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The following was originally written as a private letter; and it was not thought necessary to make any alterations of its form in offering it to the publick.]

OBSERVATIONS ON THE THEORY OF HARTLEY.

My dear W***,

I AM about to write you a letter with relation to the theory of Hartley and the doctrine of necessity. I thought, you may recollect, when we were conversing upon the subject during your last visit at, that this theory was not irrefragable, and the arguments for this doctrine, founded upon it, not unanswerable, as they have sometimes been represented; but I do not know, that I shall be able in any degree to justify this opinion in a letter. It is in the third section of the third chapter of the first part of his work, which section treats "of the Affections in general," that Hartley draws his conclusion of the mechanism of the will. It is this section, that I intend particularly to examine. I will premise, however, a short account of his general theory.

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Hartley's system of vibrations leads to materialism. He, however, does not deny the existence of a soul; but considers it as something Vol. V. No. X. 3Q

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merely sentient and percipient, which is affected by, and takes cognizance of the motions of the brain. Those of his school, however, are, I suppose, commonly materialists, and Cooper, the person, who gives the account of Dr. Priestley's metaphy. sical writing, annexed to his life, ac cuses Hartley of not perceiving in this respect the force of his own reasoning. As it will be simpler, I will give an account of his theory according to the doctrine of materialism, which I see the person just mentioned has partially done without any such previous notice. The only difference is, that what the materialists consider as the thing itself (an idea for instance,) Hartley considers as its proximate cause..

The following then is the theory of Hartley, thus modified.

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When an object is presented to either of the senses, it produces a vibration in the very minute particles of the medullary substance of the nerves of that sense. [Hart. Part I, prope

This vibration is continued from the organ of sensation to the brain, and there produces a vibration in the very minute particles of the medullary substance of the brain, which is sensation. [Prop. I. IV. and Prop V cor. 2. 3.

These latter vibrations frequently repeated leave traces of themselves in the brain, and produce in it a disposition to miniature vibrations or vibratiuncules, which are ideas of sensation, or simple ideas. [Prop. VIII. IX

The vibrations in the brain are either gentle or moderately violent, and then are pleasures; or produce a solution of continuity and then are pains; or their degree of oscilla tion is evanescent, and then they are mere sensations or ideas not passing the limit of indifferency. [Prop. VI. XIV.

When a number of sensations are impressed synchronously or success. ively, the ideas of these sensations are associated together; so that when one of these sensations is im pressed, it will excite the ideas of the remainder, if the association be synchronous, or the ideas of the sen. sations subsequent to it in the order of association, if the association. bé successive: Prop. X. XI. ́

[This is the only general law, according to which association takes place, that is expressly stated and explained by Hartley.]

Simple ideas, that is, ideas of sensation, united by association, will by being frequently excited be drawn closer together, and at last coalesce into one complex, that is, intellectual idea, such as those, that belong to the heads of beauty, honour, moral qualities, &c. [Prop. XII. XIII. In a complex or intellectual idea, it may be, that the effect of no sin gle constituent idea is perceived, being overpowered by the united ef fect of the whole, so that the intel

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A proposition is a complex idea; assent and dissent are complex ideas; with a proposition either assent of dissent are always associated into one very complex idea, or the terms of the proposition are associated with the word truth or its contrary; our judgments are nothing more than such associations. [Prop. XII. cor. 10. Prop LXXXVI

Simple miniature vibrations (simple ideas) may be compounded into one complex vibration (complex idea) equally vivid and powerful with an original sensory vibration : these viv. id complex ideas are the intellectual pleasures and pains; the passions, and affections, and the will. [Prop. XIV.comp cor.1,3. Prop.LXXXIX. Chap IV. Introd. comp. Prop VI.

All muscular motion is at first automatick and involuntary, the conse quence of motory vibrations in the nerves; these motory vibrations being generated in various ways from sensory vibrations. [Prop XV. XVIII. XIX. XXI. LXXVII.

These motory vibrations in the nerves produce a disposition to corresponding motory vibratiuncules in the brain. [Prop. XX.

These motory vibratiuncules, when excited, descend along the motory nerves and excite their correspond. ing motory vibrations and produce the consequent muscular motions. [Prop. XX.

The motory vibratiuncules cohere to each other by association, so that the parts of a complex motion readily succeed each other; and they likewise cohere to ideal vibratiuncules, so as to be excited by them, so that ideas may produce muscular motion. [Prop. XX. cor 3. 4.

When an idea is equally vivid and powerful with an original sensory vi

bration,it may produce muscular motions of the same strength with automatick motions. [Prop. XX. cor. 5.

When muscular motion is produced by that complex idea, which is the will for the time being, it is voluntary. [Prop XXI.

According to Hartley then, the power of sensation is the only original faculty of the mind. All its intellectual ideas and affections (I use the word in its more extensive sense) are resolvable into ideas of sensation; and all which have been considered its active powers are only the law of association operating in different ways.

I now proceed to the examination of the section before mentioned, which treats "of the affections in general." In this section, Hartley, instead of the term 'complex idea,' uses the term 'aggregate of simple ideas,' which I shall accordingly adopt. The following is his theory of the affections and the will.

The passions or affections are nothing more than aggregates of simple ideas united by association, aggregates of the ideas or traces of the sensible pleasures or pains.

[In the 1st corollary of the 14th proposition, with similar meaning, though in different language,the passions and affections are explained to be (as I have before observed) vivid complex ideas.]

The passions may be divided into two classes, of love and of hatred; those of the former class being aggregates of pleasurable, and those of the latter of painful ideas.

These agregates of pleasurable or of painful ideas, when excited to a certain degree, so as to produce actions, may be termed desire and aversion.

Desire and aversion are the will for the time being.

To this theory it may perhaps be

found sufficient answer, that love and hatred, are not pleasure and pain; that pleasure and pain are not love and hatred. There is no man, who, without reference to some theory," confounds these different internal feelings. Hence it is, that Hartley in the Introduction to his work, says, "The affections have the pleasures and pains for their objects, as the understanding has the mere sensations and ideas," and in the 4th paragraph" of this section, in the very moment of stating his theory, deserting its proper language, he speaks of the passions as arising from pleasure and pain. But the passions he had be fore stated to be "aggregates of the ideas or traces of the sensible pleasures or pains" and it is the pleasure or pain attending these aggregates, which must,according to Hartley,constitute the passion: for,suppo sing the aggregate of ideas to be divested of pleasure or pain, no passion ortendency to passion would exist Thus in the 2d paragraph of this section, he calls intellectual affections,' what in the 4th chapter of this part of his work, he treats of as intellectual sures and pains, and which intellectual pleasures and pains he there analyses as being, what he here defines the passions to be, aggregates of the ideas or traces of the sensible pleasures and pains. The conclusion,that the passions and intellectual pleasures and pains are the same, re sults also from a comparison of the 1st and 3d corollaries of the 14th proposition, though in the 1st of these there is a want of conformity in the language to the theory similar to that, on which I have been remark. ing. According to Hartley then, the passions of love and hatred are

plea

The following is the 14 Prop. And the 1st and 3d corollaries. Proposition. "It is reasonable to think

1

the pleasures and pains connected with aggregates of ideas of sensation. If it be not so, what they are he has no where explained.

But that, which I have stated, not only is his meaning, but nothing else can be his meaning in conform ity to his general theory; according to which the power of sensation is the only part of our mental constitution not factitious. All the materials, that Hartley thinks necessary to build up and complete the various superstructure of the human mind, are the ideas of different sounds, tastes, colours, shapes, &c. with the pleasures and pains accompanying these ideas. Now, as the mere ideas before mentioned cannot constitute any kind of passion, our passions must be nothing more than the pleasures and pains, by which they are accompanied

Yet so contrary to all our knowledge on the subject is this conclusion, which makes love and hatred the same with pleasure and pain, that Hartley again abandons the language of his theory, for the language of common opinion, and thus

that some of the complex vibrations at tending upon complex ideas, according to the last proposition, may be as vivid as any of the sensory vibrations excited by the direct action of objects."

Ist Corollary. "When the complex miniature vibrations are thus exalted in degree, we are to conceive, that the corresponding complex ideas are proportionally exalted, and so pass into intellectual affections and passions. We are therefore to deduce the origin of the intellectual pleasures and pains, which are the objects of these affections and passions

from the source here laid open."

3d Corollary. "It follows also from this proposition,that the intellectual pleasures and pains may be greater, equal or less, than the sensible ones, according as each person unites more or fewer, more vivid or more languid miniature vibrations in the formation of his intellectual pleainres and pains," &c.

expresses himself, in the 9th paragraph of this section: "A state of desire ought to be pleasant at first from the near relation of desire to love, and of love to pleasure and hap. piness." A near relation they have, for pleasure is frequently the occa sion of love, and love of desire, as the word is used by Hartley; but to confound them together is not making a theory to explain the phenomena of the mind; it is bending the phenomena of the mind to his simplifying theory.

Here then seems to be a funda mental errour, in confounding the passions and affections with the intellectual pleasures and pains, and we may observe still further, its ef. fects upon this theory. The pas sions and affections, or intellectu al pleasures and pains are divided by Hartley into six classes of imagina tion, ambition, self-interest, sympa thy, theopathy, and the moral sense. "They are excited," he says, in the 1st paragragh of the section we are examining, "by objects and by the incidents of life." These objects, it is almost unnecessary to observe, are frequently not present, and the affections, which produce desire, are always excited by the idea of an object not possessed. Now the intellectual affections and pleasures be ing according to this theory the same, here then is the idea of an object exciting and strongly exciting (see ing that desire is produced) all the intellectual pleasures of its proper class, to which it has relation. What more or what different could be ef fected by the object itself, if possess ed (supposing it of course an object merely of intellectual pleasure) it may not be easy to explain; or consequently, why, with regard to such an object, desire and a sense of possession are not states of the mind equally and in the same manner pleas urable. And thus Hartley says (5th

paragraph) that desire is love excited to a certain degree (sufficiently so to excite other associated ideas, which accidental effect has nothing to do with our present purpose); and (11th paragraph) that joy takes place, when desire is at an end, and is love exerted towards or rather excited by an object, that is present. By comparing the words of Hartley, therefore, we come to the same conclusion, to which we were before led by his theory. According to According to the quotations just made, desire is love, and joy is love; consequently, desire and joy ate the same; the only difference being, that, in the for mer case, this passion,love, produces effects, which it does not in the latter, and in the latter case has a cause certainly different from what it has in the former; though what is its cause in the former case is no where particularly explained. It follows then, if the preceding observations be correct, that Hartley confounds desire with its gratification, intellectual hunger with intel lectual revelling.

In the last quotation from Hartley, in the preceding paragraph, he

The following are the words of Hartley: Fifthly. When our love and hatred are excited to a certain degree, they put us upon a variety of actions, and may be termed desire and aversion; by which last word, I understand an active hatred."

The following is the whole of the eleventh paragraph. "Eleventhly. Joy and grief take place, when the desire and aversion, hope and fear, are at an end; and are love and hatred exerted towards an object, which is present either in a sensible manner, or in a rational one, i.e. so as to occupy the whole powers of the mind, as sensible objects, when present and attended to, do the external senses. It is very evident, that the objects of the intellectual pleasures and pains derive their power of thus affecting the mind

from association."

speaks of joy as being love exerted towards an object which, is present. But though this expression is proper in itself, it is not conformable to his theory; as it is scarcely correct to speak of an aggregate of simple ideas being exerted towards an ob ject I have therefore thought it allowable to change the expression.

But as (according to the theory we are examining) the ideas of an object desired, may effect the mind in the same way, as the ob ject itself when possessed; so it is not easy to conceive why the object itself may not produce the same effects as its idea; that is, by strongly exciting the affections, produce de sire and its conséquences. When our love, says Hartley, is excited to a certain degree, it puts us upon a variety of actions, and may be termed desire. Now as it operates in a manner merely méchanical, as is immediately explained, (and indeed, we ought continually to recollect, that we have to do with a theory, which professes to explain all the operations of the mind mechanically) now as love thus operates, it cannot, I think, be shewn, why it should not produce the same effects, and put us upon the same course of action, in whatever manner it may be excited, whether by the idea of an object desired, or by the object itself possessed.

But, (to proceed to another objection) supposing the proper passions to be sufficiently excited,without consideration of the manner in which this may be effected, yet I do not think it satisfactorily explained by Hartley, how, when thus excited, they put us upon such a course of action, as may enable to obtain their object. In conformity to his theory, when a passion that is an aggregate of simple ideas is sufficiently excited, it excites other

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