration even
beyond the sphere of their operation, or of the possibility of
their operation. This noticeable fact — which other schools of
philosophy would explain on other grounds, and instance as
justifying a deduction of the phenomena in question from
anti-selfish principles —Mill, of course, regards as only another
example and effect of association. We associate the idea of
the power of doing good and harm enjoyed by other persons,
with the idea of pleasurable and painful sensations inflicted in
the exercise of that power; and with this latter idea is asso-
ciated the thought of such sensations inflicted on ourselves :
and; though this association may be only momentary, yet even
a momentary association — one no sooner formed than for-
gotten — may be such as to give "its whole character to a
phenomenon of the human mind •" since, according to the
theory which Mill emphatically endorses and repeats in this
connexion, there can be no idea present to the mind without
at least a momentary belief in its existence.
The opposites of the above causes of pleasures, namely,
Poverty, Weakness, and Contemptibility, admit of the same
analysis.
The Affections, or the feelings, with which we regard the
WEAL TH—PO WER— DIGNITY. 1 4 1
above causes of pleasures and pains, whether as past or as
future — unfortunately we have no names to distinguish affec-
tions according as they refer to the one or the other — are
named Love of Wealth, Power, Dignity, and Hatred of
Poverty, Weakness, Contemptibility. It is only in this
roundabout manner that we can express them.
When the element of comparison enters into our state of
consciousness while contemplating the above causes of pleasures
and pains (that is, when we compare the degree in which they
are enjoyed or endured by ourselves with the extent to which
they are enjoyed or endured by others), the affections called
Pride, where the comparison is favourable to ourselves, and
Humility, where it is unfavourable, are engendered. This is
where the reference is primarily to such causes as possessed by
ourselves — when the Self is the standard of comparison : when
another individual is the standard by which we measure our-
selves, the respective affections are those of Contempt and
Admiration.
On the pleasures and pains connected with the sentiments
of Power, Dignity, &c, Hartley has something to say, though,
as usual, of a descriptive, rather than a deeply analytical,
character. He does not formulate distinctions so nicely, or
dissect with so keen a scalpel, as the later philosopher. But,
under the head of the Pains and Pleasures of Ambition, he
makes some penetrating observations covering much the same
ground as Mill's treatment of Wealth, Power, and Dignity.
Of these pleasures and pains of ambition he recognizes several
varieties, according as they are referred to, and connected
with, External Advantages or Disadvantages, Bodily Per-
fections and Imperfections, Intellectual Qualities (accomplish-
ments or defects), or Moral Qualities (virtue and vice).
Under the first of these he includes riches, titles, &c, and
their opposites, most of which Mill would consider as inci-
1 42 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
dental to Wealth and Dignity ; under the second, Beauty,
Health, and Strength, which Mill would probably refer to
Power and Dignity. The last two classes speak for them-
selves; and without the one to supply the right means, and
the other the right end, Mill (as we have seen) would hardly
admit that Dignity conld properly be said to exist.
In common with Mill, Hartley is of opinion that, in seeking
the good offices and opinions of others, the primary object in
the first instance is the acquisition of the pleasures, and avoid-
ance of the pains, likely to result to us from their attitude
towards us ; 2 but that, by association, we accustom ourselves
to seek those good offices and opinions independently of im-
mediate results, and even when results of any kind are almost
or entirely beyond the range of probability or even possibility.
He takes account, accordingly, of the fact that counter-asso-
ciations may ecpially well be generated, whereby poverty,
instead of riches, low instead of high birth, may be identified
in thought with the pleasures and aims of ambition (as, for
instance, in the history of monastic orders) ; and notes that
the common element in all the pleasures of ambition, of what-
ever kind, is the prominence in their constitution of the
" videri/' as compared with the " esse," and the greater
richness of the former in the interesting associations and ideas
which it is able to bring before the mind. \_Observ. on Man,
vol. i. p. 446, sqq.] It is to be thought, not to be, rich, of
high birth, strong, beautiful, intellectual, virtuous, &c, that
men rise so early, and so late take rest — in so far at least as
they are actuated by ambition, which is all that we are at
present considering.
To be thought intellectual is considered desirable by most
-' "All the things," he writes [vol. i.' p. 455], " in which men pride
themselves, and for which the}- desire to be taken notice of by others, are
cither means of happiness, or have some near relation to it.''
HARTLEY ON AMBITION. 143
men, chiefly (says Hartley) owing- to the association in their
minds of the eagerly pronounced opinions of learned men in
their boohs to that effect, apart from a consideration of the
more obvious and external advantages accruing" from such a
reputation. Hartley seems to insinuate that the world is in
a gigantic conspiracy to suppress and degrade the dullard ;
and that, in discussing the comparative merits of ignorance
and learning, the controversy has always been entirely on one
side. While Learning has always a series of recorded opinions
with which to support its case, and so a link of association in
its favour is formed — a link which becomes stronger every day
from repetition — the dullard, on the other hand, " ex vi
termini " cannot write books himself, or plead his own cause.
Many a learned man could write a " Ship of Fools" but no
dunce can write an " 'Encomium Morice." The scholar does
it for him occasionally, but, unfortunately, only in such a way
as to show that his real object is to attack other learned men,
and not at all to elevate the fool. In his serio-comical way —
we often cannot be quite sure whether he is amusing himself
or in earnest — Hartley alludes, in this connexion, to " the
high-strained encomiums, applauses, and flatteries, paid to
parts and learning, and the outrageous contempt and ridicule
thrown upon folly and ignorance, in all the discourses and
writings of men of genius and learning " [perhaps Hartley
had been reading the Dunciad of his friend Pope] ; " these
persons being extremely partial to their own excellences, and
carrying the world with them by the force of their parts and
eloquence" [vol. i. p. 449]. In considering those kinds of
the pleasures and pains of ambition which relate to the repu-
tation of virtue or vice, it is to be noticed that Hartley, like
most of his successors in the Associationist School, universally
adopts the Sensational or Selfish theory of morals, that is to
say, the theory which derives in the last resort the love of
i 4 | HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
virtue and repugnance to vice from the desire of the real and
supposed pleasures associated with the idea of the practice of
the one, and the aversion to the real and supposed pains
associated with the idea of the practice of the other. He
maintains the reward-and-punishment doctrine of ethical
action. Thus it is the " many advantages resulting from the
reputation of being benevolent," which causes most people to
desire that reputation : and the honour in which the virtue of
Benevolence, as contrasted with that in which Piety, for
instance, is held, is explained on egoistic and utilitarian prin-
ciples combined (since it does not very clearly appear whether
the advantages spoken of are advantages to the individual
agent, or to others). Military glory he deduces from a more
exclusively utilitarian starting-point, coupled of course, with
association. Humility he divides into negative and positive,
the former being " the not thinking better, or more highly, of
ourselves than we ought," and the latter " a deep sense of our
own misery and imperfections of all kinds " [vol. i. p. 455],
and here sagaciously observes that men are often impelled by
the grossest motives of vanity and ambition to seek the re-
putation of that which contradicts it, namely, humility. 3 In
this he finds an instance of the tendency of vice to destroy
itself.
Not only are the prospects of praise or blame incentives to
or deterrents from a particular course of action or a particular
habit, but (as is acutely remarked by Hartley) it is considered
praiseworthy to be influenced by praise and blame, and cen-
surable to be unsusceptible to those influences. And thus
" praise and shame have a strong reflected influence upon
3 One is reminded of the story of Diogenes theatrically stamping on
Plato's rich carpets, with the words, " thus do I trample on the pride of
Plato ; " to which Plato retorted, " with yet greater pride yourself,
Diogenes."
HARTLE Y ON SELF-INTERES T. 145
themselves/' and " praise begets the love of praise, and shame
increases the fear of shame." The latter part, however, of
this proposition may be considered doubtful. Tt is rather to
be gathered from experience, and would certainly be supposed
a priori, that it ought to stand as the converse to the other
part, and that a succession of ignominies heaped upon a
man produces as shameless a callosity and indifference as a
succession of encomiums and rewards fosters, if it does not
engender, a refined and delicate sense of honour.
Self-Interest Hartley divides (not very philosophically) into
three kinds, Gross, Refined, and Rational. The exposition of
Gross Self-interest covers the same ground as those observa-
tions of Mill on the Love of Wealth, on which we have already
commented. It is defined as " the cool pursuit of the means
whereby the pleasures of sensation, imagination, and ambition,
are to be obtained, and their pains avoided," and he refers to
the love of money as a crucial and interesting example, both
of the pursuit of Gross Self-Interest, and of the general prin-
ciples of association. In this latter reference, his language is
almost identical with that of both the Mills, the younger of
whom relies largely on the phenomena of avarice to support
bis utilitarian theory. There can be no original desire for
money in itself. But from being regarded as the measure,
standard, and exponent of a large variety of the pleasures of
common life, it comes, by association, to signify, and stand
for, " the thing itself, the sum total of all that is desirable in
life." And so completely and rapidly is this mental process
accomplished, that even a child will prefer a piece of money,
as the symbol of a choice of pleasures deferred, to the imme-
diate fruition of any specific pleasure.
Wealth, Power, and Dignity, are only mediately the causes
of our pleasures and pains — through the intervention, that is, of
the actions and attitude towards us of our fellow-men. Having:
L
i 4 6 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL
examined Hie ultimate causes, Mill proceeds to treat of the
(relatively to them) proximate causes, of our pleasures and
pains — in a word, our Fellow-men. And with this view, he
discusses successively Friendship, Kindness, Love of Family,
of Party, of Country, of Mankind, according- to the extent of
1 he various circles and sections of humanity whose actions may
be supposed to affect our happiness. These sentiments are
expounded on principles, with which the reader by this time
will be sufficiently familiar ; and we need not stop to examine
his account in detail. Suffice it to say that in each case,
according- to Mill, the ideas of services rendered and to be
rendered, benefits derived and to be derived, pleasures enjoyed
and to be enjoyed, are associated, directly or circuitously, con-
sciously or unconsciously, but always strongly, with the ideas
of the individuals or portions of mankind who are the objects
of the sentiments in question. And the sentiments are the
outcome of, and depend for their force and durability, upon
that association.
One or two views, however, colouring all the different parts
of Mill's exposition of our Fellow-men regarded as the causes
of our pleasures and pains, should be noticed. To begin with,
Mill has a somewhat peculiar notion as to the manner in which
a person prompted to do a kind action regards a fellow-creature
in pain, or in which a Father or Husband regards his Son or
Wife, as the cause of his own pain or pleasure. His theory is
that we cannot see a man in pain, without associating with
the idea of his pain the idea of ourselves as suffering it ; that,
this latter idea being painful to us, we hasten to remove it by
removing the man's sufferings; and that it is thus only that
he can be said to be the cause of our pain, or we to be prompted
to do a kind action. This, however, can hardly be said to
answer to the experience of most men ; and J. S. Mill, in cor-
recting- the error (which, however, he is inclined to regard as
THE S YMPA THE TIC A FFECTIOA 'S. 1 47
lying 1 rather in expression than in meaning-), carefully points
out that there is probably no conscious association of the kind
described, but that the idea of another person in pain is to
most people hi itself a painful idea. Benevolent and com-
passionate impulses may be in the last resort reducible to such
an association ; but this is a different thing from saying that
it is actually experienced on each occasion of performing- kind
actions. "An association does not necessarily act in all cases,
because it exists in all cases " \_Anal. vol. i. p. 2 IS. Editor's
note] .
The Parental and Marital Affections are very minutely
analyzed : and it is shown how, apart from the parental and
sexual instincts involved in them, association contributes a
large share to their formation and development, as appears in
the case of a man rearing- orphan children, and in similar
instances, where such instincts cannot exist.
In connexion with the discussion of these affections, some
shrewd observations are to be found : as, for instance, that a .
man is prone to love the person on whom he has frequently
conferred benefits — (which is the converse of Aristotle's obser-
vation that there is something- in human nature which impels
a man to hate one from whom he has received frequent and
great benefits, and to whom he is under lasting obligations) ; —
also the remark that one among other strong incentives to a
mother to love her child is the recollection of the pains and
hopes and fears connected with parturition, (which again
corresponds to another quaint Aristotelian dictum to the effect
that maternal affection, like the artistic pride of the poet and
sculptor in his own works, is a case of the law, according- to
which that is most loved, which has been produced with the
greatest pain and anxiety). In the case; of the Family
Affections, as in that of the Love of Wealth, and the Desire
for Posthumous Fame (noticed later in the Analysis), which
148 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
seem to be the most typical illustrations, Mill draws attention
to the tendency of association to render the means more
acceptable than the end, and the disposition, by exercising 1
which wc achieve pleasures, more desirable than those pleasures
themselves.
The associations connected with the ideas of Party, Country,
or Mankind in general are merely enlargements of those con-
nected with the ideas of Family, Friends, persons in distress,
&c. Any one of the various affections dependent upon these
associations may of course militate against one or more of the
others. To subordinate them to one another properly, giving
each its just weight and proportion of influence, is to order
life well. A man may " give up to party what is meant" for
country, and to country " what is meant for mankind," — or
conversely he may give up to mankind what is meant for
country, party, friends, family, or those whose calls on his
assistance are the most immediate and urgent ; and (like the
elder Mirabeau) call himself the Friend of Man, in order to
dispense with being the friend of wife and family : in such
cases, life is ordered badly. Class-feeling, Esprit de Corps,
Party- Spirit, Codes of Honour, "honour among thieves," &c,
all these are so many recognitions of our dependence upon
some circle of our fellow-men, some portion of humanity,
wider than the limits of the domestic hearth, not only for our
pleasures and comfort, but for social, that is human, existence
itself. It is only when not corrected by the higher and
broader associations that the Spirit of Caste, devotion to
Church or Order, becomes reprehensible and, in extreme
cases, even wicked and hateful.
We have seen that Hartley divides Pleasures and Pains
into — apart from those of Imagination, which will be treated
separately in a later chapter — those of Sensation, Ambition,
Self-Interest, Sympathy, Theopathy, and the Moral Sense.
HARTLEY ON SYMPATHY. 149
This is not a very philosophical division : for, on examination,
the pleasures of Self-Interest seem to be not properly in-
cluded in the list, but rather to stand outside it, because they
are nothing" more or less than (to use Hartley's own words)
the pleasures " generated by attention to and frequent reflec-
tion upon, the things which promise us" the pleasures of
Sensation, Imagination, Ambition (in which cases the Self-
interest is gross), Sympathy, Theopathy, and the Moral Sense
(in which cases the Self-interest is refined). In fact they are
only the pleasures of the other six classes with a special
reference to the Self. The motive would thus appear to
constitute the distinction. In the one case the pleasures are
contemplated merely as attendant and consequent, as a matter
of fact, upon certain sensations and acts ; in the other, as con-
sciously pursued by the agent, in the doing of certain acts,
or the putting one's self in the way of receiving certain
sensations. So that we may pass over Hartley's Refined
Self-Interest for the present, 4 and proceed to his account of
the Pleasures and Pains of Sympathy, which covers the same
ground as Mill's theory of our Fellow-creatures regarded as
the causes of our pleasures and pains.
Hartley distributes the sympathetic affections into (1) those
by which we rejoice at the happiness of others, (2) those by
which we grieve for their misery, (3) those by which we
rejoice at their misery, (4) those by which we grieve for their
happiness. It is a somewhat over-subtle refinement which
separates the first of these classes from the second, and the
third from the fourth. Two classes are quite sufficient.
4 Rational Self-interest (as distinct from Gross and Refined) appears to
be tantamount to the judicious ordering of life as a whole, as contrasted
with the acquisition of particular pleasures, — the pursuit of happiness
instead of momentary gratifications of sense, — eudseinonism as opposed
to hedonism.
150 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
Sociality, Benevolence, Generosity, Gratitude (of which "a
lively sense of favours to come" is recognized as one con-
stituent element, though not the absolute equivalent, as in the
proverb), Compassion, and Mercy are treated under the
former of these two heads much in the same way, though not
so minutely or accurately, as they are analyzed by Mill. The
ibrce of association in producing " pure disinterested benevo-
lence" (a slightly contradictory expression in the mouth of
an Associationist) is insisted on by him, as by the later
philosopher. 5 In his remarks on Compassion and Mercy,
Hartley speaks of the sight of another's pain directly exciting-
disagreeable sensations in the percipient, which act on his
nervous system, 6 giving rise to "painful internal feelings,"
and calling up, immediately or by association, unpleasant
ideas. He nowhere resorts to the needless and artificial desire
of inferring an association between the idea of the pain of
another, and the idea of the self as suffering that pain, which
is Mill's explanation of the phenomena; and, to this extent,
he is the more satisfactory of the two. Mercy, he observes,
is a higher quality than Compassion, because it has to over-
come a repugnance founded on retributive justice or a legiti-
mate vindictiveness.
In the second of the two classes (amalgamated as above) are
comprised Moroseness, Auger, Revenge, Jealousy, Cruelty,
Malice, Emulation, and Envy. Into the ideas productive of
these tempers of mind, those (already considered) attendant
upon the Love of Power and Dignity and Wealth largely
enter. The idea of another's happiness or power, when com-
bined with accjuiescence in it, constitutes (in relation to our-
6 It is a recognition of this process which induces even Epicurus to say
of his ideal wise man, that " he will sometimes die for his friend."
6 " Persons whose nerves are easily irritable .... are, in general, more
disposed to compassion than others." [Observ. on Man, vol. i. p. 475.]
HARTLE Y ON S YAIPA TH V. 151
selves) the affection of Humility, and (in relation to the other
person, as we have seen) Respect and Admiration. But, when
not so combined, and when the Love of Power and of Dignity
is strongly developed, Envy and Jealousy are the Affections
which result. It is this Love of Power, and the ideas asso-
ciated with it, which often lead us (involuntarily, and against
our better natures) to feel that degree of complacency in con-
templating the fortunes of our friends, which the proverbial
moralizers tell us that even the best of men are apt to feel at
times.
Having discussed these varieties of the sympathetic temper,
and the share which association has in producing them, j
Hartley first notices the different materials on which sucli
tempers may be exercised ; and in his arrangement he is at one
with Mill. His analysis of the marital and parental affections
[vol. i. pp. 483 — 485] is followed closely, almost word for
word, by Mill, as also his account of Friendship, Devotion to
Country, Mankind, &c. Nothing need be added here to what
has already been said.
We have now considered (1) the proximate causes of our
pleasures and pains, namely sensations (2) the remote causes,
namely (a) Wealth, Power, and Dignity, (b) the dispositions
of our Fellow- Creatures, to which Mill here adds, (c) the acts,
as distinguished from the dispositions, of our Fellow-
creatures.' It remains now to examine in order these several
causes (whether proximate or remote), considered as conse-
quents of our oioii acts, in connexion with which the corre-
sponding Motives will come under consideration.
' Tbe remaining class of Remote Causes, namely " the objects called
Sublime and Beautiful and their Contraries," we reserve for separate con-
sideration in the chapter devoted to tbe aesthetic, as distinguished from
the intellectual and ethical, sides of the association theory represented by
Hartley and James Mill.
152 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
Mill defines Motive in the following' terms : " when the
idea of a pleasure is associated with an action of our own as
its cause ; that is, contemplated as the consequent of a certain
action of ours, and incapable of otherwise existing,
a peculiar state of mind is generated, which, as it is a tendency
to action, is properly denominated Motive/'' [Anal. vol. ii.
p. 258.] More strictly, the association above mentioned as
leading to action is the association of the idea of an action of
our own as cause, with the idea of a cause of our pleasure
(whether proximate or remote) as effect; while, as has been
already shown, the mere contemplation of the cause of our
pleasure or pain, whether past or future, when regarded as
independent of our own actions, is called Affection. A readi-
ness to obey the Motive — a facility of being acted upon by
it — is the corresponding Disposition.
A motive must necessarily produce action, where there are
no counteracting 1 motives ; and, in all cases, must tend to pro-
duce action, even when eventually overcome by other moral
forces. Every pleasure being" desirable, for otherwise it would
not be a pleasure, the idea of any pleasure associated with the
idea of action on our part producing it, must necessarily lead
to that action, and so possess motivity, (though the term Motive
is often loosely and incorrectly used to denominate the
pleasure, without the accompanying idea of our own agency).
The comparative strength of different motives in the case of
any one individual depends upon the comparative strength
of the associations, engendered by habit and education,
(Aristotle's e#o? and SiSa^i}), between different pleasures and
different actions or courses of action. The right thing to
learn is how to make the abstractedly desirable equivalent to
the actually desired, how to make the values and the associa-
tions correspond.
In this part of his exposition, Mill carefully points out the
AFFECTION—MOTIVE— DISPOSITION. 1 5 3
distinction between the Motives, the Affections, and the Dis-
positions in each of the classes of causes of pleasures already
mentioned, notwithstanding the almost invariable identity of
name to denote all three states of mind, or at least two of
them, the Motive and the Disposition, — an identity extremely
embarrassing- in any attempt at analysis. The following
tables will show the Motives, &c, in each of the four
classes alluded to, and exhibit the results of Mill's careful
analysis: —
I. Sensations, the pboxihate causes of ode Pleasuees and
Pains.
Affection = Motive.
Disposition.
Object.
r a. Love of Eating (Gluttony when in excess).
J /3. Love of Sex (Lust, when in excess).
J y. Love of Drinking (Drunkenness when in
v. excess).
The
same
names.
Palate.
Sex.
Drink.
1
It will be noticed that in the above class the Affection is
the Motive in fact as well as in name, because our own acts
are here the direct antecedents of our pleasures (regarding the
pleasurable sensations as equivalent to the pleasures, as,
following general usage, we may do), and not (except for
purposes of strict analysis) the causes of the causes of our
pleasures. A generic name for all the cases of excess above
noted is Sensuality, which, like the names of its various
species, stands both for Disposition, Motive, and Affection.
Each of the senses, of course, has its separate motive, but only
the above have names in common use. Temperance and
Intemperance are names of Dispositions only, and have
154
//: IRTLEY AND J A MES MIL L .
reference to Pleasures and Pains generally. The former Mill
defines as " an equal facility of associating with any act both
its pleasures and its pains/ [Anal. vol. ii. p. 26:2] . In the
case of the latter Disposition, the pleasurable associations
overbalance the painful. We now come to the remote causes
of our pleasures and pains, and first as to —
II. Wealth, Poweb, and Dignity.
Affection.
Motive.
Disposition.
Object.
Ui. Love of Wealth —
Wealth.
Avarice, Rapacity,
(when in excess).
/3. Love of Power
< (Ambition).
The
same
names.
The
same
names.
Power.
y. Love of Dignity.
S. Pride,
[e. Humility (Envy).
Emulation.
Envy.
C Emulation.
\ Ambition.
Envy.
Dignity.
All the above as
compared with
the Wealth, &c.
of others, to our
own advantage,
or to our own
disadvantage.
The last two of the above affections (with their corre-
sponding motives and dispositions) require some explanation.
When we contemplate our own wealth, power, and dignity as
small, and slightly productive of pleasure, in comparison with
those of other men, the Affection is Humility; when we con-
template them as large, the Affection is Pride. But when we
associate the idea of an increase to our wealth, &c, as com-
pared with those of others, with an act of our own as causing
that increase, the Motive is Emulation ; when we associate
CL A SSIFICA TION OF MO TI VES, ETC. 155
the idea of our own poverty, &c., as compared with the
riches &c., of others, with the idea of some act of our own
detracting* from the superior influence of others, the Motive is
Envy.
III. The States oe Attitudes towabds us of oue Fellow-men,
AND ALTEBATIONS IN THOSE STATES OE ATTITUDES.
Affection.
Motive.
Disposition.
Object.
a.
Friendship.
Friends.
/3.
Kindness (or Compas-
sion when the im-
mediate object is
No class.
removal of pain).
The
The
y-
( Love of Family.
\ Parental Affection.
same
same
> Family.
5.
Patriotism.
Country.
6.
f Esprit de Corps.
J Love of one's Order,
| Church, &c,
V. Party-spirit.
names.
names.
Class.
c
Love of Mankind.
Mankind.
Here too the distinction between the Affections, Motives,
and Dispositions is manifest, though the names are again,
unfortunately, the same. In speaking' of the last of the
above motives, Love of Mankind, Mill takes occasion to
observe that large conceptions, such as those of Country,
Mankind, and the like, not being- directly objects of sense,
can only be brought home to men's minds through the
medium of General Terms. For this purpose, as " an aid to
the senses, " in Baconian language, Philosophical Education is
necessary.
k6
HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
IV. The Acts (as distinguished fbom the States) both of our-
selves, AND OF OUE FeLLOW-CEEATUEES, WHICH CAUSE US
PLEASUEE oe pain.
Object.
Affection. Motive.
Disposition.
a. Acts primarily useful to
the agent, secondarily
to others : —
1
C(a) when the acts are
f Courage.
\ Prudence.
J our own,
j (b) when the acts are
C those of others.
Moral Approbation.
/3. Acts primarily useful to
The
others, secondarily to
the agent: —
same
f (a) when the acts are
("Justice.
\ Beneficence.
J our own,
names.
j (b) when the acts are
V, those of others.
Moral Approbation.
y. Acts comprehending all
the above : —
1
( (a) when the acts are
Virtue.
J our own,
j (b) when the acts are
Moral Appro-
Love of
V. those of others.
bation, Moral
Approbation,
Sense, Moral
&c.
Intention,
Moral Fa-
culty, Sense
of Right and
"Wrong, &c.
The fourth and last table demands a somewhat detailed
explanation. It is to be noticed in the first place that Mill,
conformably to his ethical theory as developed in the Frag-
ment on Mackintosh and Miscellaneous Essays, holds the
generic element in the four cardinal virtues to be the conferring-
of benefits on men, whether ourselves or our fellow-creatures,
primarily on ourselves in the case of Fortitude and Prudence,
PRUDENCE AND COURAGE. 157
primarily on others in the case of Justice and Beneficence.
But — and here he seems to be following" Gay very closely —
since Prudent and Courageous acts best enable us to perform
acts of Justice and Benevolence to others, and since, further,
our own acts of Justice and Benevolence best dispose others to
perform similar acts towards ourselves, it follows that each of
these two main classes of acts, the primarily self-regarding,
and the primarily altruistic, may be said to have a double
aspect.
And not only this, — but there is another difference to be
observed, according as the acts which cause us pleasure or pain
are our own, or those of other men.
First let us consider the case where the acts in question are
our own. We associate with an}'- of our own acts of Prudence
and Courage, as its immediate consequence, some advantage
to ourselves, either Pleasure, that is, or the cause of Pleasure :
and, moreover, we associate with the ideas of our own acts of
Justice and Beneficence the ideas of the pleasurable feelings
of a fellow-creature (ideas which are pleasurable in them-
selves), and also the ideas of the benefits which we secondarily
derive from our fellow- creatures by the performance of such
acts, (the ideas, that is, of causes of pleasure to ourselves).
Now to contemplate a Pleasure, together with its cause (how-
ever remote), is to have a complex idea, which, after repetition,
ceases to be an indifferent, and becomes a pleasurable, idea,
that is, an Affection. And to contemplate, in addition, an
act of ours as causing that cause, is to have the corresponding
Motive. But in this case there is no act of ours to be
associated as cause of that cause, because our own act is the
cause. Therefore, in this case as in that Class (I), the Motive
is the Affection, and the Affection is the Motive. The
Disposition in this, as in all instances, is the ready capability,
induced by habitual exercise and education (the e'&<? induced
153 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
by e0o<s and SiSaxv in Aristotelian language) of being in-
iluenced by the Motive, or, to use Mill's curious phraseology,
of " performing the associations/'
Now as to another man's acts of Prudence, Courage, Justice,
and Beneficence. These, though (as we have seen) primarily
useful to the agent himself, are also secondarily useful to
others, as being the causes or conditions of the performance
by him of acts to their advantage, if not (as often in the
case of Fortitude) acts directly useful in themselves to others.
As such, they are attended by agreeable associations. Our
ideas of such prudent or brave acts of another, — of acts, that
is, related to our pleasures as causes (however remote) to
effects, — become in this way complex pleasurable ideas, or
Affections. It is of course still more obvious how Affections
are generated, where the ideas of Just and Beneficent acts on
the part of others is associated directly with pleasurable ideas
of the advantages to be derived therefrom primarily by
persons other than the agent himself, and how strong such
Affections will become. The generic name for them is Moral
Approbation or Disapprobation, Moral Sense, and the like;
and this is also the name of the corresponding Motive, or of
the association not only of the Prudent, Brave, Just, and
Beneficent actions of others as causes with our pleasures as
effects, but also of our own acts with, and as causing, these
causes. For by what means can we, through our own acts,
cause those causes ? Firstly, by performing similar acts our-
selves ; but, secondly, by conferring praise on those acts of
others of the nature specified, and affixing the stigma of
Blame or Dispraise on the reverse. When we associate acts
of praise or condemnation on our part as causes with the acts
of our fellow-creatures as effects, and these latter acts as
causes with our pleasures as effects, such an association will
lead to action, and is therefore a Motive, which has received
JUSTICE AND BENEFICENCE. 159
some such name as that designated above. The same term, or
perhaps better Love of Approbation, (it must be admitted
that, in all this part of his work, Mill's terminology is terribly
confused), serves also for the corresponding Disposition.
Some further remarks of Mill on the subject of the special
motives and virtues fall to be noticed here.
Since Prudence expi-esses, according to Mill, " the choice
made, among all the innumerable acts within our power, of
those, the consequences of which, when the pleasurable and
painful are balanced against one another, constitute the
greatest amount of good " [vol. ii. p. 282], it follows that to
be prudent, a man must have knowledge and experience of all
or most of the possible consequences, or successions of con-
sequences, which any given act has produced or may produce.
Judgment is therefore requisite, as well as a certain disposition,
and state of the will : and hence the semi-intellectual character
of Prudence. So far most persons would agree : but when
Mill goes on to say that knowledge is a condition of Courage
as well as of Prudence (in this following Plato), and that
Courage is but incurring the danger or possibility of evil for
the certainty of ultimate good, — is, in fact, (for Mill, like
Plato, 8 goes this length) only a species of Prudence, the
analysis will probably be thought faulty. Courage is all the
more courage when there is most to be lost, and most chance
of its being lost. On any other explanation Mill would be
obliged to call the death of the Spartans at Thermopylae an
act not of courage but of fatuity, an " immoral act " (as he
himself says, when speaking of cases in which no ultimate
good to the agent is probable) ; and the courage of a beast (as
having less to lose) would be superior to the courage of an
Athenian of the age of Pericles. The very fact that we often
8 Plato defines Courage as "a right judgment concerning things to be
feared and not to be feared."
1 60 HA R TLB Y AND J A MES MIL L .
call an action brave, but rash, shows the vital distinction
between Courage and Prudence. It is when a highly civilized
being- possesses the greatest appreciation of life, and is bound
to it by the strongest and most various ties, that his courage
is most peculiarly and markedly courage. As Professor Bain
observes in his note [vol. ii. p. 284 of the Analysis] , " the
courageous soldier is not he who maintains a post of apparent
danger unmoved, knowing that there is no real danger. . . .
Something very different is exacted in return for the epithet
of a brave man/"
Justice is similarly considered by Mill to be a section of
Beneficence, and just acts to be carved out of the class of
beneficent acts merely by reference to the particular legal
system in use in a particular country at a particular time.
In point of fact, the conventional theory of Justice is adopted.
Out of all the various acts of individuals which are productive
of good to others, some are so in virtue of their conforma-
bility to the laws of the state in which they are performed.
There is no place in Mill's system for any theory of mental
construction in the matter, of any constitution by the indi-
vidual of an equity within himself, or even of adaptation of
mathematical processes and proportions to the facts of the
moral world. Mill is a philosopher in this respect re-
sembling Plato's litigant, and is obliged to go to the law
courts for justice, because he has none of his own making.
In connexion with the subject of the influence of Praise
and Blame on moral action, Mill notices that the very names
of the cardinal virtues and of Virtue itself, signify not only
the qualities characteristic of virtuous acts, but also the plea-
surable ideas of the benefits resulting from the exercise of
those qualities, and the performance of those acts. They are,
in Bentham's phraseology, eulogistic terms, while their oppo-
sites are dyslogistic. This alone is of immense power in
MORAL APPROBATION. 161
attracting men to Virtue ; and every one knows the kind of
homage which Vice is forced to pay to it, in assuming the
properties and titles of its opponent, in order to secure a
tolerable status. The importance of such names is not to be
overlooked. History teaches us how much depends on whether
the name of assassination or that of national deliverance is
assigned to a deed immediately after its committal ; and that
this often has its appreciable share in determining whether a
human being is to be execrated as a Guy Fawkes, or exalted
as a Harmodius, a Jael, or a Charlotte Corday. Many im-
portant effects may be traced to the designation of a dis-
turbance of constitutional relations in a country as a revolution,
or as a rebellion ; and much depeuds on whether a body of
reformers succeed in getting themselves called a Constitution
or a Convention, a Party or a Faction. Eulogistic terms
then, having by themselves alone so much significance and
influence, it may be imagined what a degree of controlling
power is exerted on the deeds of our fellow-creatures by the
systematic diffusion of applause and condemnation. Praise,
as Mill says, extends to all men : whereas our own acts (the
alternative means of securing the performance of virtuous acts
by others) extend only to a few. In the former case we not
only express our own favourable disposition towards the per-
son who is its object, but we at the same time point him out
• to others as a fit object of a similar affection on their parts
towards him. From the pleasurable ideas connested with the
being praised by others, springs not only that extraordinary
case of association, which has already been noticed, the desire
of posthumous fame, (when the idea of advantageous conse-
quences to ourselves is so firmly associated with the idea of
the performance of virtuous actions, that we cannot dissociate
the two ideas, notwithstanding that a very little reflection
tell ns that the two things cannot coexist after death), but also
M
1 62 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
the desire of being- deserving 1 of praise, and the dread of being 1
deserving 1 of blame, — the Love of Praiseworthiness, and the
Fear of Blameworthiness ; as also the state of misery attendant
on the consciousness of being blameworthy in reference to past
actions, which is called Remorse.
Hartley makes the pleasures and pains of the Moral Sense
a special class of the various pleasures and pains of which
human beings are susceptible. He places them at the end of
his list, after those of Sensation, Imagination, Ambition, Self-
interest, Sympathy, and Theopathy ; and all these latter must,
in his view, have been experienced before those of the Moral
Sense can be properly appreciated. In his account of this
Moral Sense, he differs slightly from Mill, in so far as he
bases it less on a conscious regard to the utility of actions.
He speaks of "a pleasing consciousness and self-approbation"
rising up in the mind of a person who believes himself to be
possessed of virtuous qualities, " exclusively of any direct
explicit consideration of advantage likely to accrue to him-
self" [Observ. on Man, vol. i. p. 493]. Like Mill, he re-
marks on the eulogistic character of the names of virtue and
the different virtuous qualities ; and also how the pleasurable
ideas incidental to the frequent use and application of these
names are gradually impressed by education on the minds of
children. Like his master in this department of his subject,
Gay, he notices the rival theories of Hutcheson, as to the ,
instinctive character of the moral sense, and of the mathe-
matical Platonists, Clarke and Cud worth, as to its alleged foun-
dation in the eternal relations of things; and he contends
that if it be meant that the supposed instinct, or the supposed
relations, exist or operate independently of association, then no
indubitable instances or proofs of such existence or operation
have been produced. All moral judgments, approbations, and
disapprobations are, in his opinion, deduced from association
HARTLEY ON THE MORAL SENSE. 163
alone; though it is admitted (as we have implied above),
that these associations may be " formed so early, repeated so
often, riveted so strong/' as, in a popular way, to deserve the
name of "original and natural dispositions or instincts/' or
even of " axioms and intuitive propositions."
N
1 64 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE "WILL, AS EXPLAINED BY HARTLEY AND MILL.
It is characteristic of the Association Theory of Hartley and
James Mill, that the Will occupies a very late place — in
Mill's analysis, the very last — in their examination of moral
phenomena. In the systems opposed to the derivative theories
of ethics, it comes into prominence at the very outset of the
inquiry. Kant, for instance, begins at once with its defini-
tion, from which, as a starting-point, he evolves his entire
speculations on morals. Schopenhauer, again, a philosopher
of a very different type, although he professes to be following
out Kant's doctrines to their legitimate issue, considers that
this all-powerful Will, the centre of Personality, should be
suppressed in favour of the impersonal Intellect, if happiness
is ever to be achieved for men. But whether as the mainstay
and foundation of morals, or as the incessant obstacle in the
path of trancpuillity, all philosophers, except Associationists,
have concurred in placing the Will in the forefront of their
ethical systems. With Hartley and Mill, on the other hand,
after everything else is determined, and not till then, the Will
follows as the necessary result. Given Association, Affection,
Motive, Disposition, to find the Will is, according to this
school, not very difficult. The Will, it is to be observed, is,
in their view, not a faculty but "a peculiar state of mind or
consciousness" [Mill, Analysis, vol. ii. p. 328], that, namely,
which precedes an action. It is the cause of the action, in
MENTAL STATES PRECEDING ACTION. 165
the proper sense of the word, that is, its immediate antecedent.
The notion that it is a faculty has arisen from the common
mental illusion in subjection to which, not content with having 1
found the cause of a phenomena, we proceed to invest it with
a certain imaginary Power, in virtue of which alone it is said
to produce its effect. This emanation from, or property of,
the cause Mill pronounces to be a fiction. To determine the
nature of the Will, we have merely to " discover which is the
real state of mind which immediately precedes an action. "
Now actions, says Mill, may be either those of the Body,
or those of the Mind. 1 The former are muscular contractions,
and may be preceded either by Sensations — as in the familiar
cases of sneezing, vomiting, coughing, and other involun-
tary or instinctive movements — or by Ideas, as in yawning,
laughter, convulsive fits, on seeing another person yawn,
laugh, or fall into convulsions ; or again in the case where
a person rapidly shuts his eyelids on seeing an object approach
them, which action is consequent on the idea of pain called
up by the sight of the object. This last is a good example of
association, because an infant will not wink if anything is
passed rapidly before its eyes, while an adult will. 2
When these contractions of the muscles are preceded by
Sensations, the steps are (1) sensation originating in the ex-
tremities of the nerves, (2) " something, we know not what
conveyed by the nerves to the brain," (3) a consequent state
of the brain, (4) something (also unknown) conveyed by the
brain through another set of nerves to the contracting muscles,
1 " A vile phrase " this — " actions of the mind." It is curious how,
in this instance, Mill shows himself under the bondage of that habit of
constructing metaphor, which he elsewhere (using, too, this very example)
so severely reprobates in others.
- The experiment was performed by Mr. Darwin on his own child, with
this result. See his interesting a ccount of these psychological observa-
tions in Mind, No. 7, (a Biographical Sketch of an Infant),
1 66 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
followed by (5) muscular contraction. When they are pre-
ceded by Ideas, the first two steps are not present, and the
process begins with the third, or with a certain state of the
brain. It will be seen, therefore, that in both cases the state
of the brain is, strictly speaking-, the immediate mental ante-
cedent of the contraction : but, for purposes of the present
investigation, that state may be distinguished as Sensation or
as Ideation, according as it is, or is not, produced by external
causes operating directly upon the nerves. The principle of
those mental phenomena of the latter class which result from
the tendency to imitate the actions, and experience in our
own persons the sensations of another, — a species of pheno-
mena familiar to physicians, under the name of imaginative
diseases, — is that the action, motion, or bodily state, the idea
of which is conveyed to us by what we thus perceive in others,
" calls up by association the idea of the feelings which pre-
cede" that action, motion, or bodily state.. "The idea of the
feelings exists, and the action follows." [Analysis, vol. ii.
p. 343.]
Sensations and Ideas, then, are to be considered as the
immediate mental antecedents of muscular contraction. Now
over sensations we confessedly have no control : they may
therefore be dismissed from consideration : and the kind of
ideation, hitherto discussed as antecedent to action, clearly
does not answer to what we mean by an exercise of the Will.
So much only has been established up to the present point :
that muscular contractions follow ideas, that to obtain a com-
mand over the former we must obtain a command over the
latter, and that to produce certain sequences of associated
motions, we must have acquired the power, through repetition,
or otherwise, of readily calling up the correspondingly asso-
ciated ideas. The power of the Will is not, therefore, exerted
ever the motions, but over the ideas, or trains of ideas which
THE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. 167
precede those motions. The motions or actions which we
will must of course be our own, and therefore one at least of
the ideas constituting' the state of volition must he the idea of
such an action as our own.
Is there anything more involved in Volition than the above
elements? Now in the cases already noticed of the ideas of
our actions preceding these actions, whether in the way of
automatic imitation or of repetition, we cannot be said to will
them. They are as involuntary (at all events in the adult
mind) as those motions which are excited by our own sensa-
tions in the manner already indicated. But it is ideas alone
in any case which give birth to action : there must therefore
be something in the process by which these ideas are gene-
rated, when we are said to exercise volition, different from the
process whereby these ideas are generated when the acts which
follow them are, as in the above instances, styled involuntary.
In the latter case they are produced in the way of ordinary
association whether by sensations of our own, or by the ideas
of the sensations of others (as when we yawn or laugh on
seeing another person do so), or by our own ideas, as when
we weep on reading a tragedy. But in none of these instances,
can we be said to will the performance of the acts. But where
strictly voluntary actions are concerned, the ideas of them, —
the ideas which precede them, — are accompanied with Desire,
which is their distinguishing feature. Now Desire is the idea
of a future pleasurable sensation, or exemption from pain.
Therefore in the state of mind which precedes what are called
voluntary actions, there must coexist, (1) the idea of the
action, and the idea of it, of course, as our own, (2) the idea
of the pleasurable condition to be enjoyed by us consequent on
the performance of the action. In other words, we must have
the idea of a future pleasurable state coupled with the idea
of an act of ours as causing it. But this is exactly what
1 68 HA RTLEY A ND J A MES MIL L .
Motive was defined as being. Is then Motive the same as
AVill? Is T o. The difference is the following".
In the train of thoughts constituting the Motive, (as Mill,
in a careful elaboration of a well-known Aristotelian principle/
points out), we start with the idea of the pleasurable sensa-
tion to be obtained, proceed from it to the idea of the action
of which it is contemplated as being the immediate result,
then to the idea of the step next preceding it, and so on
through the ideas of a series of means, till we come to the last
link in the chain which ends with ourselves, that is, to the
idea of some muscular contraction on our part. Now when
mere Motive, unaccompanied by Volition, is present, the pro-
cess of association stops at this point ; whereas when the
Motive is sufficiently powerful to generate volition, it does
not cease, but the mind passes from the idea of some muscular
contraction on our part, to the idea of the internal sensations
preceding the muscular contraction, which sensations origi-
nally produced similar muscular contractions. On this the
action follows. It may seem somewhat over-subtle to draw
such a line line of distinction between the idea of the outward
appearance of our own action and the idea of the internal sensa-
tions which precede that action. But Mill explains that
these sensations, and their ideas, — though scarcely ever noticed
or even thought to exist, owing to their inevitable absorption
in immediately subsequent sensations and ideas, of far greater
interest to us, — are yet real. Why the visible idea of an
action should at one time call up the idea of the internal
sensations preceding it, and at another time not, can only be
3 " o TTparov ev dvakvo-a. eaxarbv iv evpecrei.'' The order of execution is
the reverse of the order of thoughts in volition. In the former case, we
begin with a muscular contraction on our part, and end with the pleasurable
condition. In the Litter, oar first idea is that of the pleasurable condition,
from which we work backwards.
CAN WILL CONTROL THOUGHT? 169
explained on principles of association. A strong" connexion
between the two ideas is formed in some cases, so that the
one cannot come into existence without exciting- the other,
whereas, in others, no such indissoluble, or nearly indissoluble,
association has been generated. This analysis of the Will
regarded as a state of mind preceding muscular contraction is
partly an amplification, and partly a condensation, of Hartley's
theory of the association of motions, 4 and of the growth of
voluntary out of automatic motions, (such as are produced by
internal sensations), and again of "secondarily automatic"
motions out of voluntary.* [Anal. vol. ii. pp. 355, 356.
J. S. Mill's note.]
But we have yet to consider the Will as a state of conscious-
ness antecedent to what Mill calls "the actions of the muni."
We seem to ourselves to have the power of calling up an idea
at will, or of forcing one train of thought into existence to
the exclusion of others. Is this power over our mental asso-
ciations real or imaginary? Are the processes of Recollection,
as distinguished from Memory, and of Attention, as distin-
guished from mere passive thought or reverie, cases of Voli-
tion or not? If they are, then can the Will in these, as in
the other cases already examined, be reduced to association, or
is it something which controls association itself?
If the Will controls association, it must do so in one of
two ways, — either in virtue of some power which it possesses
of calling up an idea "ex nihilo," so to speak, or in virtue of
a power of making one idea present to the mind at any time
4 These Hartley considers pari passu (in the earlier part of his work)
with the association of sensations and ideas. The title of his short Latin
tractate, De Sens/', Molt', ct Idearum Generatione, shows the triple
application which he designed for his system.
6 E.g. a child moves, first of all, spasmodically and under the stimulus
of sensation ; then it learns to regulate its movements, lastly to employ
them without conscious volition, as in walking.
i ;o HA R TL EY A ND J A MES MILL .
call up another, not then present to the mind, to succeed it,
and of simultaneously excluding' all ideas which would inter-
fere with the sequence of ideas desired. But we have already
explained that we cannot will to evoke any particular idea,
without already having that idea in our minds. And to will
a particular sequence of ideas equally, of course, presupposes
the presence of that sequence to our minds. We can no more
will the introduction of an idea into a train at a particular
point, than we can will its presence at all, indeed, much less.
In either case we may be said to desire, but never to will.
We desire, for instance, to recollect a thing ; we are not pro-
perly said to will to recollect it. The discovery of the lost
idea is contemplated by us as the cause of future pleasure, or
is associated with the idea of that future pleasure, and, as
such, becomes interesting 1 to us. Now interesting 1 , as con-
trasted with indifferent, ideas have this peculiar property,
that they call up trains of great length, rapidity, and com-
plexity, and are themselves suggested by most of the ideas
which may enter the mind from whatever quarter. In the
attempt to recollect, accordingly, the idea of the alleviation
of an existing 1 unsatisfied state of mind obtrudes itself into
every train of ideas which would otherwise run its usual
course, and itself excites a large variety of trains of all hinds,
until that alleviation is obtained, and, with it, the wished-for
pleasurable sensations. This phenomenon, a familiar enough
one, has already occupied our attention.
In regard to the process of Attention, there certainly seems
at first sight to be more plausibility in the view of those who
hold that we can will to attend, or not to attend, to a thing.
But here too, according to Mill, the so-called act of Will
except as a case of association, is found not to exist.
We may attend either to Sensations or to Ideas. Sensa-
tions are either in themselves indifferent, that is, apart from
ATTENTION. 171
any ideas associated with them, or interesting (whether as
pleasurable or painful).
Now to attend to sensations interesting 1 in themselves is, as
has often been remarked before, the same thing as having the
sensations. " To attend to sensations indifferent in them-
selves " is on the other hand as palpably contradictory an
expression, as " to attend to sensations interesting in them-
selves/'' is redundant and tautological. If sensations are
attended to, they are not indifferent in themselves : if they
are interesting in themselves, they must necessarily be
attended to in the fact of experiencing them. But we may
attend to sensations indifferent in themselves, but rendered
interesting by the ideas associated with them; just as, con-
versely, we may feel, without attending to, sensations which,
though interesting under ordinary circumstances and in them-
selves, are on the particular occasion absorbed in stronger
sensations or more vivid ideas (as in the well-known example
of men in battle fighting while quite unconscious of their
wounds). The attention to a sensation rendered interesting
by association no more differs from the having the association,
than the attention to a sensation interesting in itself differs
from the having the sensation, or, again, than the non-atten-
tion to a sensation interesting in itself differs from the having
that sensation accompanied by, and swallowed up in, stronger
simultaneous sensations or ideas.
Exactly the same reasoning applies "mutatis mutandis"
to the phenomenon of attention to Ideas. Attention to an
interesting' idea is merely the having it; — to an indifferent
idea, merely the associating it with some idea which is not
indifferent. By way of illustrating his theory of attention as
applied to ideas, Mill takes the case of a man composing a
treatise or discourse with a given object, where the discovery
of a single idea (as in the attempt to recollect) will not suffice
\j2 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
to accomplish the desired end, but where the discovery and
selection of a variety of trains of ideas is necessary. Here the
interesting idea of the pleasure consequent upon the attain-
ment of the end is continually being 1 suggested by, and
suggesting, large varieties of ideas and sequences of ideas, in
precisely the same way as, but to a greater extent than, the
idea of such a pleasurable state calls up a single idea in suc-
cessful, and tends to call it up in unsuccessful, efforts of recol-
lection. Of the same kind as this is the still more compli-
cated example of an aim of life ruling a man's actions from
day to dajr, where the Idea of the End to be obtained asso-
ciates itself in his mind with all the ideas and trains of ideas
of all those actions of his which may contribute to the realiza-
tion of that end. The conclusion is that, when we attend to
Ideas, just as when we attend to Sensations, the attention is
due to the occurrence or recurrence of interesting sensations
or ideas, whether interesting per se, or as forming part of
an associated cluster, some of the other ingredients of which
are interesting per se, and, as such, have given a reflected
interest to the entire cluster.
We cannot better sum up the results of this analysis of
Volition than in James Mill's own words [Anal. vol. ii.
pp. 378, 379] :— " In regard, then, to that state of mind
which precedes action, we seem to have ascertained the
following indisputable facts : That actions are in some
instances preceded by sensations; that, in other instances,
they are preceded by ideas ; that in all cases in which the
action is said to be willed, it is desired as a means to an end ;
or, in more accurate language, is associated, as cause, with
pleasure as effect : that the idea of the outward appearance of
the action, thus excited by association, excites in the same
way, the idea of the internal feelings which are the immediate
antecedent of the action, and then the action takes place;
INTENTION. 173
that whatever power we may possess over the actions of our
muscles, must be derived from our power over our associations ;
and that this power over our associations, when fully analyzed,
means nothing' more than the power of certain interesting-
ideas, originating in interesting sensations, and formed into
strength by association/!
Mill disposes of Intention in the same way as Bentham.
It differs from Will, in that an action willed is some action
of ours contemplated as immediately about to take place ;
whereas the action intended, though still some action of our
own, is contemplated as about to take place after the inter-
vention of a certain train or series of events. To look forward
to or anticipate a certain chain of antecedents and conse-
quents, the last consequent of which is an action to be first
willed by us, and then performed, is all that is meant by
Intention. We believe that at some future time we shall
will to perform, and shall eventually perform, the intended
action. We cannot, of course, properly be said to will such an
action, or even to will to will at some future time to perform the
action. Such a fancy arises from the illusory character of the
term, which, being active in form, appears to imply some
activity in fact ; whereas, in reality, intention is merely a case
of belief: it is "the strong anticipation of a future will"
[Anal. vol. ii. p. 399]. A promise, consequently, is merely a
declaration of this belief, — a declaration of such a character
that it derives from customary, legal, and moral sanctions,
and carries with it, a strong guarantee that the declared
anticipation will be realized. But, besides intending an
action, we are frequently said, in the language both of law
and of morals, to intend the consequences of an act. By this
is meant the foreseeing or anticipation of the consequences, at
the moment of willing or intending the act. By this latter,
again, as we have seen in discussing that form of Belief which
1 74 HARTLEY A ND J A MES MILL .
is called Anticipation, is meant that the idea of the action
calls up the idea of its consequences. Though Mill does not
specifically refer to the questions of Free Will and Necessity,
which have so vexed the minds of moralists at different times,
there can be little doubt — judging from his analysis of
Volition — that he would have adopted what Hartley calls the
theory of the Mechanism of the Human Mind, as opposed to
that of Free Will, in any but the popular use of the word.
For Hartley carefully distinguishes the philosophical doctrine
of Free Will, according to which it is held possible for a man
to will either of two actions while the circumstances attendant
upon, and previous to, the exercise of his will, remain the
same, from the popular doctrine, which amounts merely to the
tautological proposition that a man has the power of doing
that which he wills or desires, or has the power of "de-
liberating, suspending, choosing, &c," between various
courses of action. The latter Hartley does not dispute, but
maintains in opposition to the former, what on examination
appears to be equally tautological, that a man is infallibly de-
termined by the strongest motive to action, and that when
the motives are the same the action consequent upon them
must be the same in the same man. This appears to be
nothing more than the statement that a man wills what he
does will, desires what he does desire. The further question
as to who or what determines the motive, granting that the
motive determines the action, is not satisfactorily answered
by Hartley, because (in common with most associationists) he
is inoculated with the misconception of a motive as a force
operating upon the individual " ab extra," and not as an
object in itself indifferent taken up into, and made part of,
the Self; and so endowed by the Self, and the Self alone, with
motive power. "By the mechanism of human actions, I
mean/' says Hartley, "that each action results from the
HARTLEY'S MECHANICAL THEORY. 175
previous circumstances of body and mind, in the same
manner and with the same certainty, as other effects do
from their mechanical causes." [Observ. on Man, vol. i.
p. 500]. This proposition he supports by an appeal to each
man's introspection of his own acts and states of conscious-
ness 6 and observation of the acts of others. Neither method,
he says, will discover any act to be unmotived, nor in the
event of conflict will the weaker motive ever be seen to over-
ride the stronger. 7 Apart from this appeal to experience and
self-scrutiny, Hartley relies once more on his vibration
theory. Actions result from vibrations " in the nerves of the
muscles •" and these vibrations result from others which are
either completely mechanical, or which, though now voluntary,
have become so, from being originally mechanical, by means
of association.
The sum of the objections raised against the mechanical
theory was, in Hartley's time, not so much metaphysical or
psychological as practical. This theory, it was said, gets rid
of the notion of personal responsibility. We shall never refer
actions to an Ego, if we are taught to believe that the state
of the Ego which determines the action is itself determined
by a series of prior circumstances. Such objections are of
course quite unphilosophical, and are calculated to divert the
attention from the real issue. Hartley would have done well
6 Such an introspection has been made, and the results given in an
essay called " An Introspective Investigation," Mind, No. 5, p. 22, seq.,
by Mr, Travis. He does not come to the same conclusion as Hartley.
7 This latter statement is again tautological or circular. For how can
we tell the strength of one motive as compared with that of another,
except from its effect upon action? As to unmotived acts, they are
recognized by no school of philosophy, no school of art even. Even in
Iago we find the " motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity " (as
Coleridge calls it) which testifies to this law of nature, while seeming to
violate it.
i;6 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
not to notice them. The practical outcome of a theory has
nothing to do with its truth. But it was characteristic of the
limes in which he lived both to advocate and to combat
systems with a reference to results : and just as every new
metaphysics (such as that of Berkele}', for instance) was at
this period generally prefaced with some anti-atheistic flourish
to gain it admittance among the ingenuous respectabilities of
" thinking gentlemen/' so Hartley, like the rest, was at
great pains to show, first of all, that the ordinary sentiments
of gratitude and resentment towards our fellow-creatures as
responsible agents do in fact remain in force, notwithstanding
all theories and analyses : but he added secondly, that so far
as this is not the case, it is right and proper, even in a prac-
tical reference, that it should not be, and operates for the
advantage, and not the detriment, of morality. For just as
an infant, or a savage tribe, begins by exhibiting gratitude or
resentment towards inanimate objects regarded as causes of
his pleasures and pains, but gradually learns, the one on
reaching maturity, the other on attaining some degree of
civilization, to transfer such affections to the human beings
who produce or use those objects ; so man in general will, on
learning to regard his fellow-men as links in a chain, — in
the light of consequents as well as in that of antecedents, —
reach a still higher order of intelligence and morality. We
laugh at Xerxes for lashing the Hellespont, and are amused
at a child for kicking and abusing the chair over which he
has just stumbled : but we have yet to learn to treat human
beings with the like equanimity to that which we think
Xerxes should have displayed towards the storm on the Helles-
pont, as the product of natural forces, or the child towards
the chair, as matter misplaced. 8 Such a mental attitude
8 Hartley in fact thought that there could be an exaggerated Animism (as
it is now called) in relation to human beings, as well as to inanimate objects.
HARTLEY'S MECHANICAL THEORY. 177
stimulates attention to the high interests of Education, and
leads our thoughts away from resentment against individuals,
to the reform of the circumstances, and mitigation of the
influences, which have made them what they are. 9 It thus
begets humility in ourselves, and further " tends to remove
the great difficulty of reconciling the prescience of God with
the freewill of man. For it takes away c philosophical free-
will/ " [as Hartley calls the' imaginary rival doctrine of un-
motived willing], " and the practical " [or popular] " is con-
sistent with God's prescience. - " [Observ. on Mem, vol. i. p.
510.] »
9 This is a more familiar idea now than it was in Hartley's time. Not
philosophy only, hut art and fiction (cp. Victor Hugo's Jean Valjean)
have inculcated it strenuously. It finds its " reductip ad ahsurdum " in
Mr. Butler's Erewkon.
1 On this mechanical theory of Hartley's, see Mr. Leslie Stephen's
remarks (History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii.
sect. 67).
178 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
CHAPTER IX.
THE PRACTICAL LAWS OF ETHICS AS RESULTING FROM THE
PRINCIPLES OF ASSOCIATION AND UTILITY.
Having considered the answers of Hartley and Mill to the
question — " how do we act ? " it remains to collect from
scattered hints their probable answer to the question, which
only the former has dealt with specifically — indeed it was
no part of Mill's proposed object to do so— namely, "how
ought we to act ? " What should be the rule or guiding 1
principle of life ?
At the end of his Analysis Mill suggests that, since all
valid practical rules are founded on true theory, the works
which ought to follow on an exposition or true theory of
the operations of the human mind both in its intellectual
and moral aspects, are works containing (1) rules for guiding
the mind in its search after truth, (2 rules for training the
individual to the greatest excellence of his nature, and (3)
" rules for regulating the actions of human being." These
would be respectively the Book of Logic, the Book of
Education, and the Book of Ethics, to which might be added
(if not included under Ethics) the Book of Politics. These
would furnish the entire fabric capable of being reared on
the basis of a sound theory of the human mind. On Educa-
tion and Politics, Mill has a good deal of matter, elsewhere
than in the Analysis, to which we shall have occasion
to refer presently. On Logic he has nothing; and as re-
UTILITY. 179
gards Ethical rules we have to gather his views from his
criticisms of his opponents contained in the Fragment on
Mackintosh; while those of Hartley on the same topic are
to be found, mixed up with a large mass of theological and
other speculations, in the second volume of his work On
Man.
Mill's conception of morality is evident from his description
of ethics, as "rules for regulating the actions of human
beings, so as to deduce from them the greatest amount of
good, both to the actor himself, and to his fellow-creatures
at large" [Anal. vol. ii. p. 403]. He holds not only that
men do act for their own interests, but that they ought to
do so ; but then Education, to which he attaches very great
importance, steps in, and shows what their highest interests
are. It shows that man best secures his own ultimate ad-
vantage by not directly and consciously seeking it, but by
working for the good of his fellow-men. Thus though moral
action is in the last resort referable to self-interest, its primary
and immediate aim in practice should be utilitarian, in the V
modern sense of the word, or conducive to the good of the
largest possible number. To adopt Hartley's phraseology, our
actions at first, and during infancy, for the attainment of self-
gratification are primarily automatic ; then by practice, and
owing to the influence of education, we learn to associate
ideas of self-interest of the higher kinds with the ideas of
actions productive of good to others, and so accustom our-
selves gradually to the voluntary, and at first troublesome,
actions dictated by considerations of general utility; which
latter again, after frequent repetition, became automatic in
the sense that we no more think of self-interest at the time
of performing them, than the miser, when making an addition
to his hoard, thinks of realizing the possibilities of pleasure
which that hoard symbolizes. To analyze any of the complex
i8o HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
faculties and tendencies of human nature, is not to deny their
existence or effectuality, but merely to point out their ulti-
mate justification. " Gratitude remains gratitude," says
Mill, {Frag, on Mackintosh, p. 51], like his predecessor,
"resentment remains resentment, generosity, generosity, in
the mind of him who feels them, after analysis, the same as
before."
For the percep tion of the josejul r esults likely to flow from
n-vhu'rt plnsspa.-of- notions, the ordinary feelings and j under-
standing of m e n suffice. No special sense, such as the
hypothe tical Moral Sense, is required. \Fr. on Mach ^jp^ll'].
If and whenever a man has not contemplated the consequences
of his act as likely or calculated to produce good to others
or to himself, "the man's act may be a grateful act, or an
affectionate act, but certainly not a moral act." [Fr. on
Mack., pp. 55, 236, 237]. An act has no ethical value,
apart from its intended consequences ; and it lies on the
opponents of utilitarianism to show what morality is apart
from utility.
It is no objection to the practical rules founded upon
utilitarian doctrines that, according to them, calculation must
precede action ; but that this balancing of consequences, to be
just, must be infinite, since the consequences are infinite both
in extent and in time, as well as infinitely complicated; and
that, therefore, action will never take place at all. It is true
that every act reaches out into an indefinite future with
innumerable ramifications of consequences ; just as the distur-
bance of air by the motion of a man's hand may conceivably
produce some effect on the remotest planet : but no man is
expected to attempt to calculate these, though on the other
hand, if he looks carelessly to the probable immediate con-
sequences of his acts, he is justly responsible for all those
which he misrht have foreseen bv the exercise of reasonable
CALCUL A TION IN MORA LS. i S i
care, and did not. In all cases where the more lengthy
calculations would be impossible or inconvenient, it will be
found that they have been done for us beforehand with suffi-
cient correctness for practical purposes by the collective
experience of humanity extending- through past ages. A
man may act either upon certain general rules, such for in-
stance as those of the cardinal virtues, and in accordance with
certain formed habits, [Fr. on Jllacl:, p. 258], and be (so
far) absolved from the necessity of reflection or computation
of consequences, [p. 163]. Where however circumstances
arise which do not come within the ordinary classes of moral
rules, there he must balance probabilities and effects for
himself: habit will not suffice, [p. 257]. The nature and
complexity of the calculation must, of course, be limited by
the urgency of the case. But moral sentiments, intuitions,
&c, Mill utterly discards. 1 The moral agent must in all
cases either calculate for himself, or accept the previously
formed and recognized calculations of others or (as in habitual
acts) of himself. He must proceed, like a natural philosopher,
who bases his laws on proper inductions, inferences, and
analogies, though no one blames him for adopting from
others (without proving again) the results of mathematical
processes, where it is necessary or convenient to do so. Mill
follows Bent liam _m thinkin g that the morality of an act in
no__vvay depends jpon t h e motive, which in itself is colour-
less, and only derives its complexion from the consequences
1 Cp. Ifr. on MacJ,\ s 2G7, 268. Mill ridicules the sentiment of Andrew
Fletcher (approved by Sir James Mackintosh) to the effect that " he
would lose his life to serve his country, but would not do a base thing to
save it." A refusal of the latter kind Mill would presumably consider
immoral. So also, we imagine, would he repudiate Kant's well-known
assertion of the duty of telling the truth to a murderer about the hiding-
place of his intended victim.
182 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
contemplated by the agent, or neglected to be contemplated
b2um. \kW. on Mack., pp. 161, 315, 316].
Granting then that the proper aim of man is to contem-
plate, intend, calculate the good of his fellow-creatures, — the
object of Education, Government, and Legislation should be
to lead men to take into view wider and wider circles, in
considering the benefits to be thus conferred, and their re-
cipients. Man must be taught to put philanthropy above
patriotism, patriotism above party-spirit, party-spirit above
individual gratification. Imitation and Custom tend to re-
strict men's benevolence to the limits within which their
lives and habits have grown up. The incentives to keep
within these bounds are strong : it should be the function
and aim of Education to supply yet stronger incentives to
transcend them. [Ft. on Made, 64, 65]. "The man whom
his education or other fortunate circumstances have habituated
to the ideas of the good of one of the larger communities
of men, a nation ; and to consider the interests of small
societies, and of individuals as subordinate to the interests in
which each and all of the other individuals and societies
composing the great communities participate ; the man who
has learnt to fix his esteem upon the actions which promote
these great interests, and in whom the motives to the per-
formance of such actions overpower all other motives, is the
only man who has reached the elevation of true morality."
Regarding then utility as the test of morality, and not
morality of utility, as Sir James Mackintosh says is possible
" in another way/" Mill cannot sufficiently express his con-
tempt for the theory which ascribes aims to appetites, over
which conscience has a controlling and legislative authority. 2
2 Butler's theory, approved by Mackintosh. Cp. Hooker's similar
opinion about the Will : — " Appetite is the Will's solicitor, and Will is
the Appetite's controller."
IMITA TION— CUSTOM— EDUCA TION. 183
All this he thinks merely so much metaphor, of a very
misleading- character. When it is said that the appetites
aim, all that is meant is that a man has a certain appetite,
and aims at its gratification. When it is said that conscience
possesses a controlling power over appetite, all that is meant
is that the man who has the appetites has also the right to
control them, which nobody denies. The question of ethics,
however, is, — " in what way ought we to control them ? "
And to this of course Mill's answer is clear : we must control
them in a manner calculated to confer benefit on others or on
the agent himself. [Fr. on Mad:, 72, 73]. Still less will
Mill allow actions to be properly called beautiful or ugly,
unless their beauty or ugliness be regarded as consisting*
simply and solely in the character of their consequences.
[p. 2G3]. The artistic aspect of ethics, if it exists at all,
should be kept in the background, as illusionary and tending
to emasculate moral energy. Similarly " Fitness/'' which
some ascribe as their distinguishing feature to moral
actions, is either the utility of their effects, or it is an
unmeaning phrase. So too of Right Heason, and the like,
[p. 265].
The same considerations which dictate action, also dictate
and justify moral 'approbation. The conscious employment of
moral approbation is grounded on utilitarian motives. Men
have agreed, thinks Mill, to affix marks of praise or blame
to certain classes of actions, which they have perceived to be
advantageous or the reverse in their effects, in order that
with them may be associated such pleasurable or painful
ideas, respectively, as may induce to, or deter from, the per-
formance of them. On the building up of such associative
links depends the value of Education; since children must
necessarily act largely on such associations, and not so much
with a view to computed consequences. But, further, the
184 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
sentiment of moral approbation is justified ultimately, if not
immediately, by this same reference to utility, — to the con-
sequences, that is, observed as likely to flow from the act
approved of, or observed as having- flown in other instances
from the class of acts to which the act approved of belongs.
Approbation is thus both justifiable as a sentiment, and obli-
gatory as an action. We mfact extol certain acts, because
of their beneficial issues : we ought to extol them, in order
to induce others to perform acts like them. \_Fr. on Mack.,
pp. 249—254, 259—261].
Mill is careful to disavow the limitation of the words
"interest/' "pleasure/' and the like, which the opponents of
Utilitarianism seek to father on the system. Wh en it is sai d
. t hat men ought to seek the benefit of others, and eq ually
? whe n it is said th at, m t^ 1f|cf vpgm4 ; tlipy aim_in_jwery
| act ion to secure t.hpi'r own intp.rp.stsj it, is to be unde rstood
/ t hat " the principle of utility takes in every ingr edient
wherein human happiness consists " [Fr. on Mack., p p. 27 1.
272], a_ndj4iat its advocates do not (for mally at lea st) pre-
tend to disregard the pleasures of taste, and the arts de-
pendent upon imagination. In Hartley's system however
even this formal disavowal, as regards art, is very qualified,
if not withheld. (See Observ. on Man, vol. ii. ch. 3, sec. 3,
On the Pleasures of Imagination).
To sum up then : every person before action, if he is to
act morally, should either contemplate himself its conse-
quences, or adopt those fixed opinions which interpret the
experience of mankind in reference to the particular case : if
these consequences are found to be likely to bring advantage
. to others, or to himself, unbalanced by evil, the action should
be performed, if not, not. And under Utility, Advantage,
Good, Interest is included everything from which men derive
satisfaction. The object of the act is not to form good Dis-
COMPREHENSIVE MEANING OF INTEREST. 185
positions/ nor is it to realize so-called moral beauty, fitness,
&c, nor to produce a certain state of will ; but it is simply
and solely to procure good for others, or for the agent himself.
There is nothing, for instance, in the disposition, habit, senti-
ment, or state of will, involved in the term Courage, in itself
good or bad, apart from the consequences of the courageous
acts which result from it. If it be asked why we do not
ascribe morality to all actions which produce good to the
agent (such as eating or drinking) or to others (such as the
ordinary courtesies of civilized life), the answer is that Moral
Approbation is bestowed " only where it is needed ; not on
acts the performance of which is provided for by the constitu-
tion of the individual, but on acts, the performance of which
society needs, by the use of means, to secure; of which means
its approbation is one of the most powerful." [_Fr. on Mack.,
p. 868] . In all actions there is nothing in itself moral or
immoral in either the motive, the volition, or the external act
(physically regarded) . That which is moral is the expectation
in the mind of the agent of consequences, beneficial or other-
wise. [Fr. on Mack., p. 321].
Hartley deals with the practical rules of morality in a more
diffusive and gossiping manner, and with greater particularity
of detail and variety of illustration, than Mill. It will not be
at all necessary to follow him closely through his somewhat
rambling amplification of what the later philosopher states in
general and concise terms. Hartley's remarks here would
equally well fit almost any moral system that could be named.
3 It may be urged that one social affection strengthens another, and
that therefore there is an object in cultivating affections and dispositions.
But this argument too is grounded on utility in the last resort; besides
which, it is not true that a man quiet and humble in private life, for
instance, is necessarily so in public. Tyranny in political life may be
accompanied by strongly developed family feeling.
1 86 . HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
In his case, in fact, as in that of so many other Utilitarians,
the old objection at this point strikes us with peculiar force,
that what is new in his opinions is not true, and what is true
in them is not new. Men should pursue their own interests.
What is meant by interests ? Everything that for any
reason or with any object in view they have at any time a
desire to do. After such a comprehensive definition, the most
adverse schools of philosophy must perforce agree. Then
comes the further question, over which the battle is really to
be fought, namely, what ought their interests to be ? What
ought a person to like or desire ? The answer of Uti li-
, t arianism , both as represented by Hartley one of its earliest,
and by J. S^JMIll one of its latest, e^ojuen^jsjbhesame :
h e should like what ot her peopIe„_li ke, and do what oth er
p eople do, Humanity has found jm t what is best for itse lf.
Fol low its e xperience.
Hartley expressly says that the rule of life must be ex-
tracted, firstly, from the opinions held, and secondly, though
in a less degree, from the practice obtaining among mankind
in general. He would add to these the testimony of religion,
natural and revealed, were it not that he is anxious to lay down
a basis which may equally suit all classes of thinkers. e( Even
atheistical and sceptical persons " can, he thinks, have no objec-
tion to his first principle, that, from the infancy of their race,
men have sought happiness ; that, allowing for a fluctuating
margin, their methods of attaining to it in practice have been
constant and discoverable ; and that, where men's practice
conflicts with their deliberate opinions, we have in the latter,
as being unwarped by passion, even more certain guides on
moral questions. \Observ. on Man, vol. ii. pp. 207 — 210].
The verdict of mankind's experience and opinions is that
the right method of seeking our own advantage consists in
attempts to secure the happiness of our neighbour. All mere
HARTLEY ON THE INTERESTS OF MAN. 187
and gross self-interest may, says Hartley, be roughly put
down as vice, all- advancement of the interests of our neigh-
bour as virtue. He does not (with Mandeville) consider
private vices to be public good, but public misfortune. And
as to how both private and public virtues should best be
practised, the common sense and judgment of mankind has
determined for us already.
It will thus be seen that Hartley leaves considerably less to
the calculative element in morality than Mill, and follows
much more unquestioningly the common verdict of men of all
ways of thinking in different countries at different times. He
is not so much at variance with the ethics of the past. He,
like Mill, thought the times " out of joint/' and foresaw a
general upheaval of society drawing near [vol. ii. pp. 440,
441], but his recipe for "setting right" the times was to revert
to the old morality which, though accepting in theory, men were
neglecting in fact ; while Mill, on the other hand, considered
the ethical principles existing in his time to be radically
wrong in theory, and therefore also in practice, and for that
purpose wished, as Plato wished before him, to revolutionize
Politics, Legislation, and Education.
Hartley conceives the graduation of the various interests of
man in point of moral dignity to be exactly in inverse order
to their arrangement in point of physical and historical de-
velopment. The latter order is (as has already been pointed
out), (1) those of sensation, (2) those of imagination, (3) those
of ambition, (4) those of self-interest, gross, refined, and
rational, (5) those of sympathy, (6) those of theopathy, (7)
those of the moral sense, the last-named being not so much
something apart from the rest as the consummation of them
all. All these classes are to be successively referred for their
justification on association principles to the class immediately
preceding ; so that the fountain-head, so to speak, the ultimate
1 88 HAR TLE Y A ND J A MES MILL.
and irreducible fact is sensation, and the interest attaching
to it. We seek the pleasures to be derived from works of
art, because the ideas suggested by them are intimately
associated with the ideas of sensation ; we pursue the pleasures
of ambition because the ideas suggested by these are inti-
mately allied with those of sensation and imagination both,
and are generated by combinations of them ; and so on for
the rest. 4 Conversely, in point of moral worth, the pleasures
of sensation are of little importance, unless informed by those
of imagination, those of imagination unless informed by
those of ambition, and so on, till we arrive at the pleasures
of theopathy, and finally to those of the moral sense, which
include, regulate, and react upon all the rest. Hartley thus
works out in the department of morals the Aristotelian
contrast between what is first in the order of growth, and
what is first in the order of reality and dignity. 5 We begin
by desiring the gratification of our most primitive instincts,
and we end by the renunciation of the self in one sense in
order to realize it in another. Throughout our lives we are
continually rising " on stepping-stones Of our dead selves to
higher things. - " Our own interest is always our proper and
legitimate object; but the content and conception of that
4 Mr. Leslie Stephen [Hist, of Eng. Thought in the Eighteenth
Century, ii. 67] neatly expresses Hartley's meaning : " in mathematical
language it may be said that six equations arise from stating each of the
latter six classes in terms of all the others ; and thus it is possible to
determine every one of the other classes as functions of the primitive
sensations."
5 " Now which way soever we turn our view, that which is prior in the
order of nature is always less perfect and principal, than that which is
posterior, the last of two contiguous states being the end, the first the
means subservient to that end, though itself be an end in respect to some
foregoing state" [vol. ii. p. 213]. This is the Platonic and Aristotelian
doctrine of rk\r\ or final causes.
SELF-REALIZA T10N. 189
interest widens for us with each successive advance from the
merest animal passion to the " apprehension of a god."
With considerable elaboration Hartley goes through the
various duties of man in connexion with the various species of
pleasure, and shows that there is no one of these latter, which
ought to be made a primary pursuit, at least till we come to
the class of sympathetic pleasures, which may be primarily
pursued, though even . they should, in order to attain to
perfection, be coloured and vivified by the sentiments of
theopathy. The special rules laid down need not be detailed,
as they are generally in close conformity with the dictates of
ordinary morality. One or two peculiarities however, — of the
man more than of the system — may be noticed.
Hartley has an altogether Platonic distrust of any indul-
gence of the imagination. He wishes it, and its works, to be
curbed and suppressed to an extent which strikes one as
puritanical, almost brutal. Like Plato, he will tolerate " sim-
plicity, neatness, regularity, and justness of proportion "
[vol. ii. p. 249] ; but any efforts of the artistic impulse beyond
this he appears to think not only unnecessary, but evil, as
diverting the mind from the far more urgent interests of
benevolence and the other sympathetic affections ; though he
allows that, in default of any higher emotions, those excited
by art draw off the mind from the grosser sensual pleasures,
and fill up what would otherwise be moments of absolute
idleness. Moreover, he will permit them, when brought into
the service of religion. 6 But on the whole, " it is evident,"
he thinks [vol. ii. p. 253], " that most kinds of music, paint-
ing, and poetry have close connexions with vice, particularly
with the vices of intemperance and lewdness ; that they re-
6 He plainly says that " the polite arts are scarce to be allowed, except
when consecrated to religious purposes " [vol. ii. p. 251]. Here again we
are reminded of Pluto's fctate-mythology, and state-poetry.
190 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
present them in gay, pleasing- colours, or at least take off from
the abhorrence due to them This is evident
of public diversions, collections of pictures, academies for
painting', statuary, &c, ancient'heathen poetry, modern poetry
of most kinds, plays, romances, &c.," and, further on, he adds
somewhat shrewdly, that " the arts are apt to excite vanity,
self-conceit, and mutual flatteries, in their votaries." Nor is
he any tenderer to scientific pursuits ; 7 and he enjoins tem-
perance in these studies also. It is evident that i ' high priests
of science," and mutual admiration cliques in art, were no
more unfamiliar in his day than in ours. His whole scheme
of duties inclines to severity. In connexion with the pleasures
of sensation, he recommends occasional fasting. In consider-
ing the pleasures of ambition, and the desirability of humility,
he counsels, in the spirit of the great satirist of the present
day, the imposition on one's self of voluntary silence, and
thinks it well " not to attempt to speak, unless a plain reason
requires it." Another remarkable feature of his moral admo-
nitions is the constant reference to Education as the necessary
means of developing' the right associations.
7 " Nothing," he roundly asserts, " can easily exceed the vain-glory,
self-conceit, arrogance, emulation, and envy, that are found in the eminent
professors of the sciences, mathematics, philosophy, and even divinity
itself."
i9i
CHAPTER X.
THE AESTHETIC DOCTRINES OF HARTLEY AND MTLL.
We have now found the answers of Hartley and James Mill
to the questions, (1) how do we come to think? (2) how do
we come to act ? (3) how ought we to act ? Having" done
with Thought and Moral Action, it remains to see what our
philosophers have to say, — it is not much — on the subject of
^Esthetic Emotion. In this last department, as in the others,
Association is brought in as the prime solvent; but no one can
fail to notice with how little success, compared with that
attending its application to the practical, fields of human
energy, and, in a less degree, to intellectual phenomena. There
is something in art, and the feelings generated by the con-
templation of its works, which eludes the Associationist's
dissecting knife; and it is remarkable how meagre, vague,
and unsatisfactory all the attempts to interpret them by the
light of such principles have been.
In his remarks on the " Objects called Sublime and Beau-
tiful and their Contraries, contemplated as Causes of our
Pleasures and Pains," \_Anal. vol. ii. pp. 230 — 252], Mill follows
closely Hartley's section on the genesis of the Pleasures and
Pain of Imagination [Obs. on Man, vol. i. pp. 418 — 442], and
also Alison's " Essays on Taste/'' quotations from whose work
he liberally introduces. These three philosophers, it is need-
less to say, account for the state of the human mind in the
presence of the Beautiful and the Sublime, by the hypothesis
1 92 HARTLEY A ND J A MES MIL I .
that pleasurable ideas are associated with certain forms, curves,
colours, or sounds in the mind of the person subject to the
emotion : and that this association is due to the fact that on
previous occasions, pleasurable sensations have been imparted
to him by external objects possessing or emitting" such forms,
curves, colours, or sounds. Where such a hypothesis cannot
be shown to apply directly, we must argue from the known to
the unknown, and presume that patient analysis will in time
prove it to hold good in these cases also.
Hartley proposes to consider under this head the pleasures
arising, (1) from the beauty of the natural world, (2) from
works of art, (3) from the liberal arts of music, painting, and
poetry, (4) from the sciences, (5) from the beauty of the
person, (6) from wit and humour, and also (7) the pains
arising from gross absurdity, inconsistency, or deformity. This
division is an example of Hartley's hopelessly clumsy and em-
pirical way of treating a subject of this kind. (7) is obviously
the converse of all the other classes; (5) should be included
under (1), and (3) under (2), while (4) and (6) seem to be
scarcely assignable at all to the pleasures of the imagination
as a distinctive species. This leaves us the pleasures derived
first, from the beauty of the natural world, secondly, from
works of art. It is characteristic of Associationists to regard
an explanation of the first of these, in which department their
methods are applied with some success, as doing duty for an
interpretation of the latter also, where, however, the difficulties
really begin. This arises from their seeing in Art nothing
but imitation of Nature, without paying any heed to the
creative element. [Hartley, vol. i. p. 426]. Mill indeed
scarcely seems to conceive the Beautiful and Sublime as exist-
ing outside Nature at all, and almost entirely omits Art from
his examination of them as causes of pleasure.
The pleasures derived from beautiful objects of Nature arise,
THE BE A UTIFUL IN NA TURE. 193
in Hartley's view, from the association of sensible pictures of
rural scenes with mental pictures of the different comforts and
advantages (such as pleasant tastes, sounds, temperature, sports,
&c), originally and repeatedly experienced in connexion with
them. Novelty too excites surprise and thus produces a state
of mind which is highly pleasurable, though sometimes border-
ing upon the limits of pain. The ideas of uniformity and
variety in combination — differences in details combined with
unity of law or plan — which are called up by such scenes, also
produce pleasure, inasmuch as they are intimately connected
with the idea of Adaptation to Ends, excited by similar pro-
perties in mechanical works and contrivances. [Hartley, vol. i.
p. 419]. Other ideas associated with the contemplation of
natural beauty are those of health, innocence, and the amorous
pleasures, and those " which the encomiums of others beget in
us by means of the contagiousness observable in
mental dispositions" [Hartley, i. 420], also those suggested
by the theopathetic affections, where these are strongly
developed, as well as those which scientific pursuits and in-
vestigations abundantly call forth. In support of this analysis
Hartley appeals to each man's individual consciousness. "An
attentive person," he says [Observ. on Man, vol. i. p. 421],
" may, in viewing or contemplating the beauties of Nature,
lay hold as it were, of the remainders or miniatures of many
of the particular pleasures here enumerated, while they recur
in a separate state, and before they coalesce with the general
indeterminate aggregate, and thus verify the history now
proposed." It is an argument moreover in favour of this
u history " of the growth of the sesthetical emotions, that the
kind and degree of feeling with which a person contemplates
natural scenes varies with the different stages in his life, and
as the stock of associated ideas gradually accumulates and
becomes more firmly welded together. It is notorious that
194 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
old people, as a rule, take greater delight in the contemplation
of nature than young. Granting these associations to be an
adequate explanation and basis of the feelings with which we
behold the Beautiful in nature — a concession which, we
imagine; few people who have seriously reviewed their own
state of mind in such circumstances, will be disposed to accord
— let us see if the emotions consequent upon the contemplation
of the Sublime can be analyzed by any analogous process. The
ideas which rugged mountainous scenery, for instance, excites
in us must necessarily be in the first place, at any rate, as
Hartley says, associated with ideas of fear and horror ; so much
so that certain philosophers, such as Buckle, have even founded
on them important national characteristics, (such as torpor,
abjectness, want of mental inquisitiveness, superstition, cruel
religious rites, &c).
Whence then the pleasure with which we contemplate the
grand and awful in Nature ? It is explained (rather unsatis-
factorily) on the Lucretian " suave mari magno " principle.
There is a pleasure, as the dramatist says, in hearing with
drowsy content the winds roaring and rain beating against
the roof of the comfortable room in which we are ensconced. 1
But this is a very different feeling from that consequent on
the view of mountain scenery. Still Hartley and Mill con-
sider the latter ultimately analyzable into the same primitive
elements as the former. " The nascent ideas of fear and horror
magnify and enliven all the other ideas, and by degrees pass
into pleasures by suggesting the security from pain.' ; (Hart-
ley, i. 419). One might ask how it is that, if originally
painful spectacles suggest by contrast the pleasurable ideas of
our own immunity from pain, pleasurable ideas, such as are
called up in the first instance by beautiful scenes, do not
vtto crreyj]
7rvKi>?]s uKovaai yj/eKados evdovai] (ppevi. Soj)h. Fr.
THE SUBLIME IN NATURE. 195
equally suggest the ideas of dissatisfaction at our own con-
dition as contrasted with their tranquillity and perfection.
Mill even more emphatically than Hartley, says that the
sensations which we immediately derive from Colours, Forms,
and Sounds are in themselves absolutely indifferent, and only
become interesting by association with ideas. In the case of
Colours, for instance, the associations are either those which
arise from the interesting nature of objects or phenomena per-
manently coloured in certain ways, such as Day, Night, &c,
or those which arise from some supposed analogy between
certain colours and certain dispositions of mind, or lastly^ those
which arise from accidental connexions, whether national or
individual, e.g. the connexion of the colour of purple with
ideas of dignity and majesty, or the connexion of black in some
countries, of white in others (as China), with funerals and
mourning. The Association in every case, and the Association
alone, is the cause of the Beauty [Mill, ii. 244]. 2 Underived
beauty of colours is denied. No new colour introduced by
fashion is (says Alison, as quoted by Mill) pleasing at first.
This proposition, we think, most persons will dispute with
J. S. Mill (ii. 247 n.). And still more will they dispute the
statement that there are no direct physical sensations of plea-
sure to be derived from music at any rate, if not from the
sounds of animals. Granting that the scream of the eagle
or the roar of the lion is only interesting as suggestive of the
ideas of lonely majesty and independence, who can ascribe the
pleasure derived from a sonata of Beethoven to its association
with pleasurableideas, once connected with similar sounds emitted
by animals or inanimate objects in nature ? Similarly, it may
very well be doubted whether there is not an original pleasure in
the contemplation of beautiful Forms; and whether Alison's and
Mill's derivation of the emotions with which we regard grace-
: Cp. ii. 250.
n 9
196 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
ful curves from the fact that, since most of our bodily motious
are in curves, and most soft surfaces are round, therefore curves
are suggestive of ease and comfort, and Hartley's explanation
of the delight taken in beautiful architectural proportions as
depending upon their association with the ideas of utility and
adaptation to ends, are at all adequate. Mill as we have said,
does not treat distinctively of the pleasures derived from works
of art, hut that he would treat these on the same principles as
those on which he bases the pleasures already noticed, is evi-
dent from his somewhat astounding statement [ii. 251]
that the train of ideas associated with the form of the Venus
de Medicis, and this alone, induces us to call it beautiful and
justifies us in so calling it. Hartley's exposition of the feelings
consequent upon the contemplation of works of art consists
mainly in a reference (1) to the associated ideas of fitness and
utility (as in architectural and mechanical works), (2) to the
pleasurable ideas, which are derived from the detection of a
successful imitation, in Painting, for instance, and Poetry
[Observ. on Man, vol. i. pp. 427, 431]. In the case of Music,
however, Hartley allows that certain concords excite an ori-
ginal, and not a derived, pleasure : but that original pleasure is
enormously enhanced by those derived from the associations of
certain sounds with the ideas of " amorous pleasures, public
rejoicings, riches, high rank " — we may imagine the feelings
of a musician on reading this — or with " battles, sorrows,
death, and religious contemplation." In reference to this
latter set of associated ideas, as in the attempted analysis of
the Sublime in nature, there is a failure to explain satisfac-
torily the great crux of the Associationists' theory of aesthetic
emotion, namely, how it is that we experience a pleasure in
the teeth of our pain or sadness. A cognate question would
be raised by the consideration of the feelings attendant on
tragic representations, where the paradox, that our pleasure
HARTLEY ON ART. 197
consists in our pain, is still more apparent : but Hartley omits
the Drama from his theory altogether. Discords, he says, are
necessary and proper in music to prevent us being" cloyed with
the delights of " concords of sweet sounds," just as, for pur-
poses of contrast, a certain degree of obscurity may be both
justifiable and delightful in poetry. We need not notice
further the views of Hartley on these subjects, as they are not
of much real value, and are only of interest as one of the
earliest attempts to explain sesthetic emotion on strictly asso-
ciationist principles : though ingenious, they are strained in
the extreme, in order to bring every phenomenon under his
favourite law, as, for example, where he speaks of the pleasure
arising from pictures being derived from, amongst other things,
"ambition, fashion, the extravagant prices of the works of
certain masters, from associations of the villas and cabinets of
the noble, the rich, and the curious, &c.," — a statement which,
we imagine, would not find more favour with the painter, than
would the passage quoted above with the musician.
i 9 <S HARTLEY A ND JAMES MILL.
CHAPTER XI.
THE PRINCIPLES OF UTILITARIANISM AND ASSOCIATION AS AP-
PLIED BY HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL TO SPECIAL DEPARTMENTS
OF PRACTICAL LIFE, POLITICS — LEGISLATION— EDUCATION —
INTERNATIONAL LAW.
As in Ethics, so in Politics Mill considers the proper end of
human effort to be Utility, and further that where really useful
objects do not appear to be so to minds warped by passion, or
overclouded by ignorance, such minds should be enticed to
the performance of the actions calculated to achieve those
objects by the instrumentality of association, and by connect-
ing with the actions desirable from such a point of view either
pleasurable sensations or pleasurable ideas. The same process
by which we explain how men act as they do should be used
and manipulated in a manner calculated to induce them to
act as they ought. The end of any action is always supposed
Utility ; of right action, considered and reasoned Utility.
The object of Government, Legislation, and Education is to
make the imagined interests more and more nearly coincide
with the real interests, — " to make the values and the associa-
tions correspond" [Anal., vol. ii. p. 259.]
Most philosophers agree, says Mill, in his Miscellaneous
Essays? that the end of government is " public good," to use
Locke's expression, or, in Bentham's well-known phrase,
Reprinted from the Encyclopedia Eritannica, 1828.
PS YCHOL OG V AND POLITICS. 199
" the greatest happiness of the greatest number." These
propositions, however, though true, tell us little. They are
tautological, until what is meant by the " public good " is
explained. To convert them from analytical to ampliative
propositions, it is necessary to survey the whole field of
human nature in its various individual manifestations. Politics
must be based on psychology. History, and the comparison
of social phenomena as existing in different ages and countries,
are scouted ; and Mill nowhere appears to recognize the neces-
sity of taking them into account in determining the principles
of politics or legislation. He reverses the method of Plato,
who thought that when the happiness of a whole state is dis-
covered, that of the individuals composing it is necessarily
found too ; and that in constructing an ideal of happiness,
philosophy should begin with seeking the conditions of the
former. Mill, on the contrary, distinctly says that "to under-
stand what is included in the happiness of the greatest number,
we must understand what is included in the happiness of the
individuals of whom it is composed " [Essay on Government,
p. 3]. His theory of government is, therefore, a direct appli-
cation to masses of men of his theory of moral phenomena as
applied in the Analysis to individuals.
Mill considers that in political inquiries we are bound to
treat men as ruled by one motive, namely self-interest, just
as in the narrower sphere of political economy we are forced
to treat them as ruled by the one motive of love of wealth.
We isolate the wealth-desiring and wealth-acquiring pheno-
mena of human nature in the latter case, though we know
that in practice they are intermingled with other phenomena,
and that wealth is not the only thing which men desire, or
the love of it which moves them to action. But after the results
of this isolation are obtained, due allowances can be made,
and the equation can have the proper values of its terms
200 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
assigned to it. So in Politics and Legislation we must sup-
pose, with Bentham, that every man is a knave, and will
take everything 1 he can from others by deceitful means, to
obtain his own ends ; or again, with Hobbes, that every man
is a being of unlimited rapacity — (' c homo homini lupus") —
and that he will take from his fellow-citizens, to secure the
same ends, everything he can by force. The value of the
method, — there is no question of its legitimacy, — depends of
course on the degree of facility with which the phenomenon to
be exclusively examined can be separated from those usually
existing in company with it. It may reasonably be doubted
whether this facility exists in the case of the study of Politics
or Legislation to anything like the same extent as in that of
Political Economy or the physical sciences.
Mill places the greatest happiness of society in the insuring
to every man of the greatest possible quantity of the produce
of his labour. [Essay on Government, p. 5.] The means of
attaining this end is the union of a number of men to
protect one another from the else unrestrained rapacity ot
individuals. 2 But large bodies can only effectively combine
for these purposes by delegating to representatives the power
necessary for protecting all. The means therefore may be
more particularly described as (1) Power, to restrain instinctive
rapacity and knavery, (2) checks to prevent that Power
itself developing into rapacity and knavery, — or guards
against the guardians. Developing with the utmost rigour
the principle that men in power are wolves or knaves or
both, Mill attempts to show, that where power is placed in
the hands of either a Monarch or an Aristocracy, the One or the
Few thus constituted ruler or rulers will prey upon the rest,
2 " Government is founded upon this, as a law of human nature, that a
man, if able, will take from others anything which they have and he
desire?." [Essay on Government, p. 8, cp. p. 9.]
ENDS AND METHODS OF GOVERNMENT. 201
and defeat the objects for which government is instituted,
apart from the fact that hereditary governments, whether
residing in one man or in several, are the worst possible
security for the ruler or rulers possessing the requisite intel-
lectual qualities for their office. The monarch or aristocracy
will desire the acquisition of pleasure at the expense of the
persons and properties of others. Desiring this as an end, they
will desire to have the means of attaining it. This means is
power — the ability, namely, to enforce actions on the part of
others in conformity with their own will. This again is obtained
by the two instruments of terrorism and favouritism. The
former operates upon men's fears, and produces that dumb
hopeless and nerveless kind of obedience, which existed, for
instance, in France for the three or four reigns preceding the
Revolution. The latter produces its effect by awarding pleasures
to pliancy and obsequiousness. Thus the monarch or aristo-
cracy is irresistibly led on, and the more irresistibly the longer
he or it governs, (till, at last, as Plato says of the tyrant, it
becomes with them a self-preservative instinct), " not only to
indulge in that degree of plunder which leaves the members
(excepting* always the recipients and instruments of the
plunder) the bare means of subsistence, but also to exercise
that degree of cruelty which is necessary to keep in existence
the most intense terror." [Essay on Government, p. 12.] They
are impelled to seek the means of obtaining an unlimited degree
of power over an unlimited number of persons. So that the
common objection that the citizens of a state will be less
plundered by One in a Monarchy, than by the Few in an Aristo-
cracy, and by the Few in an Aristocracy, than by the Many in
a Democracy, falls to the ground. The notion, accepted by
some modern philosophers such as Guizot, of a Monarch as a
Mediator between the conflicting forces of the state, removed
by his exalted position from the possibility of interest or
202 HARTLEY AND JAMES MIL L .
prejudice in any one direction, evidently did not find favour
with Mill. With him the Monarch must necessarily he the
Tyrant, according to the principles of human nature, though
he admits that some historical facts (such as the Monarchy of
Denmark) are against him. [Essay on Government, p. 9.]
The conclusion is then, that " whenever the powers of Govern-
ment are placed in any hands other than those of the commu-
nity, whether those of one man, of a few, or of several, those
principles of human nature which imply that government is at
all necessary, imply that these persons will make use of them
to defeat the very end for which Government exists." [Essay
on Government, p. 8.] And the difficulty is not got over, in
Mill's opinion, by a constitutional system of Government by
different Orders. [Essay on Government, pp. 14, 15.] The
Community must desire its own interest. And this can only
be secured by its acting as one body, not by its having two
peoples, the rich and the poor, as Plato says, encamped over
against one another in one city, or within the limits of one
territory. But all public business would be out of the ques-
tion, if the community attempted to transact it en masse. A
Democracy, pure and simple, is the most desirable form of
government, where feasible, as in the old Greek cities ; but
according to the modern territorial conception of a state, it
must be dismissed as outside the range of practical politics.
Nothing, therefore, remains which is at once, just, proper, and
feasible, but the Representative sj^stem. [Essay on Government,
p. 16.] The power here resides in certain individuals appointed
by the Representatives, and the checking power resides in the
Representatives themselves, whose interest is identical with
that of the Community. We have therefore the two requisites
of good government. [Essay on Government, pp. 17 — 27.]
It may be objected however that the people are incapable
of estimating their true interests; that though they cannot
EDUCATION. 203
be mistaken as to what they desire, they may be, and often
are, mistaken as to the real value of what they desire. 3 But
the question is, Mill urges, not whether the will of the com-
munity is an ideal or perfect will, but whether it is better that
the will of the community, or the will of an individual, party,
or class in it, should direct and control the affairs of all the
citizens. For such mistakes, in any case, there is an un-
failing- remedy, knowledge ; and knowledge is happily capable
of being increased by Education, an instrument which we
now proceed to consider. 4
It is natural that two such believers in the almost un-
limited potency of Association in forming pleasures, pains,
duties, motives, and affections, as were Hartley and James
Mill, should occupy themselves considerably with the most
obvious means of establishing and riveting associative bonds.
Accordingly, even in the exposition of their general
theory of the human mind, we are continually coming across
references to the influence and importance of Education,
accompanied (especially in Mill's case) with strong expressions
of discontent at the modes of instruction prevailing in their
respective times, and hints for the establishment of a better
system .
" It is of the utmost consequence to morality and religion/'
3 This objection besides being bandied on pp. 28 — 32 of tbe Essay on
Government is made tbe subject of copious extracts and remarks, under
tbe title " People Unfit," and among tbe " Idola Politica " enumerated in
Mill's MS. commonplace books (in four volumes) which were presented
to the London Library by J. S. Mill, and are now in its possession.
Objections to Aristocratical and Monarchical Government are treated of in
these same books under the titles Nobility, Liberty, Innovation, Patronage,
Protests of Despotism, Reform, Character of a Perfect Reformer, People's
Power, Aristocracy, Sec, Sic Tbe quotations exhibit a prolonged and
methodical study.
4 In Legislation and Jurisprudence [Essay No. II.'] Mill merely follows
Bentham.
204 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
says Hartley [vol. i. p. 81], "that the affections and
passions should be analyzed into their simple compounding
parts, by reversing 1 the steps of the associations which concur
to form them. For thus we may learn how to cherish and
improve good ones, check and root out such as are mis-
chievous and immoral, and how to suit our manner of life in
some tolerable measure, to our intellectual and religious wants.
And as this holds, in respect of persons of all ages, so it' is
particularly true, and worthy of consideration, in respect of
children and youth The world is indeed sufficiently
stocked with general precepts for this purpose, grounded on
experience ; and whosoever will follow these faithfully, may
expect good general success. However, the doctrine of
association, when traced up to the first rudiments of under-
standing and affection, unfolds such a scene as cannot fail
both to instruct and alarm all such as have any degree of
interested concern for themselves, or of a benevolent one for
others." Education, then, in Hartley's opinion should be
the putting together again of the pieces severed by the theory
of association. The reconstructive process should be the
exact reversal of the analytical. Mill follows Hartley in
this view, though by no means in his sanguine estimation of
the value of the ordinary precepts of the times, grounded on
experience. 5 He thought the current systems wholly and
radically wrong, and for
5 In another passage, however, Hartley speaks of the " carelessness and
infatuation of parents and magistrates with respect to the education of
youth," as one of the causes which seemed to him to " threaten ruin and
dissolution to the present states of Christendom" [ii. 441]. And again,
in speaking of the duties of parents, he " cannot but conclude the general
education of youth to be grossly erroneous and perverted " [ii. 237]. He
supposes [ii. 254] the proper education of a prince to be entirely out of
the question, and expresses a longing for, rather than an expectation of,
the appearance of some philosopher-king, after Plato's heart.
ITS VALUE AND FUNCTION. 205
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past
That youth and observation copied
in the human mind in his day, he had hut little respect.
"W e have seen how Hartley regards the influence and value
of Art almost entirely in its moral and educational aspects,
and what didactic significance he attaches to allegories, myths,
and analogies generally. He, like Mill after him, notices
more than once the educational importance of language in
creating associations, and more especially the use to which
such words as Bentham would call eulogistic and dyslogistic,
may he put; and proposes, as we have seen, with a view to
the suggestion of the proper trains of thought, philosophical
languages and dictionaries. [Vol. i. pp. ol9, 3£0J. The
mechanical view of human nature, upheld by him, as the
outcome of associationism, he thinks particularly calculated to
abolish the notion of capricious volition, and to inculcate that
of law and method in morality, and so to give better
guarantees for the success of educational labours [vol. i. p.
510]. In the Analysis Mill deplores again and again the
imperfect systems of education in vogue, and hints at what
he considers the right means of disposing men to work for
the good of their fellow- creatures, and allow the larger
associations to guide and control the narrower. 6 But his
more elaborate adumbration of the essential features of proper
and philosophical education is contained in the seventh of
the Essays.
In Education, as in Politics, Mill considered man from one
side only, and that the side brought most prominently forward
in his psychological inquiries. " In psychology/' wrote
6 Analysis, vol. ii. pp. 215, 221, 225, 227, 259, 270, 272, 276, 278, 279,
289, 293, 300, 378, 403. See his essays in the Edinburgh Review and
the Philanthropist on the rival schemes for the education of the poor
propounded by Bell and Lancaster.
206 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
J. S. Mill, "his" (James Mill's) "fundamental doctrine was
the formation of all human character by circumstances, through
the universal principle of Association, and the consequent un-
limited possibility of improving the moral and intellectual
condition of mankind by education/ 5 On such subjects Mill
was an enthusiast. He believed that there was no limit to the
number and variety of individuals which it could reach, to
the age at which it was possible to begin, (in this follow-
ing Rousseau,) to the things which it could teach, or to the
qualities which it could inspire. All men were in his view
as in that of Helvetius and Sir W. Jones, born with much the
same capacity of improvement. There were no differences in
the energy and ability brought to bear by various individuals
on the affairs of life, which could not be accounted for by
differences in education . In describing its possibilities [Essays,
No. VII. pp. 18 — 20] Mill almost reaches the sublime.
The object of education is to render first the human mind,
and next the human body, productive of the highest degree of
happiness to their possessor and to the rest of mankind. To
the body Mill did not pay very much attention. 7 In regard
to the mind, everything which affects in any way whatsoever
those of its qualities and conditions, on which happiness
depends, must be contemplated as a possible means of its
education. The reason why the theory of education is generally
so imperfect is that this first principle is neglected, and certain
classes of things affecting the mind are arbitrarily singled out
from the rest, for the purpose of building on them an educa-
tional system.
As prerequisites, therefore, to any theory of education, it is
necessary (1) to consider how things and circumstances operate
7 Either as part of his theory, or part of his practice, — (witness the
education of his son, so lamentably deficient in physical training, vid.
Autobiography, p. 36).
ITS PREREQUISITES. 207
upon minds, (2) the nature of the things and circumstances so
operating on the mind as to render it productive of happiness,
(3) the nature of the mental qualities productive of happiness.
The first problem is answered by the Association psychology,
the third by the analysis of the active phenomena of the mind.
It remains to consider the circumstances and methods operating
upon the mind so as to form the necessary qualities. Now
the function of the mind being the having or experiencing
certain sequences or trains of ideas, the object of education is
to ensure the constant presence of some trains in preference to
others. The means which most effectually secure this end are
Custom, and the Ideas of Pleasure and Pain. The right
sequences of ideas must be rendered as indissoluble as possible
by the former, and as desirable, or as repulsive as possible, by
their association with the latter. We have " first to ascertain
what are the ends, the really ultimate objects of human desire ;
next what are the most beneficent means of attaining these
objects ; and lastly to accustom the mind to fill up the inter-
mediate space between" [any] " present sensation" [taken as a
starting-point] "and the ultimate object with nothing but
ideas of the beneficent means." [Essays, No. VII. p. 147],
The qualities of the mind calculated to produce happiness
are partly intellectual, partly moral. It was characteristic of
Mill's philosophy, indeed of the Utilitarian system generally,
to look to actions and results, rather than to sentiments
motives and dispositions, in estimating moral worth : and we
are not surprised, therefore, to find Mill paying considerable
attention to the intellectual qualities (knowledge to supply
the material, and sagacity or the power to use that material, —
copiousness and energy, — fullness with readiness). Blind fanati-
cism working infinite evil with the best intentions was as
repulsive and abominable to Mill as " the lie in the soul" was
to Plato. The ethical qualities are chiefly, as we have seen
2o8 HARTLEY AND J A MES MIL L .
above, Temperance, Fortitude (primarily self-regarding") and
Justice and Benevolence, (primarily altruistic). The circum-
stances operating- on the mind to produce and stimulate these
qualities, moral and intellectual, are both of the physical, and
of the moral and mental kind. A consideration of the former
gives us a view of Physical Education, of the latter a view of
Domestic, Technical, Social, and Political Education. In the
matter of Physical Education, Mill follows Cabanis, the French
physician and. philosophe, whose name is chiefly known to
Englishmen as associated in a sarcasm of Carlyle with the
doctrines of "the secretion of thought/'' and " the production
of poetry from the smaller intestines," the elder Darwin's
Zoonomia, and Dr. Crichton's researches, besides hints thrown
out by Hartley in his semi-medical capacity. [Essays, No. VII.
pp. 23—30.]
Domestic Education in Mill's view cannot be commenced
too soon. It should be contemporaneous with sensation itself.
The mistake of most people is, to begin education too late.
What Mill derived from the theory of Rousseau, he carried
into practice in the training of his own son, whether with
altogether satisfactory results any one who reads the latter's
Autobiography may be allowed to doubt. s
In order that the qualities of intelligence may be early
developed in children, the sequences of their ideas should be
made as far as possible to correspond to the sequences of pheno-
mena in nature. Pain and pleasure again should be made
to follow on conduct with the precision of a natural law.
Children should not be led to regard their parents as acting
capriciously, or as propitiated by entreaties and flatteries.
They should be taught to recognize, that each act of theirs
8 On the want of physical education in J. S. Mill's case, see Autob. p.
3G (quoted above) ; on the deadening of the imaginative element and the
emotions, see the Aulob. passim.
MORAL TRAINING BY ASSOCIATION. 209
carries its consequences with it, and thus the appropriate
associations would be generated, and a foundation laid for Tem-
perance as well as Intelligence. {Essay, No. VII. p. 33.]
In inculcating- Benevolence, the task of the parent or educator
is (at first at any rate), somewhat easier. The child will of
his own accord notice that when those around him are cheerful
and pleased, they will be more disposed to let their feelings
overflow in little acts of kindness to himself, and that when
they are plunged in gloom and sorrow, he will be forgotten or
made much less of than usually. An association will conse-
quently be formed between the pleasures and pains of those
about him and his own pleasures and neglect (if not pains)
respectively. He will thus have an interest in seeing other
persons happy, and will on occasions be prompted to endeavour
himself to secure their happiness. Next he will perceive (of
himself, again, in most cases, quite as much as under the
guidance of others) a new fact, namely, that when he is the
cause of pleasure to other people, not only do they often in
their gratified condition, exert themselves to perform kindly
offices to those round about them (himself among the number),
but they are peculiarly well disposed to him in particular. He
is, therefore, now doubly stimulated to benevolence from the two
sets of pleasurable ideas associated, first, with the happiness of
others from whatever source derived; next, and specifically,
with that happiness as caused or promoted by himself.
Meanwhile the child is every day absorbing by imitation
the basis of future character. And here it is that the office of
education is brought into play, in regard to the quality of benevo-
lence. If by the observation and interpretation of the words and
other signs, spoken or made use of by those about him, the child
perceives that the trains of ideas in their minds connected with
the ideas of the pleasures and pains of persons other than them-
selves, and especially when caused by themselves, appear to be
P
2 t o HARTLEY AND J A ALES MILL.
pleasurable and painful respectively; then the associations
formed in that child's mind in the first instance will be riveted
still closer by repetition and imitation. Immediately therefore
on the occurrence to a child of the pleasurable ideas of power
over other men, dignity, &c, it is the duty of the parent, by his
words and actions, to suggest to him the ideas of the proper
means to that end, that is, of acts of benevolence ; and, again,
whenever the idea of performing an act of benevolence enters the
mind of the child, whatever may in fact be the antecedent of that
idea, to couple with it at once and as often as possible pleasurable
and encouraging ideas of the command over other men's wills,
as the necessary effect and reward of those acts. But this is
only half the work. Another great object should be to elimi-
nate, suppress, and discourage the formation and repetition of
those sequences of associated ideas which tend to impress on the
child the belief that he can obtain the good offices of others as
much by threatening them with pain as by doing acts which
will procure them pleasure, ideas which thus lay the foundation
for tyranny. Mill takes a rather good example of this, and
one which shows how early he would have the educational
processes inaugurated : — he says that nearly every child is
taught to associate the idea of obtaining its desires with the
ideas of crying and shrieking ; and in this way, says Mill,
pathetically, the cries and wailings of a child are very often an
instrument of absolute tyranny. This and similar concessions
on the part of parents (often from a selfish desire to remove
their own unpleasant sensations by the speediest measures)
begin what is known as the process of sj3oiling a child. In
the case of Pain, as in that of Pleasure, Imitation is a potent
factor in producing habitual dispositions. When children see
pain inflicted everywhere about them, on themselves among*
others, as the means of securing power, they gradually associate
the ideas of dignity with those of the infliction of pain on
TRAINING OF THE INTELLIGENCE. 211
others ; hence the frequently observed fact that the slavery of
childhood becomes the tyranny of mature age, and conversely
that only those who have served law well can administer it well:
and that the ideal of a citizen, and we may say of a man, is
6 Kara fiepos apywv /cal ap^o/xevos [Essays, No. VII. pp.
31—37].
Technical Education (to which, much to Mill's disgust, the
term Education is often exclusively confined), has to do mainly
with the intelligence, or (as above stated) the knowledge of
the order of those natural events and phenomena on which
happiness depends, together with that sagacity which finds the
best means to the accomplishment of desired ends. Mill's
observations are here restricted to the inculcation of the ne-
cessity and duty of educating the labouring classes, the poor
as well as the rich. To deny them technical education — educa-
tion in the liberal arts — is to deny them intelligence (or at
all events its proper development) : to deny them intelligence
is to deny them happiness. 9 He is vehemently opposed to the
idea that happiness is disproportionate to knowledge : it may
be so in individuals, where external circumstances operate as
well as cultivation of the mind ; it cannot be so in the case of
nations. When knowledge is diffused, it will never happen
that the nation will miss the best objects of knowledge, though
an individual may. He strongly recommends some such
discipline as Bentham's Cbrestomathia, or instruction in useful
objects of knowledge; of the proposed Chrestomathic Day-
school, and other institutions connected with it, he rather
sanguinely affirms that " of the practicability of the scheme
no competent judge ever doubted/'' though he adds that "the
difficulty of collecting funds" prevented its demonstration.
For the current modes of instruction in Universities he had
9 Cp. Lis essay in the Edinhurrj/i Review on the moral systems of Bell
and Lancaster for the education of the Poor.
1. 9
212 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
the greatest contempt/ as he had for all forms and institutions
which he conceived to be hostile to the distinctive feature of
all true education, progression, and to be allied to clericalism
and routine. He does not, however, go into details on this, or
on the other two branches of Education, social and political.
His sentiments, moreover, on the two last-named, may be
collected from his Analysis and the Essay on Government.
The great object of Domestic Education is to enable a man to
defy the evil effects of social education, as society is now con-
stituted. 2 We may not be able at once to alter the influences
of society from bad to good, but we can equip our children
against them by reforming our households. [Essays, No. VII.
pp. 43 — 46]. The danger of a riotous reaction in some cases,
and of utter gloom and despondency in others (such as affected
J. S. Mill at one period of his life), on the child's attaining
mature years, and finding that the vast world outside his
hearth and home has not been instructed as he himself has,
and that the mode and temper of thought prevalent in society
is totally strange and unfamiliar to him, — these were problems
which never occurred to Mill. Not only did Mill believe in
the unlimited teachability of individuals to procure and secure
their common interests, but he also believed in the possibility of
a similar education for nations. The scheme of an international
tribunal for the arrangement of differences between commu-
nities, and the gradual elimination of war from off the face of
the earth, which has given food alike for the aspirations of
1 In one of his commonplace books he has several pages of very bitter
declamations of his own, and extracts from the works of others (Bacon,
Gibbon, &c) against university training.
' l We are reminded of Plato's philosophical education, which however
was to begin much later in life, with a view to equip the citizen-philo-
sophers against the seductions and sophistry of the greatest of all sophists
— society.
MILL ON INTERNATIONAL ETHICS. 21
poets, and the investigations of philosophers, 3 was made by
Mill the subject of elaborate practical suggestions, contained
in his Essay on the Law of Nations. The tribunal was to
work in conformity with the provisions of an international Code,
and Mill (with all the confidence of a theorist) expresses his
belief that the application of the principle which he suggests
implies no peculiar difficulty, if the proper moral sentiments
be implanted in nations by means of a study of the Code.
Each nation will be as anxious to avoid the ill-will and con-
tempt of other nations, as every individual is to avoid similar
dispositions towards himself on the part of his fellow-men.
[Essays, No. VI. pp. 27 — 73.] It is curious, however, that
whereas, in treating of Polities, Mill conceives of a man or
body of men as desirous only of securing as much pleasure as
they can at the expense of others, in dealing with interna-
tional relations, he apparently ignores the exclusive operation
of such a desire, though the restraints on its accomplish-
ment are obviously much less strong in the case of nations
than in that of individuals, and the hypothesis, therefore,
which should isolate such a phenomenon would be much nearer
the facts, and therefore more valuable, in the former than
in the latter. If a man is a wolf to other men in a commu-
nity, unless effectual restraints, — restraints far stronger than
moral, — are placed upon his actions, will not a community
itself become a pack of wolves in reference to other commu-
nities, where no such restraints can possibly be imposed ?
Association can do much in the way of educating; but Mill
vastly underrates the difficulty of educating a nation out
of its warlike propensities by the use of such an instrument.
:t Kant sketched out a plan of such a tribunal in an essay translated by
De Quincey. The Abbe St. Pierre was another speculator in this direction.
See Woolsey's International Lata, for an account of some of these schemes.
Shelley of the poets is the most anti-warlike. See the beautiful chorus
closing the Hellas.
214 HA R TLE Y A ND J A MRS MILL .
part llh
THE VALUE AND INFLUENCE OF THEIR OPINIONS.
We have hitherto abstained from detailed criticism, in accord-
ance with the aim of this Series, and have only offered
comments here and there, where the tenets of either of our
two philosophers appeared manifestly insufficient to explain
what they proposed to explain, or where they were inconsistent
with themselves, or where, on any other ground, brief criti-
cism seemed not only not at variance with, but even necessary
to, the interests of exposition. We are now at liberty (1) to
attempt to show (very briefly) to what extent James Mill by
superior lucidity of arrangement, accuracy of reasoning, or
analytical penetration, made advances on Hartley, and how
far on the other hand he was indebted for his impulse and
starting-point to his predecessor's copious, but often ill-
digested, materials ; (2) to estimate the general character of
the writings of the two philosophers, the distinctive mark
which they left on their successors in various branches of
philosophy, and their place in the history of Associationism
and Utilitarianism.
I. Hartley and Mill were alike ardent and single-minded
lovers of truth. And they agreed in the main on the mean-
HARTLEY'S STYLE AND METHOD. 215
ing of the truth which they wished to convey. But the
speculative and literary methods employed by them in the
exposition of their (on the whole) common views differed con-
siderably ; as also did the matter itself in some minor
details.
The styles of the two philosophers were as dissimilar as
possible. Hartley was gifted with the "copia fandi/' * while
Mill's style and mode of reasoning were severely simple. The
two, indeed, were alike in their formal and scholastic methods,
and in their love of packing their doctrines into a syllogism or
pocket formula. But Hartley was not prevented by these
precise and orderly habits from giving free vent to those
sentiments, which Mill and his school would have scorned as
sentimentalities, nor from many a gay excursus into a variety
of intellectual domains, from which the austerer bent of the
latter restrained him. Hartley's rambling and gossiping style,
his queer mathematical mysticism (which Mr. Leslie Stephen
notices 2 ), his medical fancies and digressions, his theories of
biblical interpretation, his minute observations of the customs
of young children, and the inferior animals, his interest in
philosophical languages and dictionaries, his liking for theology
and discussion of the theopathetic faculties, — all these were
foreign to the mental habits and constitution of James Mill.
The preciseness of method apparently reflected in Hartley 's
Propositions, Corollaries, and Scholia did not extend beneath
the surface, whereas that observable in Mill's works was
radical, and answered to a certain analytical twist in his mind.
Indeed the mathematical forms of the former, when applied
1 Hartley's philosophical garrulity is not so striking as that of Tucker,
whom he resembles in some respects ; but his book is not unlike a less well-
stocked Religio Medici than that of Sir Thomas Browne : indeed Philo-
sophia Medici would have been an admirable title for the Observations
on Man.
8 Hist, of Eng. Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 68.
216 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILE
to the abstrusest and most ethereal subjects, serve rather, by
quaintness of contrast, to intensify our recognition of his love
of mysticism than to suggest his predilection for formalism.
The form was conventional, and derived from without, — from
Newton's Principia and other mathematical and scientific
works : whereas the matter to which he applied the form was
really congenial to his own tastes. This curious compression
of elastic material within rigid formula? is continually to be
met with throughout his work. His algebraical symbols and
equations are endless. He goes out of his way \Observ. on
Man, vol. ii. p. 282] to compare the gradual substitution of a
less and purer self-interest, in moral growth, for a larger and
grosser, to "some mathematical methods of obtaining quantities
to any required degree of exactness/' The degree of happiness
which may be derived by one man from his benevolent actions
towards another is explained like a problem in Euclid [ii. 286].
All the propositions relating to vibrations and vibratiuncules are
expressed algebraically ; and even, in enouncing the proposi-
tion that in all men the love of God should be greater than
the fear of him, and the fear of him greater than the love of
the world, he is not content until he has evolved an equation
W : F : : F : L, therefore W = -r> where L, F, and W re-
present the three above sentiments respectively. Language,
he often says, is merely a less perfect algebra, and perhaps
this is why he flies to algebra so often where language fails
him. The wealth of his illustrative matter is very great.
Allusions to Newton, whose JPriwcipia first set him on to the
Vibration Theory, and introductions of physical theories and
analogies are numerous. He never forgets that he is a phy-
sician, nor allows his readers to forget it. He culls several
examples from the field of medicine, — comparing, for instance,
a complex idea irresoluble into the separate elements of which
HIS DISCURSIVENESS. 217
it is composed to Venice treacle [vol. i. p. 322], while the
phenomena of disease and morbid affections are carefully con-
sidered by him in relation to his philosophical principles,
whenever an opportunity offers, and he devotes a special section
[vol. i. pp. 390 — 403] to the imperfections of reason resulting
from derangements or decline of bodily powers, such as madness,
idiocy, dotage, drunkenness, delirium. To the phenomena of
sleep and dreaming, and also to the condition of the deaf and
dumb, he pays great attention [vol. i. p. 287] ; and in the
practical part of his work devotes some pages to an elaboration
of the rules of good disetetics [ii. 218 — 228]. His medical
instincts similarly led him to couple muscular motion with
sensation and ideation, and to give an account of association
which should embrace each branch of its triple influence on
the three main elements of human nature. Nothing is too
apparently small to escape his attention. " De minimis curat
philosophia " is his motto : and he is quite guiltless of that
misconception of the function of philosophy which the late
Mr. Bagehot imputed to most of its professors, preventing
them from condescending to small things, or seeing that
speculation should, like some Nasmyth's hammer, be able to
put the head on to a pin as easily as beat out a ton of weight.
He devotes a special section to the intellectual faculties of
brutes [i. 404 — 415, cp. ii. 226 sqq.]. By his observations of
the reciprocal influence of language and thought upon one
another, he is (as we have already seen) led to suggest hints
for the construction of a philosophical language for all nations,
founded on combinations of a certain number of primitive
words, carefully selected with a view to their facility of calling
up the appropriate ideas [i. 315 — 318], — a scheme which was
first worked out in some kind of outline by one George Dal-
garno (1627 — 1687) in his Ars Signorum, — Vulgo Character
Universalis et Lingua Philosophica, and elaborated by Bishop
2 1 8 HARTLEY AND J A MES MILL .
Wilkins, 3 with his six genera and 3000 radicals, on a principle
noticed with much approval by Professor Max Miiller. Such
a philosophical language, says Hartley, " would as much exceed
any of the present languages as a paradisiacal state does the
mixture of happiness and misery which has been our portion
ever since the fall." In connexion with this part of his subject,
he speaks with approval of Byrom's system of shorthand, then
first coming into use, as being a method of marking ideas by
the most practicable, economical, and at the same time philoso-
phical symbols as yet discovered. In another part of his work,
his busy brain is occupied with the idea of a philosophical
dictionary, which should be, as he says, " a real as well as a
nominal one/' that is, should combine the merits of an ency-
clopaedia and a lexicon [vol. i. p. 285].
From music Hartley derives several of his illustrations and
analogies [i. 289, 321, &c] ; and for Pope and some other of
the English poets of a practical and moralizing turn (as was
stated in his Life) he had a sincere admiration : but, some-
what to our surprise, we find his attitude towards the imagina-
tive arts in their moral and educational aspects to have been
decidedly hostile. The poets in general he rarely speaks of in
his philosophical writings except as " lewd," and unfit to be
taught to, or read by, the young. In his classification of the
sciences, he contemptuously relegates poetry, together with
Grammar and the cognate sciences, to the sphere of Philology,
and he agrees (to the best of our recollection) with Mill in not
having a single quotation from any poet in his philosophical
" magnum opus." But of all his pursuits theological seem
to have been the favourite ; such questions as the possible
3 In his Essay towards a Real Character and Philosophical Lan-
guage (1668). The second part of the work was strictly philosophical,
the remaining three were on the artificial language proposed. Leibnitz
speculated in the same direction.
THE VARIETY OF HIS TASTES. 219
restitution of the Jews to Palestine he discussed with the
greatest avidity ; and did not shrink from such unortho-
dox conclusions on the* expectations of man as that all indi-
viduals will ultimately enjoy the same degree of happiness in
the future state [i. 486 — 192, and vol. ii. passim], and the like
expressions of what Mr. Leslie Stephen 4 calls his "optimism
run mad," which remind us of similar speculations on the
part of Abraham Tucker.
From the above instances the varied nature of Hartley's in-
vestigations will be apparent. His personal character and posi-
tion shine through his writings. In them we see the patient
physician professionally accustomed to " read each wound and
weakness clear, And say, c thou ailest here and here/ " but
having leisure for other studies in his moments of repose, and
willingly seeking relief therein ; — a man of enthusiasm, but
of a measured enthusiasm; — loving to speculate on the un-
known future, but sober and restrained in his speculations,
which generally rested on some solid basis of fact ; — not eager
to publish his ideas when red-hot, but preferring to accumulate,
to wait, to prove and improve. His position as oscillating
between two poles, 5 — between the firm ground of earth and
Ariosto's moon-region of abortive fancies, — between the career
of the theologian for which he was destined in the first instance
and the career of the experimental physician to which he even-
tually devoted himself, — is curiously reflected in the form of the
first sketch of his system, the Latin treatise above referred to
in the Life, which commences modestly in the character of an
appendix to a medical tract de Jjithontriptioo, or on reme-
dies and solvents for the disease of the stone, and ends with a
4 Hist of Eng. Thought, Sfc, vol. ii. pp. Go, GG, 120.
5 The curious contrasts in Hartley's work are pointed out by Mr.
Leslie Stephen {English Thought, Sfc. ii. 61) with his accustomed clearness
and vivacity.
22o HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
rhapsodical eulogium of the Christian religion, 6 reminding
us strongly of Bishop Berkeley's Slris, which, as Coleridge
tells us/ was " announced as an Essay on Tar-water, and began
with Tar and ended with the Trinity, the c omne scibile ' form-
ing the interspace." In the closing sentences of this little
pamphlet he augurs well for logical, ethical, and religious
studies from the combined efforts of medicine and philosophy,
based on physical science ["sociata opera Medicorum et Philo-
sophorum, Lockii et Newtoni vestigiis insistentium "] : while,
in his preface to theO&servations, he speaks of the double interest
attaching to Association, — first that of tracing it to its physical
cause, next that of following out its consequences in morality
or religion. He apologizes too for the " many disquisitions
foreign to the doctrine of association, which intermixed them-
selves " in the course of his work ; disclaims the office of a
system-maker ; and says that he did not look for facts to suit his
system, but adapted his system to suit the new facts which
were every day unfolding themselves to his view, as his labours
proceeded. In consequence of this, he fears that the book may
seem sketchy and incoherent, some of his doctrines (that of
necessity or mental mechanism, in particular) having forced
themselves upon him in the course of his undertaking in spite
of vehement opposition on the part of his own inclinations and
prejudices, and having been dragged, so to speak, with violence
into the main body and drift of the treatise. The fact that the
different parts of the work were written at different times, and
at different stages of his intellectual growth may, he hopes,
help to account for redundancies and repetitions, and other
blemishes of manner. In upholding the uses of his system he
fi Cp. p. 1 with p. 42 of the tractate " De Sensu, Motu, et Idearum
Generatione " (in Dr. Parr's Metaphysical Tracts of the Eighteenth
Century).
7 Biogr. Lit. p. 143.
MILL'S SEVERITY OE STYLE. 221
presents a two-faced aspect ; on the one hand urging its value
in medicine, especially pathology and therapeutics, on the other
hand showing how it leads to a true conception of logic and
mental science, how it destroys logomachies, interprets ethical
phenomena successfully, and through them leads the inquirer
to religious investigations and truths [De Sensit, &c, pp.
38—40].
Hartley's suggestiveness, combined with thorough intellec-
tual candour, (even though that candour induces him occasion-
ally to lay bare to his readers sinuous processes of reasoning,
and intricate methods of arriving at results, which it would
have been better to have concealed), has gained him ten
disciples, where James Mill's superior philosophy, encumbered
as it is by an ungainly style, has attracted one ; and has even
charmed philosophers the most opposed to him in the current
and tendency of their beliefs. 8 Mill's manner of philosophizing
was very different. His severe simplicity and contempt for
philosophical gossip and flowers of rhetoric was one of the
distinguishing marks of his school, and as such will be noticed
presently. He would turn neither to the right hand nor to
the left out of the high road leading direct to the object in
view. His own account 9 of the salient features in a coherent,
as opposed to a rambling, discourse seems in its most literal
sense to have been always present to him. His personal
character and intellectual habits were firmer and more earnest —
but, it must be added, narrower — than those of Hartley.
The differences in point of matter between the two philo-
sophers were not great. Such as they were, they arose partly
from the peculiarities of the men, partly from the characteristics
8 Such as Coleridge, who called his eldest sun after the name of the
philosopher, as a mark of the interest and admiration with which he \v;is
then studying him. See Siogr. Lit. p. 86.
9 See Mill's chapter o'i the Will (end of vol. ii. 0? Analysis).
222 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
of the times in which they severally lived. Mill was more bent
on the practical application of his views than Hartley, and
wrote more with the fervour of a man who expected his creeds
to be turned into deeds, and who attached an educational or
social value to every opinion which he expressed. Mill com-
posed with the rigour and simplicity of a schoolmaster of the
world ; Hartley with the ingenuous babbling of a pupil of the
world. Consequently the former at once discarded vibrations;
for, provided that people can be brought to perceive the uses of
association in education, it does not matter what physical
theory is put behind it as the cause of the cause. Nor on the
other hand will he follow his theory out into the nebulous region
of theopathy and theology ; for if men can be induced to con-
struct a morality on better associations, they will not be long
in constructing a better religion. Like Hartley, Mill deplores
the degenerate state of existing methods and principles, and,
like him, groans at the
"Jarring and inexplicable frame
Of this wrong world :"
but whereas Hartley contents himself with merely prophesy-
ing a " culbute generale " of most of the nations of Christen-
dom, Mill sets to work vehemently at schemes of reformation
in law, politics, and education. Hartley's literary atmosphere
was science and divinity, Mill's was the " philosophical radi-
calism " of the Benthamite reformers. If to the former, as
Professor Clifford said, must be given the credit of having
first seriously handled the problem of the chemistry of the
human mind, to the latter must be accorded that of having
first thoroughly examined its mechanical forces and the possi-
bility of utilizing them for social and educational purposes.
But there are few specific theories broached by Hartley which
Mill has very much improved, though he has put several of
HIS SIMPLICITY OF METHOD. 223
his predecessor's tenets into a more philosophical shape, besides
adding some fresh elements of his own to the general system.
His chief merit — as J. S. Mill observes [Preface to the
Analysis, pp. xvii, xviii] — was a vigorous exercise of the
qualities (somewhat lacking in Hartley) " which facilitate the
access of recondite thoughts to minds to which they are new:"
when, however, the critic goes on to say that the Analysis
" attains an elevation far beyond Hartley's " [work] " in the
thoughts themselves/' as well as in their arrangement and
elucidation, we are disposed to think the praise excessive.
The doctrine of Inseparable Association was certainly elabo-
rated by Mill, but the principle had been clearly enunciated
by Hartley, and both the principle and the name were men-
tioned, though not illustrated in any very great detail, by
Gay, or whoever may have been the author of the Enquiry
info the Origin of the Human Appetites and Affections, 1
notably in these words : " By association I mean that power
or faculty by which the first appearance of two or more ideas
frequently in the mind, is for the most part changed into a
lasting, and sometimes into an inseparable union.'" Mill's
analysis of the active or ethical phenomena of the mind was
more explicit and accurate than Hartley's; but, on the other
hand, he did not apply the doctrine of association to muscular
motion with the same success as Hartley, nor did he improve
on the latter's law of the three stages in the development of
motive power, — automatic, voluntary, and secondarily auto-
matic. His analysis, howeve r, of the Will was c ertainly more
full and satisfactory than H artl ey's; indeed Har tley had no
s pecific treatment of Volition as such, though h ehad a long
disc ussion on Necessity or Mechanism (as he preferred to call
it) and Freewill, — a subject omitted somewhat unacc ountably
1 In the MetajyJi. Tracts above referred to, p. 68. Cp. Mill's Analysis,
vol. i. p. 91.
224 HARTLEY AND JA MES MIL L .
by James __Mill — wherein lie carefully distinguished between
the " philosophical " doctrine of Freewill which asserts that a
man can will two different thing's when all the previous and
contemporary circumstances, internal and external*, are the
same, — a doctrine transparently false, — and the " practical "
or popular doctrine of Freewill, which asserts that a man has
control over his own actions, and can exercise choice between
two different courses open to him, — a doctrine transparently
true. This latter important distinction (not noticed by Mill)
has no doubt helped to put moderns on the right track, and to
show how meaning-less is the controversy between so-called
Libertarians and Necessitarians. 2 Mill's examination of Belief
is much more profound and elaborate than that of his prede-
cessor, but unfortunately is also less correct, because it bases
Belief on the mere juxtaposition of two ideas in the mind,
without postulating that irreducible element of conviction
which Hartley saw was essential to this process, as distinguished
from mere Imagination. Professor Bain it will be seen goes
back to Hartley on this point, and dpes not follow Mill : he
also (with Hartley) attaches great importance to action as the
best, if not the only, evidence of Belief. In his system of
Classification, too, Mill, so far as he ignores what have been
since called " Natural Kinds/' and regards the process as
resulting from nothing beyond a desire for economy in naming,
distinctly retrogrades from Hartley. On the other hand, he
makes advances on his forerunner's system, in his minute
analyses of some of the abstract relative terms. But the
2 It is beginning to be generally understood now tbat Liberty and
Necessity are two disparate conceptions, and that to compare one with the
other is like comparing an inch with a minute. The proper antithesis to
Liberty (in the sense in which it is used by Libertarians in the contro-
versy) is Bondage, not Necessity ; to Necessity (in the sense in which it
is used by Necessitarians) Chance, not Liberty.
HARTLEY'S PREDECESSORS. 225
differences iu the matter of the two philosophers are also
partly to be explained from the history of the Association
Theory.
II. We have alrgady noticed [Part II. ch. i.] the forerunners
of Hartley , namely, Ar istot le, H obbes, Loc ke^Gay. and his
contemporaries Ab raham Tucker and C o ndillac . Coleridge
indeed \_Biogr. Lit,, ch. v.] proposes to add several names to
these. He denies the claim of Hobbes's " diseursus mentalis "
to be an original solution of the difficulty : and says that these
philosophers had been anticipated by Descartes in his treatise
Be Methodo, which appeared a year before the Human Nature.
Descartes constructed on association principles a theory of
human language and naming", much as Mill did after him.
But, like Hartley, he resorted to a physical hypothesis to
explain the intellectual operation, and for that purpose brought
in " nervous fluids " and material configurations of the brain,
instead of, like Aristotle and Mill, resting content with the latter
as ultimate and irreducible. In his physical doctrines he headed
the class of " humoral pathologists" (as Coleridge calls them), as
opposed to the other physicists headed by Hartley, who resorted
to vibrations and an oscillating cether, 3 or to the more modern
sect who appeal to " chemical composition by electric affinity."
Nor is it certain (according to Coleridge) that there was much
originality in Hume's Essay on Association, the idea of which
treatise he is suspected of having borrowed from St. Thomas
Aquinas's Commentary on the Parva Naturalia of Aristotle. 4
;i These two rival theories are clearly described by Gay in the "Enquiry
above mentioned [p. 60]. The nerves in the former case are regarded
says Gay, as bundles of threads or fibres, along which a tremor passes
during sensation ; in the latter case, they are considered as tubular, and
filled with a subtle fluid, or animal spirits. On Vibrations, see further
Kibot \_Contemp. Engl. Psych., Etig. Transl.~\ p. 282, sqq.
4 A copy of this work, once in Hume's possession, was found to have
Q
226 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
Moreover, the functions of Association had been set out long
before even- Hobbes by the non-scholastic Aristotelians Me-
lanchthon, Ammerbach, and Ludovicus Vives. The upshot of
Coleridge's account of these pre-Hartleian gropings is that they
were all based on the teaching of the " gran maestro di coloro
che sanno : " and that, moreover, Aristotle was often nearer to
the truth than those of his successors who sought to improve
upon him, in that, while clearly setting down in the Be Animd
five distinct principles of association,* he yet guarded himself
against going beyond what the facts warranted, and sternly
rejected physical hypotheses.
Such then was the intellectual ancestry of Hartley. Be-
tween the commencement of Hartley's and the close of James
Mill's life, we find in iha_sanie way of thinking Priestley
and the elder Darwin, and other disciples of Hartley, and, in
France, Condillac. From the last-named, however, Mill (accord-
ing to his son) did not derive nearly so much aid as from
Hartley^ compared with whose painstaking suggestons Con-
dillac's generalizations seemed barren and void. [J. S. Mill's
Aid oh. p. 68].
Tucker wit h his " transl ation," and Brown with his hints
as to "relative suggestion," which were their res pe ctive names
for association, (though the latter seems to have rather struck
out a line of his own to some degree), were the next to follow.
Belsham developed the moral side of Hartley's theory, and
Alison [On Taste) the aesthetic. Helvetius, Rousseau, Cabanis,
Darwin, and Bentham in their different ways paid attention to
the educational aspect of Associationism ; Bentham and
been read and carefully annotated by bim, wben subsequently lent to a
friend by Sir James Mackintosh, into whose hands it eventually came.
fi Namely (1) connexion in time, whether simultaneous or successive,
(2) vicinity in space, (3) necessary connexion, such as that of cause and
effect, (4) similarity, (5) contrast.
MILL AND THE BENTHAMITES. 227
Austin to the legal. The improvements in science which took
place in the interval which separated the two men are also very
remarkable, as well as the influence of Bentham and his fol-
lowers in other and more practical directions, some account of
which, as having- largely helped to determine the line adopted
by James Mill in philosophy as contrasted with that of Hartley,
would seem to be necessary here.
James Mill expresses himself, in the Fragment on Mack-
intosh, very indignant at the supposition of there being in
existence any Benthamite school at that time. Still there is
no doubt, — indeed, it has been recorded by J. S. Mill in the
AatoUographj, — that there existed a body of men distinguished
by certain common characteristics, aiming at certain common
objects, and united together by a bond of strong moral and
intellectual sympathy: the most prominent names among them
being those of Bentham and James Mill. These common
characteristics were a deep-rooted love of clearness and simpli-
city in writing and conversation, a tendency to mathematical
precision, an utter contempt for sentiment in ethics, and for
the graces of style and art in composition, an ardour and
even bitterness in controversy, an abhorrence of everything
which seemed like mystery, or presumed to defy the analytical
processes in which they manifested such an unbounded belief.
The common objects resulted from the common creed.
Believing that men were formed by circumstances, these phi-
losophers attached the highest value to education and legislation.
Believing that the greatest good of the greatest number was
the proper end of action and thought, they were always busy
propagandists of their tenets. Believing that theory was all-
powerful, that no hard and fast line could be drawn between
the theoretically sound and the practically feasible, and that
every simple and intelligible system only required energy and
determination to convert it at once into a body of maxims
Q %
228 HA R TLE Y AND 7 A MES MILL.
and motives, they set to work in all directions with undaunted
applications of their brand-new doctrines to the crude material
of fact. And it is in these applications that Assoeiationism
and Utilitarianism have achieved their highest triumphs. It
is difficult to overrate the importance of the effects which the
former doctrine has had in the region of education (however
incomplete an explanation we may deem it of the entire opera-
tions of the mind), or of the latter in legislation (under
Bentham's and Austin's auspices), however unsatisfactory an
account we may think this again of duty and the entire moral
life in all its relations. Though we may believe that the mind
is something far too subtle in its workings to be explained on
the iEolian harp principle as the sport of circumstance, and
the conscience not simple enough to be accounted for on the
hypothesis of metaphorical pulleys and weights and levers ;
3 r et these chemical and mechanical laws (true in themselves,
and only false when offered as interpreting more than they can)
are of the utmost use in the practical fields to which they have
been applied, since for these purposes it does no harm, and
produces no error in our calculations, to regard men as building
their habits of thought solely on association, or as led to act
solely by a consideration of their own interests. In Legislation
and in Education, as in Political Economy (as has been before
noticed), we are at liberty to isolate special characteristics and
tendencies of human nature from those ordinarily acting in
conjunction, and intertwined, with them. But the result of
this isolation, when put forward as a full and complete theo-
retical justification of morality, is not allowable ; and this is the
mistake which the school of Bentham and James Mill, as also
some of their successors, though to a far less degree, have made.
The theories in question are it is true palpable and plausible to
ordinary intellects : most theories containing one principle
are. " Here is something we can understand, couched in
MILL AND THE BENTHAMITES. 229
plain language/' is the Philistine's encomium : but though
plain language deserves all praise where it is possible, the
plainness and popularity of the doctrines conveyed, when we
consider the complexity of the phenomena analyzed, make
rather against than for their truth. 6 The simplicity affected by
their professors is of itself calculated to excite suspicion in the
minds of the reflective. Is everything, one asks, really so
simple as this ? Are we to believe that we can only move
people to act rightly from motives of self-interest (however
refined that self-interest may be) ? Is it true that one man or
body of men in the possession of political power will constantly
endeavour to rob all the other citizens for their own advantage,
unless restrained by checks and police ? Do we account for
the mazes of a creative imagination, when we have talked of
trains and sequences of ideas, and dispelled (to our own satis-
faction) all " mystery " on the subject ? This tendency to
simplification, and devotion to theory, characteristic of the
Bentham school was shared in ample measure by James Mill.
J. S. Mill [Preface to the Analysis, pp. xix, xx,] notices this
feature, accompanied "with a certain impatience of detail" in
his father's philosophizing. The latter was so anxious to seize
upon some commanding and comprehensive law under which all
the phenomena might be subsumed, — to attain some " specular
mount " from which a flood of light might be thrown on the
widest possible extent of material, — that minutiae escaped
him. Correction and modification were not his strong points.
He longed to jump at once to the "Summa Axiom ata," without
either verifying them afterwards by a reference to intermediate
laws, or previously passing through the intermediate laws to
them. He takes a simple and obvious principle, Association.
(1 As Malebranche says [Z>e Inquircndd Yeritate, lib. iii. p. 194] : " the
assent and approbation of tbo vulgar on a difficult subject is a sure
argument of the falsity of the opinion to which the assent is given."
2 3 o HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
and fits it off-hand to every imaginable case. He will re-
cognize no conception, no faculty, as ultimate. All must be
reduced to this principle. Hartley indeed was not quite so
exacting in his assertion of the authority of this law ; but then
his idol was an idol of the theatre, as well as of the tribe, in
the shape of the all-sufficient vibrations. We find, conse-
quently, that the efforts of Mill's successors in the way of
improving the general theory were directed almost entirely to
rigidly limiting its extensive application both by its founder
and its " second founder/' and to the recognition of more and
more ultimate faculties and metaphysical conceptions. In this
way Profes sor Bain has re cog nized an unanalyz able element in
B elief and in Mus c ular Re sistance [A nal, ii. 3 1 ], and simila rly
J . S. M ill holds Memory a nd Expectation to i nvolve T^lipf, and
Belie f to be u l timate, as also _T_sea his-work onJE[ami]ton] the
co nception of the Self . All these James Mill considers to be
cases of Association ; and, by his extreme anxiety to maintain
this view, he is sometimes driven into curious straits, as, for
instance, where he is forced to explain Belief by the Self (or
Personal Identity), and the Self by Belief. Resemblance,
Difference (as a case of Resemblance) Quality, Causality,
which JamesMill equally holds to be instances of Asso-
ciation, J. S. Mill re gards a s either jjl ementary , o r at all
events involving somethiiig beyond_Association : and to
thlTultimate elements_of Resemblance and Contrast, Professor
Bain add_s_Conti guity [Anal, ii. 120]. Indeed the latest
professors of the doctrine agree as to the unanalyzable
nature of nearly all the leading metaphysical conceptions
and distinctions, which James Mill believed quite capable
of analysis, excepting only the distinction between Sensa-
tions and Ideas, which even he was compelled to postulate
as ultimate.
We may notice a few more instances of the manner in which
DEFECTS OF MILES THEORIES. 231
James Mill's successors split up supposed identities, and
modified the application of that Law of Parcimony — ("causes
and existences are not to be multiplied more than is neces-
sary") — to which he gave such undiscriminating- allegiance.
Nothin g is more characteri stic nf .Tn.mog iyn^'« philn g "phy
than the denial of the di stinction bet ween hav ing a feeling
_ _a o
an d atten din g to or he in<y (vms^i^g pf it. This distinction
however is restored on s ufficient grounds by -J-.- S. Mill and
Professor .Bain,, as also the distinct ion between hnv ing two
f eelings and being conscious of th eir difference (also ignored
by James Mill) : for, though the law of Relativity (in Professor
Bain's sense) undoubtedly holds g ood ; that is, we only know
feelings from their relations to their opposites, and, as Hobbes
says, " to have the same sensation continuously, is to have no
sensation at all ; " yet the exercise of the discriminative
function on any particular occasion is not the same thing as
the having sequent sensations, but is an element superadded
to it, and separable from it in thought. Again in treating of
sensations, Mill is so absorbed with the idea of the importance
and efficacy of his universal solvent, that to make way for
it, he even sets aside, or relegates to an inferior place, direct
physical agencies, as, for example, in his account of the morbid
trains of thought attendant on a diseased digestion, or of the
sensations accompanying nervous bodily contortions, which
are in reality concomitant effects of one and the same external
cause, — or, again, of the painful emotions excited directly by
the sight of another's suffering, and leading to acts of compas-
sion, — all of which mental phenomena he ascribes to associa-
tion alone. In these instances also his successors have set him
right, and have declined to follow his excessive tendency to
simplification. Abstraction, Ratiocination, and the Syllogizing
process which James Mill dismisses in a very summary fashion
as verbal merely, as well as Consciousness [Anal. i. 227 sqq.]
232 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
and Reflection {Anal. ii. ch. xv.) are also recognized by J. S.
Mill and Professor Bain as more intricate in their nature and
working than to be comprehended within the four corners of
the law of Association. To the Will, which James Mill
describes as a state of mind dependent upon contemporary and
previous internal states and external circumstances, Professor
Bain, though holding it to be merely " a collective term for
all the impulses to motion or action," yet gives a far more
independent and important place in his moral theory. James
Mill's analysis of Classification as based on Association, and
referrible to a desire of economy, is insufficient to explain any
but the most elementary groupings, and leaves out of account
scientific classification altogether, as well as " Natural Kinds/'
and the Law of Relativity (to which we have alluded above)
or knowledge by apprehension of doubles, which, and not any
such desire as Mill suggests, led to the construction of relative
terms to express the related feelings. Other instances of the
gaps in James Mill's system will be noticed presently.
Meanwhile we have chosen such of them only as exemplify the
dominant impulse towards simplification of phenomena, to the
undue disregarding of qualifications, which vitiated so many
theories of the Benthamite school.
The peculiarities of this body of thinkers have been noticed,
both by a vehement adversary, who afterwards saw cause to
moderate his antipathy, [Lord Macaulay, in his review of
James Mill's Essay on Government, — Edinb. Rev. } No. 97], and
by one who was at first a member of the sect, but afterwards
became a more qualified admirer [J. S. Mill, in his Aidobio-
graphy\. The adherents of Bentham were men possessing a
few ideas clearly conceived, which they were thoroughly bent
on carrying out into practice. These ideas were admirable in
themselves, and when not put forward to explain " all time and
all existence." In a restricted sense, for instance, the doctrine
NEGLECT OF IMAGINATION. 233
of Association was accepted by Sir James Mackintosh/
though its extensive use by Mill found in him an uncom-
promising- adversary. 8 Mansel [Metaphysics, pp. 233 — 248]
treats it in the same respectful manner, and with the same
limitations ; while Sir W. Hamilton 9 devoted considerable
attention to it, and was led by his examination of its principles,
as expounded by its various teachers, to evolve his three laws of
Repetition, Redintegration, and Preference, and to add some
important elements and corrections to the original form of the
theory. All these men Avere opponents of the doctrine only
when pushed beyond its proper bounds into regions where it
had no title, and could do no good. But it was to propagate
their views on Association and Utility in every possible direc-
tion, and apply them to every field of thought and action., that
the school of Bentham was (consciously or unconsciously) formed
and took shape.
Some processes of human intelligence, however, resisted
their analytical approaches to the last. N o Benthamite co uld
ever make much of the Imagination. They practically con-
fessed themselves beaten, by conspiring to ignore it. Any-
thing calculated to stimulate the fancy was disapproved.
James Mill condemned the drama, and did not think much
of Shakespeare. He has in one of his Commonplace Books a
dialogue written by himself on the subject of players and
theatrical representations, very little to their advantage, and
emotes with approval Johnson's disparaging remarks on
Garrick. His first literary production was a squib on a theatre
in the True Briton newspaper, March 12, 1803. Bentham
thought poetry mere misrepresentation, though, it is true, he
7 In a lecture referred to by Coleridge, Biogr. Lit. ch. v.
8 Sect. vi. of the Dissertation.
9 Vid. his note on the Association Theory, in his edition of Reid,
p. 911 sqq.
234 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL
was passionately devoted to Music, the one form of Art which
seems to secure votaries, when others are neglected. They
banished the cultivating- influence of the Imagination from
their mental atmosphere, or explained it on precise scientific
principles, which only betrayed the awkwardness which never
fails to characterize the application of method to a material to
which it is inapplicable. 1 The}^ gave emotion the name of
sentimentality, with what effect on the younger members of
their clicuie, the eloquent pages of J. S. Mill's Autobiography
are the best evidence. Human nature cannot be maimed in
this way without eventual detriment. One side of it cannot
be stifled and suppressed without injury to the whole. J. S.
Mill, indeed, confesses that it was nothing but this suppres-
sion of the emotional and imaginative impulses which made
him for a time despair of the world and of himself. It was a
grievous mistake in reformers such as were James Mill,
Bentham, Austin, and others, if they wished to rear up other
reformers to succeed themselves, to ignore the importance of
" The shaping fantasy that apprehends
More than cool reason ever comprehends," —
for of such stuff are reformers, if not made, at all events kept
to their work in spite of constant disillusion and defeat.
In addition to this dwarfing of the fancy, and exclusive
attention to the reason in its discursive rather than in its con-
structive use, together with the necessarily accompanying
ruggedness and asperity of style, 2 and a terminology bar-
1 On the inapplicability of precise methods to such material as artistic
emotion, see Ribot (Contemp. Eng. Psych. (Eng. Tr.)\ p. 232, Mansel's
Metaphysics, p. 392 , Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, Lect. xlvi.,
Jouffroy's Cours d'Esthetiqiie.
2 James Mill, Bentham, Austin, Grote, Professor Bain are all noticeable
for the baldness of their style. On the other hand, no more beautiful
DEVOTION TO SYSTEM. 235
barous, as in Bentham's case, or slovenly, as in Mill's/ — in
addition to these men's intolerance, blindness and bitterness in
controversy/ to their contempt for the elegancies, and (in James
Mill's case) even for the pleasures of life/ and to their efforts
to banish "the mysterious" by means of analysis which
" Viewing all objects unremittingly
In disconnexion dead and spiritless,
And still dividing, and dividing still
Breaks down all grandeur ;"
— in addition to all these characteristics of the school, we
have to notice the extraordinary devotion of these men to
new-born theories, and their profound conviction that a
syllogism could always be applied red-hot to existing social
conditions. James Mill particularly detested the popular
separation of Theory from Practice. He has in his Common-
place Books several pages of argument levelled against this
false distinction. To him everything true in theory was
right in practice. J. S. Mill relates [Aittob. p. 33] a charac-
teristic anecdote of his father's impatience at his using a mode
of expression which implied a sharp separation between these
two conceptions ; and in the elder Mill's works 6 we are con-
style in philosophical writing has ever been seen than that of J. S. Mill.
James Mill avows his contempt for manner in his Fragm. on Mackintosh
(p. 127), —"if the matter of a hook of philosophy be good, the manner
is a thing of very inferior consequence." Cp. Hobbes, " true philosophy
rejects of set purpose nearly every kind of ornament.''
3 "Active phenomena of mind," — definition of Disposition, Affection,
Motive, Will, &c.
4 Witness James Mill's Fragm. on Mackintosh, and the dogmatic and
dictatorial style of Bentham and Austin in speaking of views opposed to
their own.
5 J. S. Mill's Autobiography, p. 48.
6 Fr. on Mack. pp. 285, 280. Essay on Education, p. 5. Analysis,
vol. ii. p. 402. J. S. Mill's Autobiography, pp. 23, 37, 100. See also
236 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
tinually coming" across strong- statements of the identity of the
theoretically demonstrable and the practically advantageous,
and of the dependence of art upon system. He was sanguine
as to the possibility of altering the world by means of such
schemes as Bentham's Chrestomathic Day-school, new Penal
Codes, and proper Representative methods of government.
He made as little allowance for the working of emotion and
imagination in real life, as he admitted their presence to
disturb a calculation or a conclusion. And, accordingly, he
failed to see that the grossest fallacies may lurk behind the
forms of the Schoolmen as well as within the flowers of
rhetoric; and that in endeavouring to apply a syllogism,
supported by abstract propositions, to social phenomena, he
was trying to catch water in a sieve. It is by the study of
the comparative history and growth of these phenomena,
accompanied by observation of existing needs and possible
remedies, not by the purely individualistic treatment of the
human mind, that a path is laid for successful reform. And
it was these very pre-requisites which Mill ignored. 7 While
lavishing contempt on the man who " for the tricksy word
Defies the matter " of reason, he himself was for a tricksy
method defying the matter of fact. It jvas the obvio us insuffi-
ciency of the purely D eductive Method in Politics to grapple
with its materia l, which suggested to J. S. Mill wha t he
called the Inverse Deductive Method, which is a sort of com-
promise between the purely -Deductive, and th e purely^ I ndiic-
tive advocated by Macaulay^ in his strictures on the f ormer
\_Rditib. Review, No. 97, pp. 188, J8 9], and which consists in
one of James Mill's articles on Indian affairs in the Edinburgh Revietv,
vol. xvi. p. 136.
' And Hartley also, whose method was equally individualistic. See
Leslie Stephen, English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii.
p. 69.
MILL'S CONCEPTION OF UTILITY. 237
forming- general laws from the observation and comparison of
particulars, but afterwards verifying- and testing them, by
seeing whether or no they are deducible from the known
elementary laws of human nature. [J. S. Mill's Autob. 209,
210]. James Mill's habit of deducing practical conclusions
from a very few simple principles of human nature, with
scarcely any suspicion of the complexity and intricacy of the
phenomena to which he was applying them, led him not only
to hold false views of those fields of human activity which he
considered in this light, but also to discard altogether all
examination of the spheres to which such a method was not
immediately applicable, such as those of Metaphysics (in the
proper sense of the word), Art, and Religion. By neglecting
these, he and his brethren marred the completeness of their
doctrines, and gave a hard and repulsive look to the Utility
and the Pleasure which they proclaimed. There seemed to be
in the creed of Bentham and James Mill an indifference both
to the past and to the future of the human race, — both to
history and to religion. They had a large conception of the
spatial extent over which utilitarian considerations and motives
were to operate, — James Mill is continually advocating the
widening of the circle of sympathy from Family to Friends,
from Friends to Country, and from Country to Mankind, —
but they do not seem to have taken much account of Time, as
do the Positivists and other priests of humanity at the present
day. Religion was regarded by James Mill merely as a social
force (as we see in several articles in his Commonplace
Books), just like Aristocracy, or any political institution, 3 not
as a permanent sentiment in human nature, — an irresistible
8 James Mill was riot, however, so cynical as Bentham in hie treat-
ment o£ religion. Bentham wished to use it in legislation, like a con-
stitutional monarch, merely to confirm the decrees of Utilitarianism, to
reign and not to govern.
238 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
stretching" out of hands towards the infinite. So too of the
artistic impulse. In their entire system, the Associationist
School of the last generation, though not confining their view-
to the Here, certainly appeared to confine it to the Now. But
it is from the latter, quite as much as from the former, that
the spirit of man is ever seeking to escape ; and on this desire
it is that it constructs for itself Art, Poetry, Metaphysics,
and Religion.
Still we must recognize that in their steady application of
ideas to facts, James Mill and his circle were but following a
long-established English habit and tradition. English philo-
sophy has always been uncomfortable in the aether of pure
abstractions, and has always instinctively run to illustration
and application. In one sense no nation is so philosophical as
the English, that is, in their way of illuminating small facts
by large theories ; in another, no nation is so unphilosophical,
that is, in their inability to keep the head from becoming
dizzy amidst abstract ideas. To some nations, the Germans,
for instance, philosophy is indeed, in Bacon's metaphor, the
barren virgin consecrated to God ; to us, she is a useful maid-
of-all-work. Unless our thinkers have in external facts their
bases of operation and places of refuge, and in practical appli-
cation their convenient outlets, they are uneasy. We rarely
find men in England devoting themselves to philosophy, pure
and simple; though many devote themselves absolutely to
science. Those who take up philosophical pursuits in this
country do so in the intervals of business or pleasure, (much
as Plato describes men doing in his day,) and of this both
Hartley and James Mill are conspicuous instances. Philo-
sophy thus gains in popularity and influence on life, though it
loses in thoroughness. Though we may call barometers and
agricultural' journals "philosophical," and encourage that
" hairdressing on philosophical principles/' which eo scanda-
MILLS INFLUENCE ON HIS DISCIPLES. 239
lized Hegel, 9 yet we keep free from those endless logomachies
and hair-splittings upon which even that great philosopher
expended so much time and lost labour. The school of
Bentham and James Mill are certainly not to be blamed on
account of the useful, and even noble, impulse which led them
to apply their theories to existing facts : what they were to be
blamed for is having applied those theories too systematically
and persistently, and without letting facts themselves to a great
extent guide them in the process of application. The sanguine
hopes conceived by the masters, and raised in the minds of the
disciples, were doomed to cruel disillusion. Let any one who
wishes to recognize the inevitable fate of all attempts at refor-
mation with too simple a watchword, compare J. S. Mill's
eloquent record of the enthusiasm with which he first read and
studied Bentham, and of the confidence with which he felt that
he had found in him "a creed, a doctrine, a philosophy; in
one among the best senses of the word, a religion/'' with the
description of his own state, when his education, with its pre-
cocious and premature tendency to analysis, its cultivation of
reason and neglect of imagination, had left him stranded
" with a well-equipped ship and rudder, but no sail," — when
Association was found to enervate those creative forces of the
mind which rule the world, — and when Pleasure and Self-
Interest turned out merely the delusive mirage which is never
any the nearer reality for pursuing it. A more powerful,
because informal and involuntary, indictment of all theories
» Werke, xiii. 72, vi. 13.
1 Cp. the Autobiography, pp. 6Cy, 67 with pp. 134 — 150. One of the
most curious examples of the morbid fostering of the analytic tendency in
J. S. Mill, is furnished by the story which he relates of himself (p. 145)
to the effect that the casual thought that musical combinationsmigbt one
day be exhausted, gave bim for days the greatest pain, and tended to
destroy his enjoyment of music.
240 HARTLEY AND J A MES MIL L .
with a single solvent for every difficulty, could scarcely have
been written.
Several of the deficiencies noticeable in the writing's of Hartley
and James Mill have now been supplied, and many imperfec-
tions removed, by their successors. The somewhat meagre
outlines of the theory of Association in its original shape have
been, and are still being, slowly filled out. A goodly army of
disciples have extended its influence in all directions, and (what
is far more important) have brought to bear upon it the issues
of a variety of scientific investigations which have been in-
augurated since James Mill's time. The supplemental matter
furnished by these disciples constitutes the " wings " (as
Niebuhr used to call his pupils) of Associationism and Utili-
tarianism, which but for them would have long since sunk
into oblivion.
The first pioneer was the younger Mill, who has recognized
the fact that though the masters of a doctrine may formally
declare that they mean their " utility " to include all the
objects of human interest (as did James Mill), yet this alone
will not suffice to move men to accept the doctrine, or to act
upon its laws. It is (so far) barren and tautological, and the
only means of giving it a definite colour and complexion, is
the somewhat empirical one of observing the lives and practical
principles of its advocates and professors. To find out what
James Mill and his philosophical associates meant by man's
interests, as they do not tell us (except in general terms) them-
selves, we must discover what they seem to mean by them in
their mode of living and habits of thought. When we look at
these, we find (as J. S. Mill did in time) that the interests and
impulses of imagination and emotion are wofully neglected,
that poetry, for instance, is defined to be " misrepresentation "
merely [Bentham] , or else tolerated as " more easy to remember
than prose," and therefore having a certain educational value
FAULTS CORRECTED BY SUCCESSORS. 24 1
[James Mill] ; that too much division and dissolution renders
construction impossible in practice, and neglected in theory ; a
and that associations formed artificially by the dispensation of
praise and blame do not after all lead to very exalted action or
conceptions of morality. Accordingly the younger Mill (at
some cost of consistency perhaps) did away with this neutral idea
of utility and morality, recognized the necessity of the construc-
tive element in thought (more particularly in Classification and
Abstraction) , and of the cultivation, for purposes of education,
of the imagination, emotions, and passive properties of the
mind, 3 and finally put the absurd controversy between the
advocates of Free-Will, and of Necessity, on its proper footing. 4
He perceived, moreover, that it would not be an unmixed good
for men to be drilled, even into excellence, by educational
methods and legislative devices, that the individual was of
more importance than the type in moral life, and that there
might be a despotism of systems and opinions quite as strong
as those of persons and castes. 5 To precision in practical
2 " Those who have studied the writings of the Association Psy-
chologists must often have been unfavourably impressed by the almost
total absence, in their analytical expositions, of the recognition of any
active element as spontaneity in the mind itself." [J. S. Mill's Dissert.
and Discuss., vol. iii. p. 119, art. on Bain, who himself largely helped to
restore the constructive functions* of mind to their proper place; he
recognizes (e.g.) constructive associations as one species of associations
in general.]
3 See Autob., pp. 49 — 51, 15, 16, 110 — 113, 144, 151, where we may see
James Mill's conception of poetry, art, and emotion vividly contrasted
with the attitude of J. S. Mill when driven to Coleridge, Carlyle, and
Wordsworth to seek satisfaction of those impulses which had been almost
stifled in him by his education. Professor Bain gives Feeling or Emotion
a large place in his theory, and thereby improves greatly on James Mill.
See Kibot's Contemp. Eng. Psych. (Eng. Tr.), p. 246.
4 Autobiography, p. 169. Cp. the chapter on Necessity in the
Logic.
5 See the Essay on Liberty, and the Autob., pp. 255, 256.
R
242 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
schemes he also opposed himself, though he still adhered to his
father's scholastic terminology and orderly exposition in phi-
losophy. 6 In regard to religion, he saw in later life the justi-
fiability and even necessity of indulging the distinctively
human tendency and aspiration, of which religion is one
among other expressions, and which his father, to all appear-
ances, ignored [Autob. 46, 69] . In the explanation of intel-
lectual phenomena, the most noticeable gaps in James Mill's
system which were filled up by his son had reference to mathe-
matical axioms and syllogistic reasoning, as to which Induc-
tion was substituted as a basis in the place of the elder philo-
sopher's Verbal Identity [Anal. vol. i. pp. 180—192]. The
theories moreover of Naming, Causation, Belief, Memory, and
Imagination have been greatly improved both by J. S. Mill
and Professor Bain, as we have already seen in the course of
these pages. [See also an admirable article on Knowledge
and Belief by David Greenleaf Thompson, Mind, vol. ii. pp.
309—335],
Another line has been taken up by such men as Mr. Herbert
Spencer and George Henry Lewes, with the help of the re-
sults of Biology, the Darwinian theory of Evolution, and
other scientific laws, such as the Correlation of Forces. On such
6 Autob. p. 18. The elder Mill's precision and accuracy of reasoning
was attributable in large measure to bis study of Plato. It is curious
on what differently constituted minds Plato bas exerted a large influence.
Ono class of men (of whom the elder Mill and Bacon are examples) he has
attracted by his reasoning and classifying powers, another class of men
(Coleridge, Shelley, Hegel, &c.) by his imaginative genius. James Mill
in early life either wrote, or inspired, an article on the Platonic Dialogue.
(See Bain's Life of James Mill, Mind, vol. i. p. 521.) The article in
the 14th vol. of the Edinburgh Review (p. 187) on Taylor's trans-
lation of Plato, though not mentioned by Professor Bain in his list,
certainly looks as if it had been written by Mill. He was fond of writing
dialogues himself on the Platonic model. [See Autob. -p. 64] For the
influence of Plato's method on him, see his son's Autobiography, p. 21.
GAPS FILLED UP BY SUCCESSORS. 243
principles, as applied to sensation physiologically, have been
founded new versions of the doctrines of the Inconceivability
of the Opposite, and of Space and Time relations, which
were very imperfectly handled by Hartley and James Mill.
Hartley's doctrine of Vibrations appears in a very much altered
form in G. H. Lewes's " neural tremors " and groupings.
Researches into the physical conditions of thought in other
respects, and into the connexion of body and mind,. have been
undertaken with considerable success, by Erasmus Darwin,
Cabanis, Dr. Carpenter, Dr. Maudsley, Professor Bain, Mr.
Galton, &c, most of them belonging, like Hartley, to the
medical profession. Psychology has been treated in Germany
as a natural science by Lotze and Herbart, and, to a still
farther extent, by Helmholtz, Fechner, Maury, and Wundt, 7
who have introduced a special science of Physiological Psy-
chology, the germs of which are to be found in Hartley's
Observations. The growth of the faculties of children from
infancy has been made a subject of special study by M.
Taine and Dr. Darwin. 8 The phenomena of the infancy of
collective human life, gathered from the history and comparison
of the institutions and customs of savage tribes, have been
examined, with the happiest results, by Mr. Tylor and Mr.
Herbert Spencer; and so jx theory of the Social Organi sm,
fojmjkdjmjbh&-(l octri n e~of Hereditar y Transmission, h as been
estabHslujd^jvh ich was wholly beyond the ken of Hartl ey and
Jame s Mill, who disr egarded the past, and failed to contem-
7 As instances of the extraordinary extent to which mathematical forms
are applied to every variety of material (in a way that would have
delighted Hartley) we may refer to such ideas as that of a Hedonistic
Calculus, Franklin's Moral Algebra (see Kibot, p. 247), the Golden
Section of ^Esthetics (see below), and a Spectrum of Pleasure and Pain,
all of which have been lately introduced.
8 See Mind, vol. ii. pp. 252 sqq., and 28G sqq. (two very interesting
articles).
R 2
244 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
plate the human mind as growing and progressive. 9 In
politics too, the comparison of social data, customs, mythologies,
&c, so wanting in the individualistic system of James Mill,
and so earnestly advocated byMacaulay and J. S. Mill, has been
undertaken by Mr. Herbert Spencer, Sir Henry Maine, Mr.
Freeman, and the French and English Positivists. In educa-
tional science, many have now developed James Mill's sugges-
tions ; l so that J. S. Mill could truly speak of education and
its improvement as the subject of more, if not of profounder,
study than at any former period in English history [Autob.
p. 1], whereas James Mill was always complaining of the
wretched systems of education in vogue during his time. The
crude theories of Government and Legislation to which we
have already adverted, have now been enormously improved
by the superior historical and comparative methods employed
by Guizot, De Tocqueville, Sir Henry Maine, and others. 2
The philological speculations, derived by James Mill from
Home Tooke, have been superseded by those of Professor Max
Muller, 3 and a large following, who have in this department
rendered incalculable service to the theory of association. In
9 Cp. an article by R. Flint on Associationism and the Origin of Moral
Ideas, in Mind, vol. i. p. 321 sqq., and Eibot, Contemp. Eng. Psych.
(Eng. Tr.), pp. 25, 26.
1 Professor Bain (in bis Education as a Science), Sir William Hamilton
(Literature and Education, 1852), Mr. Herbert Spencer, and Godwin, hold
James Mill's views as to the absurdity of society avenging itself on the
malefactor, and not on the causes which make him what he is. [See Leslie
Stephen's Hist, of Eng. Thought in the Eighteenth Cent., vol. ii.
p. 267-1
2 See the Autobiography of J. S. Mill, pp. 157—160, 201,202, where
the author notices with much acuteness the imperfections of his father's
political theories.
3 Science' of Language, espec. vol. i. ch. 2, and an article on the
Original Intention of Collective and Abstract Names, in Mind, vol. i.
p. 345 sqq. Cp. Eibot, pp. 51. 52, and Mind, vol. i. p. 525.
CONCL USION. 245
fact the importance of philological laws, based ou a careful collec-
tion of data, is now fully recognized in most systems of psycho-
logy, not necessarily Associationist, such, for instance, as those of
Mr. Morell and M. Renan. The utter absence in the works
of Hartley and James Mill of any satisfactory theory of the
imaginative functions of the mind in relation to Art and
Poetry has been remedied by the a?sthetical treatises on associa-
tion principles of their successors, Mr. James Sully .{Sensation
and Intuition, also three articles on Art and Psychology,
in Mind, vol. i.), Mr. Grant Allen {Physiological JEsl/ietics,
Mind, vol. ii. p. 38, and article on the Sublime, vol. iii.
p. 324, &c), and, in Germany, Fechner and Zeising (with his
law of the Golden Section, and other curious applications
of mathematics to the phenomena of Art) . Lastly, the prin-
ciples of Association have been used for the elucidation
of history, by Grote, and in expounding the philosophy of
history, by Buckle.
In view of all these improvements and amplifications of the
system of Hartley and James Mill, what are we now to say of
the doctrines of Associationism and Utilitarianism, whether
as originated by the masters, or as developed by the disciples ?
What are the radical errors and defects in the theory as
applied to explain Thought, Morality, the State, and Art,
which not even the advances of biology and philology, and
the allied forces of Evolution, Sociology, and Statistics, to-
gether with the latest methods of collecting and comparing
phenomena, have been able to remove ? On these wide ques-
tions the reader will pardon us for declining to enter. To do
justice to either side, or to represent the case with anything
approaching to fairness, would lead us far beyond our present
limits. Our aim has been to determine the place which
Hartley and James Mill respectively filled in the history of
the Association theory, and of what is now called Utilitarian-
246 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.
ism ; their relation to one another ; and the different veins of
thought which the later of the two philosophers left to be
worked by his successors. What may be the value of the
theory of Association as a whole, and when taken at its best,
we leave the reader to determine, 'after having 1 placed before
him some of the materials for a decision.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX.
I. AUTHORITIES FOE THE LlVES.
The life of David Hartley is recounted in the edition of his works by
his son (de q. vid. inf.), in the preface to the second volume. Some
additional particulars are furnished by the article on Hartley in the
Biographical Dictionary (edited by Chambers), and also in Rose's
Biographical Dictionary, vol. viii. Compare Watson's History of
Halifax, and the Monthly Review, vols, liii., liv., lvi.
The life of James Mill is chronicled in detail by Professor Bain in
three articles contributed to the periodical called Mind (vol. i. pp. 97 — 116,
509 — 531, vol. ii. pp. 59 — 55). The style and tone of these articles are,
however, somewhat dry and unsympathetic. The character and in-
fluence of the man is best depicted in the eai"lier part of J. S. Mill's
Autobiography (pp. 1 — 205) . The article on him in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica by Andrew Bisset, assisted by J. S. Mill and David Barclay,
and that in the Penny Encyclopaedia (vol. xv.), may also be consulted.
Dr. Bowring's Life of Bentham, which contains references — though not
always accurate — to that philosopher's friendship with, and influence upon,
James Mill, may be looked at with advantage.
II. Their Philosophical Writings.
David Hartley :
1. Conjectural Quadam de Scnsu, Molu, et Idearum Gcncratione,
a short Latin treatise (no date) printed in Dr. Parr's Metaphysical
Tracts of the Eighteenth Century, London, 1837. Contains the
same views as the larger work, only much more succinctly expressed.
248 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX.
2. Observations on Man, his Frame, Duty, and Expectations, 2 vols.
1749.
3. The same, in three vols. With notes and Essays by Dr. Pistorius,
Rector of Poseritz, in the island ofRiigen. Life by Hartley's son,
&c. 1791 and 1801.
4. Hartley's Theory of the Human Mind, on the Principle of the
Association of Ideas, with Essays relating to the subject of it.
By Joseph Priestley, 1775. (This edition has the advantage of
omitting the vibration theory, and the theological speculations.
Otherwise it is the same as the above. Some of the Essays by
Priestley, especially Essay II., are illustrative and useful).
James Mill :
1. Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind. 1829.
2. The same, edited by J. S. Mill, with notes by Grote, Professor Bain,
and Andrew Findlater. 1869. [By far the better edition of the
two in which to study the author, as the reader is furnished with the
latest developments of the theory, as he proceeds.]
3. The Fragment on Mackintosh. 1st edition (anonymous) 1835.
2nd edition 1870.
4. Essays on Government, Jurisprudence, the Liberty of the Press,
Prisons and Prison Discipline, Colonies, the Law of Nations, and
Education. Reprinted from the Supplement to the Encyclopedia
Britannica. London, 1828.
5. The Essays in the Edinburgh and other Reviews referred to above
in the Life of James Mill (Part I. of this work).
III. Elucidatory Woeks.
For Hartley :
1. Gay's Dissertation on the Fundamental Principle of Virtue, pre-
fixed to Edmund Law's Translation of Archbishop King's Essay on
the Origin of Evil. 1732.
2. The Treatise called An Enquiry into the Human Appetites and
Affections, showing hoio each arises from Association (1747, 1753).
in Dr. Parr's Metaphysical Tracts (referred to above). This is an
anonymous production ; the name of the author being unknown even
to Dr. Parr. E. Tagart [1855, a writer on Locke] attributes it to
Gay. The style and thought in it are certainly very similar to that
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX. 249
in the above Dissertation by Gay. It is a piece of very cogent and
lucid reasoning, and is well worth reading.
3. Condillac's Origins des Connaisances Humaines. This may advan-
tageously he read with Hartley.
4. Belsham (W.), Essays, Moral and Philosophical, 2 vols., 1799.
5. Belsham (Rev. T.) Elements of Logic and Mental Philosophy.
1802. This book James Mill reviewed [see his Life]. 4 and 5 are
developments of Hartley's ethical and psychological theory.
6. Antony Collins' Enquiry concerning Human Liberty, 1790
[Collins holds the same views on the mechanical nature of Volition
as Hartley, though he ignores both Vibrations and Association].
7. The introductory Essays of Dr. Priestley (above referred to).
8. Erasmus Darwin's Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life, 1794.
(A very interesting development of Hartley's system of vibrations,
associationist principles, and medical theories and illustrations.)
9. Leslie Stephen's English Thought in the Eighteenth Century.
10. Sir James Mackintosh's Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical
Philosophy, chiefly during the 17th and 18th, Centuries, 1830.
Section on Hartley.
11. Coleridge's JBiographia Literaria. Chapters v., vi., vii.
For James Mill :
1. Preface, by John Stuart Mill, to the Analysis.
2. Edinburgh Review, No. 97 (March, 1829). Review of the Essay on
Government, by Macaulay.
3. J. S. Mill's Autobiography, 1873 (pp. 1—205).
For both Hartley and James Mill :
1. Ribot's Contemporary English Psychology [English Translation
1873]. Gives a succinct history of the Associationist doctrines
from Hartley to Professor Bain. Very little criticism ; exposition
clear.
2. Flint's criticism of Associationism and the Origin of Moral Ldeas,
in the first volume of Mind. [The volumes of Mi/nd, as far as that
production has gone hitherto, will be found replete with matter from
the Associationist's point of view].
3. Alison On the Nature and Principles of Taste, 1790 (the doctrines
of which work were adopted by James Mill in the assthetical part of
his system).
4. Mansel's Metaphysics [pp. 233 — 248, and passim].
5. Uberweg's History of Philosophy, vol. ii. (translated from the 4th
250 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX.
German edition by G. S. Morris, 1874). Especially the Appendix on
late English Philosoph} r , by Dr. Noah Porter.
C. G. H. Lewes 's History of "Philosophy, vol. ii. (2nd edition). This
should be referred to, because the history is written from the point of
view of Association, supported and enriched by the latest results of
Positivism and the Sciences.
7. Sir William Hamilton's elaborate note on the genesis and growth of
Associationism in his edition of Eeid's Essay on the Intellectual
Powers, pp. 911 sqq.
8. Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics (the part relating to Utilitarianism).
9. Besides the above, if the reader wishes to follow out the Association
theory in its numerous recent ramifications, or trace it back to its
sources, he should consult the principal works of the authors men-
tioned in Part III., a list of which will be given in any good history
of philosophy, such as that by Uberweg.
THE END.
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