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ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS fJ'^-Z 
 
 David Hartley 
 
 AND 
 
 James Mill 
 
 BY 
 
 G. S. BOWER, M. A. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 27 and 29 West 23D Street 
 
 1881 
 
 E.M. . CO UN I' I L- 
 
 U M \ V li R S I I Y 
 UttRAUY 
 
 <8> 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Their Lives. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Ch. I. David Hartley 1 
 
 Ch. II. James Mill . v 8 
 
 PART 11 
 
 Theib Philosophical Systems and Opinions. 
 
 Ch. I. Preliminary remarks on the Theory of Association of 
 Ideasr-Tke Physical Groundwork of the Theory — 
 Hartley's Vibrations — James Mill and Hartley on 
 Sensations — Ideas as copies of Sensations ... 24 
 
 Ch. II. The Elementary Postulate?, and First Propositions, of 
 the Theory of Association as laid down by Hartley and 
 
 James Mill 37 
 
 The flornrnnnicatioii of Tdeas — Language — Naming . 46 
 
 The Theory of Association, as applied to explain the 
 
 more important processes and operations of the mind . 65 
 Belief, as interpreted by the laws of Association . . 79 
 Leading metaphysical conceptions, forms, and rela- 
 tions, as accounted for on the theory of Association 
 — Sameness — Similarity— rSuccession — Causality — Ex- 
 tension — Motion — Quantity — Quality — Analogy — In- 
 duction Ill 
 
 Ch. VII. The Active Powers of the Human Mind . . .136 
 "Ch. VIII. The Will, as explained by Hartley and Mill . . .164 
 
 Ch. 
 
 III. 
 
 Ch. 
 
 IV, 
 
 Ch. 
 
 V. 
 
 Cn. 
 
 VI. 
 
iv CONTENTS. 
 
 Cir. 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 of theib Opinions . . . 214 
 
 Bibliographical Appendix . . . . 247 
 
HAETLEY & JAMES MILL. 
 
 part h 
 
 THEIR LIYES. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 DAVID HARTLEY. 
 
 David Hartley, the son of a clergyman residing at Armley 
 in Yorkshire, was born on the 30th of August, 1705. He 
 was educated at a private school, and, in*l 720, 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 on the persons who have taken the medicament 
 
 of Mrs. Stephens," 1738. " View of the present evidence for and against 
 
 . Mrs. Stephens' medicine as a solvent for the stone, containing 155 cases" 
 
 B 
 
2 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 being the instrument of finally procuring for her the reward 
 of 5000Z. offered by Parliament. 2 He is said to have written 
 against Dr. Warren in defence of inoculation for smallpox; 
 and several other of his medical disquisitions are to be found 
 in the Philosophical Transactions of the time. He was twice 
 married, and had issue by both marriages. He died on the 
 28th of August, 1757, 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 writings. 
 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 to him in the observation and appreciation of 
 moral phenomena. 
 
 His great work On Man occupied sixteen years of slow 
 thought and toil in maturing (1730 — 1746); and even for 
 some years before 1730, " 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 his own was one], " with some experiments and observations," 
 1739. "Directions for preparing and administering Mrs. Stephens' 
 medicine in a solid form," 1746 (in the Gentleman's Magazine). Alar^e 
 ingredient in this medicine was soap, of which the unfortunate Hartley 
 was said to have himself consumed 200 lbs. before he eventually died of 
 the disease. 
 
 3 Gazette, June, 1739. 
 
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 
 Rev. 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 faney 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 Royal Society. He 
 
 * This is the edition to which the references throughout this work are 
 made. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 was a keen observer, in the exercise 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 Principia 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 T 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 yvas 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, De Animi 
 Immort ali tale. 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, De Sensu, Motu, 
 ■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 vai-ied tastes were reflected in the pages of his 
 work, as we shall have occasion to remark below. 4 So, also, 
 
 * See Part. III. Cp. the Life by Hartley's son, Observations on Man, 
 vol. ii. p. ix. ''It was from the union of talents in the moral sciences 
 with natural philosophy, and particularly from the professional knowledge 
 of the human frame, that Dr. Hartley was enabled to bring into one view 
 
6 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 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 rudiments 
 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 society, 
 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 ot 
 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 fair, 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 Man 
 [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. 
 
8 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 ' tells us, to the 
 
 1 Life of James Mill, Mind, vol. i. p. 101. 
 
JAMES MILL. 
 
 contrary. William/ the second son, took to the family 
 busiuess, 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 aud 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, 
 Ladjr 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 
 
 3 Besides the two sons there was a daughter, Mary, who was the 
 youngest child. 
 3 In the article on James Mill, in the Encyclopedia Britanmca. 
 
10 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 course of study accordingly. Moral philosophy iu 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 Principia 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 1794, 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, Reid, 
 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 traces are to be found in the method, 
 and even sometimes in the tone, of his philosophy. In other 
 departments of literature, . we find him reading Rousseau's 
 Emile and Discours, Massillon's Sermons, Karnes's Sketches, 
 HakewelFs Apology, Campbell on Rhetoric, (Eiwres de Fene- 
 lon, Maupertuis, Abernethie's Sermons, Whitby on the Five 
 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 "questionary 
 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, 4 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 haying been tutor to the Marquis of 
 Tvveeddale 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 1802 all preaching and tutorial work 
 was given up, and James Mill went up to London in company 
 with Sir John Stuart. Now commenced his journaligfcie 
 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 Review he writes his fii'st 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 anobligation 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. Gifford, he is now writing articles 
 
i 4 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 for the Encyclopedia 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 here on 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 contributor, 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. IS 
 
 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- 
 dure), 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 early influences systematically to bear on 
 children are for the first time expressed. In the year 1804- 
 were produced (amongst others) a thoroughly characteristic 
 paper on religious feeling as distinguished from action, 5 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 
 thai 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 Chronicle, 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 
 
 5 "Religion," he says in it, " without reason may be feeling, it may be 
 the tremors oE the religious nerve, but 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 he somewhat varied. This 
 year contains an article on Tooke's Diversions of Purley, which 
 is a hook well-known in connexion with the ohsolete 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 he given up. Apparently, it had not succeeded. The 
 Chronicle, as we have said, was also abandoned not very long 
 after 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 sessions, 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 (1808 — 1813) had 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 MILL. 17 
 
 him. In strong contrast with his early letters to David 
 Barclay, we find this of the 7th of February, 1807, written in 
 a very doleful and desponding strain : — " I had a letter about 
 the beginning of the winter from Mr. Peters, which 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 it is 
 easier to spend a fortune than to make one. I know 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 affairs 
 were the cause of a demand being made upon him for 501., 
 which not a little distressed him ; and altogether the future 
 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 grounds. 6 
 
 But in 1S08 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 aleo his connexion with the Edinburgh Review, under the 
 editorship of Jeffrey. Each of these friendships and con- 
 
 6 From this point we may pass much more rapidly over the remaining 
 "■round, hoth 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 
 move generally known ; and also because Part III. in some measure deals 
 with it. 
 
 C 
 
18 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 nexions gave its separate and distinguishable colour to Mill's 
 habits of thinking, and aims in life, at least during the years 
 1808 — 1819, while some of them influenced him much 
 longer. During all this time the History of British India 
 was slowly progressing. And in the earlier part of this 
 period his views on religion were becoming fixed, and 
 approaching more and more nearly to absolute negation. 
 
 The connexion with Bentham was of course the pre- 
 dominating influence of his life. Mill used to stay with 
 Bentham for short periods at his house (called Barrow Green) 
 at Oxted, in the Surrey hills, during the years 1807 — 1814; 
 and afterwards, during much longer portions of the year, at 
 Bentham's new house, Ford Abbey, in Devonshire, during the 
 years 1814 — 1817. When in London, Bentham lived in 
 Queen'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 1814 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 bouse, while toe 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 jourual 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 2 
 
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 MilPs pen on subjects connected 
 with law and codification, English and foreign, mainly in 
 relation to speculations and proposed improvements issuino 
 from Bentham. The younger Mill always thought that 
 Brougham 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, undei 
 
 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. 181 2, 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 Encyclopaedia 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 1200/. 
 
22 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 large 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 Review (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- 
 sity College) for unsectarian education, and his quarrel 7 and 
 subsequent reconciliation with Macaulay, 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 
 Autobiography, 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 
 Bomilly, 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 Be Macaulay 's Review of the Essay on Government. 
 
 8 Before setting out for India, Macaulay 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 bis 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, 1836. 
 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 i 
 equally conspicuous, and. should qualify our judgment on his 
 merits. 
 
THEIR PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS AND OPINIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON THE THEORY OF ASSOCIATION OP 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 Ideas, 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 (Hartley'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 Rev. 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, 3 and expresses [p. lvii] his own convic- 
 tion that " 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 subsequently 
 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. " Onr 
 ideas," he says [Analysis, vol. i. p. 78] , 4 "spring up, or exist, 4- 
 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 s hall see, c ast aside ? 
 
 Hartley, like many another theorist, strained every nerve 
 to evolve some grand and comprehensive law which should 
 
 2 Science of Morals, p. 55, sqq. 
 
 3 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." Comte 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 supersti'ucture. 
 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 bow 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 G. H. 
 
28 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 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- 
 tions at all, and, further, their activitj' 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 
 most 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 
 ideas, 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. s ] " How- 
 ever," he says — 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 question 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 ; 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]. 
 
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 cf 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 asther, 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, and 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 — 268) on the Relation of the Art of 
 Physic to, and the improvements which it is capable of receiving from, 
 the Vibration Theory, judiciously applied. 
 
30 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 coiTespondenceand 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 
 way vibrations cause, or are connected with, sensations or 
 ideas." [Observ. on Man, vol. i. p. 32.J 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 bodj'. 
 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 behiud 
 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 moi - e 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. If an}' 
 
 2. 
 3. 
 
 Sensation A. 
 
 Idea B. 
 
 or Muscular 
 Motion 0. 
 
 be associated 
 
 for a suffi- 
 cient numbeT 
 of times with 
 any other 
 
 Sensation D. 
 
 
 d, the simple 
 idea belong- 
 
 
 it will at last, 
 
 ing to D. 
 
 Idea E. 
 
 „ when occur- . 
 
 The very idea 
 
 
 ring alone, 
 
 E. 
 
 Muscular 
 
 excite 
 
 The very 
 
 Motion F, 
 
 
 Muscular 
 Motion F. 
 
 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 originally 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.J I 
 
 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 HARTLEY 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, — fi rst, i ts .organ, 
 next, the actual, feelin g 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 
 Darwin, 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 1 
 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 
 " when they become acutely painful they arc 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 indefinite, 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 co mbinations of cop ies, 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 onr 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 pensation, could not 
 confine himself within proper limits. 
 
 In his long second chapter on " the application of the doc- 
 
 ' 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 fundamentum divisionis, and often puts 
 species on the same level as genera) ; (2) to show that the vibra- 
 tions accompany ing 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 being associated with (instead of beinw, 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 vestige 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 seusations 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 may be] " is gone, and 
 which, in the train of thought, we can use as its repre- 
 
 d i 
 
36 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 sentative." 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. 
 
n 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ELEMENTARY POSTULATES AND FIRST PROPOSITIONS OF 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, ly 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- 
 
38 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 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 assuredly ; and the 
 jaw 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 when 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 
 icieas, occur in the successive than in the synchronous order. 
 Also nearly all the sensations occurring 1 either simultaneous!}' 
 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 medullary 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 
 
40 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 main, 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 1 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 id„a 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 + 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 glaring, 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 associatioh, 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 J A MLS MIL L . 
 
 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 Placfland in Tim^ .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 PRIMAR Y LA WS OF A SSOOfA 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 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 
 constitatioa . and con struction of the materials of thought, viz. 
 Sensations, Simple Ideas, Complex Ideas, and Trains of Ideas, 
 Mill has^ayed^t]ae-fflay-iQJ--th g c ons id £iatioji^J,hjg^3nncipal 
 operations i2iLiiiej!um.aja„J»J^^ 
 
 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 MA RKS OF IDEA S. 47 
 
 we wish to recall an idea, that idea must be present to our 
 minds in the very act of willing 1 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 
 
48 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, 
 bilter, &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 affectiug 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 
 
 E 
 
50 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 which reference may be made as a standard. One man's idea 
 of 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, consequently, 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 hy some sentient being 1 — 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 predication. Predi- 
 cation, according to Mill, serves two purposes; first, to mai'k 
 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. 55 
 
 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 nalurd, 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 x predi- 
 cation, deserves notice. In communicating or recording we 
 have occasion to mark either (I) 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- 
 
54 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 powder, Mill says that the train of ideas urging 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.J 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 say that 7 + 5 r: 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 bind 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 Pur ley. 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 
 
$6 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 seeing 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 
 to 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 
 
58 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 lastly writing, complete the process of associating ideas with 
 language. 
 
 Though Hartley modestly confesses himself \_Ohs. on Man, 
 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 growth 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, 
 v4. 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, &c, 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 amusin" 
 gossip, Sir Thomas Browne, in his Religio 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 (Mill's 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 defined 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 pm*suance 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 : henco 
 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. 61 
 
 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. 
 
)3 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 Santian or Hegelian stand-point? or that Coleridge and Mr. 
 Stirling ever completely appreciated the point d'appni of the 
 \_ssociationist ? In some few men, such as Goethe, and, in a 
 ess degree, G. H. Lewes, one sees some capacity of interpreting 
 iach view in terms of the other — a sort of " point of indiffe- 
 rence," where true appreciation of both sides may be possible; 
 nit such men are very rare. Hartley pathetically expresses 
 i hope, rather than an expectation, that " since children learn 
 he use of words most evidently without having any data, 
 my fixed point to go upon, philosophers and candid persons 
 nay learn at last to understand one another with facility and 
 lertainty." [Obs. on Man, vol. i. p. 285. J In the fourth 
 ilass of names mistakes must obviously be of rare occurrence, 
 arer even than in the first, and " could not arise at all," says 
 hartley, " did we use moderate care and candour." Indeed 
 n an even more hopeful, if not in a slightly ironical, strain 
 le subsequently expresses his opinion, that "it seems possible 
 .nd 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 
 udicious observations on the difficulty of translating one's 
 lative into a foreign language, as compared with the ease 
 vith which the converse process is effected, which contrast he 
 dduces as an illustration of that law of association by which, 
 vhen two sensations or two ideas occur together in the order 
 \, B, or a, b, respectively, the sensation B, or idea b, on re- 
 :urring, will not excite the idea a, with the same facility or 
 egularity as that with which the sensation A, or the idea a, 
 vill call up the idea b. He also has ingenious comments and 
 uggestions on the subject of a philosophical and universal 
 anguage — a kind of speculation which has engaged the 
 ittention of philologists and grammarians, since the building 
 >f Babel first elevated comparative philology into the dignity 
 
ANALOGY AND METAPHOR. 6$ 
 
 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 
 Hartle3''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, on 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 ol 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 literal ness, 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 may 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 OP 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 
 Reid, 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 
 
 E 
 
66 HA R TLE Y AND J A MES MILL. 
 
 judging. The term Consciousness is merely a convenient 
 generical mark. [Anal. vol. i. ch. v.j 
 
 Mill holds similar opinions as to the meaning of the term 
 Reflection. [Anal. vol. ii. pp. 176 — 180. J 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 " — he 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 Reflection = 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 
 mysterious 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 case, 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 Assoeia- 
 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. 67 
 
 urged agaiustit : 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 o£ 
 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. ypl. 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 " [Aval. vol. i. p. 248]. Mill will 
 have nothing to do with the Platonic IBea, 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 " 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 surroundings 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 but 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 
 quotes 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. PauFs — is connected constantly with the idea 
 of it : the name never occurs without calling up the idea, or 
 
;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 SSTFICA TION. 7 1 
 
 the trouble of calling the several objects by several names, and 
 so swelling 1 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, 266.] 
 
 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 again 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 heen 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.J " 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 
 
 2 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 ABSTRACTION. 73 
 
 objects; next, we generalize these, to represent classes of 
 objects ; lastly, finding 1 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. 
 
 vidual 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 
 
HARTLE Y ON ABSTRA CTION. 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.J 
 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 tbe re- 
 maining ingredients of tbe particular cluster, in whicb we first 
 observe its existence, but from tbe 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 ti 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 
 
IMAGINATION. 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 HAR TLE Y AND J A MES MILL. 
 
 than psychologically, and has proceeded in his investigation a 
 very short way, when he informs us [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 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 
 
8o 
 
 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. 
 
 f 1. Belief in p resent events or existences : 
 
 r{a.) Belief in immediate existences present to 
 our senses. 
 (b.) Belief in immediate existences not present 
 / to our senses, either 
 
 ( (a) Which we have not perceived 
 
 < [Testimony]. 
 
 [ 03) Which we have perceived. 
 
 2. Belief in past events or existences : 
 f(a.) When the event or existence has been the 
 
 object of our senses at some past time. 
 [Memory, Time, Personal Identity.] 
 (b.) When it has not. 
 
 {(a) Belief of Testimony [Evidence]. 
 03) Uniformity of Law of Nature 
 [as in 3], 
 
 3. Belief in/afore events or existences : [Anticipation- 
 inseparable association of like consequents with 
 
 k like antecedents]. 
 
 II. Belief in the Truth of Propositions : 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. 
 
 f 
 
BEL IEF IN PRESENT EX IS TENCES. 8 1 
 
 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 feelings 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 
 phj'sical 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 pf 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 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 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 ohvious 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 
 Bemembering 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 AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 an analysis of the process called "trying to remember" 
 (Aristotle's " avd(Lvr)tjL<;," as opposed to passive memory or 
 " fivrjfiri," 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 Y. 87 
 
 much in this respect. Some will remember a lecture better 
 than an essay, and an acted than a written play. Even in 
 reading a book some men, with more or less conscious effort, 
 shape to themselves audible ideas of the sounds of the words j 
 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 
 
 Ideas 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 
 " aicjdrjTiicr) fyavraoia" — would involve as much as " fivtj/iri"; 
 and the active or creative imagination, which frames and 
 deals with clusters of ideas after its own fashion — Aristotle's 
 " ftovXevTiKr) fyavraaia' — would, if this were the case, be 
 tantamount to " avafivqais." 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 Sinibaldo 
 de Mas in his Ideographic) to create direct associations between ideas and 
 pictorial or visible emblems, by constructing a language consisting of 2600 
 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. Shute (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 Fortn. 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 object. And in this he would be 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 : "I United by asso- 
 
 (b) The idea of my past self conceiving : ^.ciation 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, 
 ■j (of a past idea. 
 
 (.The idea of the Self, 
 ii. The idea of my present 
 
 self as remembering = (The 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 second 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 elenfent he really thought the 
 unanalyzable one. 6 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 
 
 s 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, hy 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 consequents, 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 
 
 " i 
 
 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 state* 
 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 
 
 \ 
 s \ 
 
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 inseparahle 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 'ad infinitum.' The idea of the- present 
 event, coupled with the ideas of the antecedents so associated 
 with it, mate 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 an indissoluble association, which forces 
 
TIME IN RELA TION TO MEM OR 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 HA R TLB Y 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 b}' 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 MEMOR V. 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. 324] 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 
 (avd/j,vr]<Ti<;) 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 
 
 H 
 
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 recovery 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 "), 
 and in children, is explained by Hartley for the most part 
 on the principles of the theory of vibrations. In this part ot 
 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 
 
 6 Instances of this are given by Mr. Verdon in his Essay on Forget- 
 fulness in Mind, vol. ii. p. 442. See also on Memory, and its different 
 kinds, Mr. Francis Galton in his English Men of Science. The latest 
 views (those of Taine, Maury, Wundt, Ac), 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, 1876). 
 
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 
 Testimony, 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), namely, 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 [Religio Medici, p. 45, edit. supracit.J 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 coufirm me in 
 the certainty thereof." 
 
 H 2 
 
i oo HARTLEY AND J A MES MILL. 
 
 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 bis 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' 'f the con- 
 sequent, consisting of the event or events evidenced," together 
 with " that close association of the antecedent and consequent, 
 which we 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 AND 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 would be, according 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 conjnnction : — 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 nothirg 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 durina 1 
 the absence of these sensations, and the abeyance of the will, 
 as in dreams, or during the temporary belief in ghosts which 
 takes possession of a child in the dark. It remains to be 
 
ASSENT TO PROPOSITIONS. 103 
 
 seen whether anything 1 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 op'inion 
 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 are recognized 
 
1 04 HARTLEY AND J A MES 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 
 different 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, Conjecture Qucedam de Sensu, Mbtu, et 
 Jdearum Generatione," he lays down boldly that " Assent and Dissent 
 are nothing but decomplex ideas excited by propositions." 
 
106 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 kind, whether scientific, religious, 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 
 " 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 iru tion 
 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. " Rational assent 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." [Olserv. 
 on Man, vol. i. p. 324]. 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 " everv 
 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 he 
 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 consequence, 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 ot four, as im- 
 pressed upon the mind by various objects, " and says : — * we 
 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 rray be said, is often 
 based on memory, authority, &e. Here, says Hartley with 
 
108 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 we rely itself achieved its credit on the strength of 
 association. 
 
 Just as in analyzing rational assent, Hartley feels himself 
 hound 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 
 
no HARTLEY 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.' 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. 
 
Ill 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LEADING METAPHYSICAL CONCEPTIONS, FORMS, AND RELATIONS, 
 AS ACCOUNTED FOR, ON THE THEORY OP 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, Father-Son, Husband- 
 Wife, Light-Dark, Greater-Less, Con vex- Concave, Trustee- 
 Cestui que Trust, &c. (where the related ideas are differently 
 named) ; or again in the relations. Equal- Equal, Like- Like, 
 
1 12 HARTLE Y AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 Sister-Sister, Friend-Friend, &c. (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. 
 
SEQ UENCES OF SENS A TIONS AND IDEA S. 1 1 3 
 
 Without such consciousness, the mental life would he 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 case the 
 difference is recognized as slight : and slight difference is all 
 that is meant by similarity. To have similar or differ&nt 
 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 "having the sensations, having 
 the ideas, and making marks for them." [Anal. vol. ii. 
 p. 17-1 
 
 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 B, then, thirdly and necessarily, the 
 
 I 
 
H4 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, (6) idea of sensation A 
 called up by idea of sensation B. But 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, hi/ 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 
 having an order in space, or (2) 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. US 
 
 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 following 
 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. 
 
 3 Because the series " red, red," can be distinguished from the series 
 " red, green," vas much as the single sensation " red " from the single 
 sensation " green," and in exactly the same way. 
 
 i 2 
 
Il6 HARTLEY AND JAMES 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 ; hut 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 o£ 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 constitutisn, formed habits, and temporary state of the 
 mind to which tbe series is present. But these qualifications, 
 though they would have left intact the statement that one 
 antecedent idea, if unmodified hy 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 j and when a series of sue- 
 
120 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 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 synchronous 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 Line, 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 this 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. 
 Positiou 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 HARTLE Y 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) j 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 
 fjiySiv " 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 " 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,. 
 
 4 J. S. Mill here points out the insufficiency of this explanation, and 
 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 of 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 
 
 5 In this way: we can never think of a finite line, surface, &.c, without 
 thinking of something beyond it, just as we can never think of an event 
 without the idea of its antecedent or consequent being brought up, or of a 
 number without thinking of one more beyond it. Infinity is, therefore, 
 that state of consciousness in which the idea of something beyond is asso- 
 ciated with the idea of any given finite line, surface, or bulk, &c. 
 
MO TION— TIME. 1 2 5 
 
 must move in a line of some sort, — (2) the idea of a body, — 
 (3) the idea of position (or extension in every direction, which 
 taken 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 eases, 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 
 
126 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 
 us 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 
 
QUANTITY— NUMBER. 127 
 
 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 unanalysable. Whether any very important 
 object is gained by stating the expression " more or less 
 heavy" in other terms— for that is what the alleged analysis 
 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 1 hy 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 
 
130 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 cause. This something 1 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 Tulis-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 Quantitas, 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 terras) 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 Ccesar 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 
 
 " Or because there would have to he 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 has 
 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, Man, 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/ 5 &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— ANAL OG Y— HYPOTHESIS. 133 
 
 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 " experimenta 
 crucis/' before its validity can be established, and the hypo- 
 
134 HARTLEY AND JAMES 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 aether 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. 346]. In 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 without 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 Poetica), 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 
 Final 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. 
 
136 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE " ACTIVE POWERS " OP 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 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 be eith er pleasurab le, painful, or in different . 
 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 bj 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 respectively 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 th^s^pjeasjiresj^are 
 ^gradually generated independent desiFesTor the " intellectual " 
 pleasures! \Ubserv7on 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 
 connotative 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 certaiidy 
 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 tbe 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 lively 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 eaoh of these mediately with several 
 sets and combinations of sensations. After these preliminary 
 vemarks, 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. 
 
140 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 In the achievement of these results, Wealth operates mainly 
 through the opportunities which it affords of rewarding 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/' 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 opera tion, 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—DIGNIT Y. 141 
 
 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 
 otirselves — 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- 
 
142 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 could 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 equally 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 he 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 
 
 2 " All the things,'' he writes [vol. i. p. 455], " in which men pride 
 themselves, and for which they desire to be taken notice of by others, are 
 either means of happiness, or have some near relation to it.'' 
 
HARTLEY ON A MBITION. 143 
 
 men, chiefly (says Hartley) owing to the association in their 
 minds of the eagerly pronounced opinions of learned men in 
 their books 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. 44-9]. 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 
 
144 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." 
 
HARTLEY ON SELF-INTEREST. 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 
 his 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- 
 
146 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 examined the 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 
 the 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, coloui ing 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 THEIIC AFFECTIONS. 147 
 
 lying 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 in 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. 218. 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 
 
 L 2 
 
148 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 seem to be the moat typical illustrations, Mill draws attention 
 to the tendency of association to render the means more 
 acceptable than the end, and the disposition, by exercising 
 which we 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-meii, 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 S YMPA TH Y. 149 
 
 This is not a very philosophical division : for, on examination, 
 the pleasures of Self-Interest seem to he not properly in- 
 cluded in the list, hut rather to stand outside it, hecause 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 Eational Self-interest (as distinct from Gross and Kefined) 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, — tudiemonism 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 
 force 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 design 
 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, Anger, 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 acquiescence in it, constitutes (in relation to our- 
 
 5 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. 475.1 
 
HARTLE Y ON S YMPA THY. 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, 
 Hartley first notices the different materials on which such 
 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, (e) the acts, 
 as distinguished from the dispositions, of our Fellow- 
 creatures. 7 It remains now to examine in order these several 
 causes (whether proximate or remote), considered as conse- 
 quents of our own, acts, in connexion with which the corre- 
 sponding Motives will come under consideration. 
 
 7 The 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 the 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 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#os and SiBa^), 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 
 
A FFECTION—MO TI VE— DISPOSITION. 1 5 3 
 
 distinction between the M otives, 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 peoximate causes of oue Pleasubes and 
 
 Pains. 
 
 Affection = Motive. 
 
 Disposition. 
 
 Object. 
 
 r a. Love of Eating (Gluttony when in excess). 
 
 \ /3. Love of Sex (Lust, when in excess). 
 
 J y. Love of Drinking (Drunkenness when in 
 V. excess). 
 
 The 
 
 same 
 
 names. 
 
 Palate. 
 
 Sex. 
 
 Drink. 
 
 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 
 
 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 reference to Pleasures and Pains generally. The former Mill 
 defines as " an equal facility of associating with any act hoth 
 its pleasures and its pains.-' [Anal. vol. ii. p. 262], 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, Powee, and Dignity. 
 
 Affection. 
 
 Motive. 
 
 Disposition. 
 
 Object. 
 
 [a. Love of Wealth — 
 
 
 
 Wealth. 
 
 Avarice, Rapacity, 
 
 The 
 
 The 
 
 
 (when in excess). 
 
 
 
 
 /3. Love of Power 
 
 same 
 
 same 
 
 Power. 
 
 < (Ambition). 
 
 names. 
 
 names. 
 
 
 y. Love of Dignity. 
 
 
 
 Dignity. 
 
 8. Pride. 
 
 Emulation. 
 
 Emulation. 
 (_ Ambition. 
 
 All the above as 
 compared with 
 
 U. Humility (Envy). 
 
 Envy. 
 
 Envy. 
 
 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 
 
CLA SSTFICA 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 ob Attitudes towabds trs or oue Fellow-men, 
 
 AND ALTEKATIONS IN THOSE STATES OR ATTITUDES. 
 
 Affection. 
 
 Motive. 
 
 Disposition. 
 
 Object. 
 
 0. Friendship. 
 
 
 
 Friends. 
 
 )3. Kindness (or Compas- 
 
 
 
 No class. 
 
 sion when the im- 
 
 
 
 
 mediate object is 
 
 
 
 
 removal of pain). 
 
 The 
 
 The 
 
 
 y. ( Love of Family. 
 \ Parental Affection. 
 
 same 
 
 same 
 
 > Family. 
 
 8. Patriotism. 
 
 
 
 Country. 
 
 t. (Esprit de Corps. 
 
 names. 
 
 names. 
 
 
 J Love of one's Order, 
 
 
 
 Class. 
 
 *\ Church. &c. 
 
 
 
 
 (.Party-spirit. 
 
 
 
 
 £. 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 
 necessary. 
 
i 5 6 
 
 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 IV. The Acts (as distinguished from the States) both of our- 
 selves, AND OF OUE FeLLOW-CBEATUBES, WHICH CAUSE US 
 PLEASURE OR PAIN. 
 
 Object. 
 
 Affection. 
 
 Motive. 
 
 Disposition. 
 
 a. Acts primarily useful to 
 
 
 
 
 the agent, secondarily 
 
 
 
 
 to others : — 
 
 
 
 
 ( (a) when the acts are 
 
 f Courage. 
 \ Prudence. 
 
 
 J our own, 
 
 
 ] (b) when the acts are 
 I. those of others. 
 
 Moral Approbation. 
 
 
 |3. Acts primarily useful to 
 
 
 
 The 
 
 others, secondarily to 
 
 
 
 
 the agent: — 
 
 
 
 same 
 
 ( (a) when the acts are 
 
 f Justice. 
 
 \ Beneficence. 
 
 
 J our own, 
 
 names. 
 
 J (b) when the acts are 
 V. those of others. 
 
 Moral Approbation. 
 
 
 y. Acts comprehending all 
 
 1 
 
 
 the above :— 
 
 1 
 
 
 ( {a) when the acts are 
 
 Virtue. 
 
 
 J our own, 
 
 
 
 
 j (5) when the acts are 
 
 Moral Appro- 
 
 Love of 
 
 
 (. those of others. 
 
 bation, Moral 
 
 Approbation, 
 
 
 
 Sense, Moral 
 
 &c. 
 
 
 
 Intention, 
 
 
 
 
 Moral Fa- 
 
 
 
 
 culty, Sense 
 
 
 
 
 of Eight 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 he 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 any 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 seeondarily 
 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£t? induced 
 
158 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 by eOos and SiSaxv in Aristotelian language) of being in- 
 fluenced 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 ahove. 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 expresses, 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." 
 
160 . HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 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 eonforma- 
 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 depends 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 connected 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 us that the two things cannot coexist after death) , but also 
 
 M 
 
162 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 the desire of being deserving of praise, and the dread of being 
 deserving 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." 
 
 M 2 
 
164 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 anatysis, 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 tranquillity, 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 
 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 (I) 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. 
 
 3 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 Mini, 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 menial 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 
 over 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 he 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 
 
168 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 Motive was defined as being. Is then Motive the same as 
 Will ? No. 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, 3 
 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 fine 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 iTparov iv avaKv<rei ftr^arbv ev evpeGci.'' 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 latter, our 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 1 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. 6 [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 mind." 
 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 mei-e 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 Sensu, Motu, et 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. 
 
170 HARTLEY AND JAMES 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 to us. Now interesting, 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 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 kinds, 
 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 theni, 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 ail 
 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 
 
172 HARTLE Y AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 to accomplish the desired end, but where the discovery and 
 selection of a variety of trains of ideas is Decessary. Here the 
 interesting idea of the pleasure consequent upon the attain- 
 ment of the end is continually being 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 day, 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 he 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 
 
174 HARTLEY AND JAMES 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 ' 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 
 
 * Such an introspection has been made, and the results given in an 
 essay called " An Introspective Investigation," Mind, Iso. 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. 
 
176 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 not to notice them. The practical outcome of a theory has 
 nothing 1 to do with its truth. But it was characteristic of the 
 iimes 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 Berkeley, 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 he 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 ' 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." [Olaerv. on Man, vol. i. p. 
 510.] « 
 
 9 This is a more familiar idea now than it was in Hartley's time. Not 
 philosophy only, but art and fiction (cp. Victor Hugo's Jean Valjean) 
 have inculcated it strenuously. It finds its " reductio ad absurdum " in 
 Mr. Butler's Ereivkon. 
 
 1 On this mechanical theory of Hartley's, see Mr. Leslie Stephen's 
 remarks (History of JUnglM Tksvgki in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii 
 sect. 67). 
 
178 HARTLEY AN'D 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 
 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 lai-ge" [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 interest 
 are. It shows that man best secures his own ultimate ad- 
 vantage by not directly and consciously seeking it, but hy 
 working for the good of his fellow-men. Thas tnougn TivirzJ 
 action is in the last resort referable to self-interest, its primary 
 and immediate aim in practice should be utilitarian, in the 
 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 
 
 x 2 
 
180 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 perception of the useful results likely to flow from 
 certain classes of actions, the ordinary feelings and under- 
 standing of men suffice. No special sense, such as the 
 hypothetical Moral Sense, is required. [Fr.on Mack, p. 11]. 
 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, be is justly responsible for all those 
 which he might have foreseen by the exercise of reasonable 
 
CALCULA TION IN MORALS. 181 
 
 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 Mack., 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 
 ccmplexity 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 Bentham in thinking that the morality of an act in 
 no way depends upon the motive, which in itself is colour- 
 less, and only derives its complexion from the consequences 
 
 1 Cp. Fr. on Mack., 267, 268. Mill ridicules the sentiment of Andrew- 
 Fletcher (approved by Sir James Mackintosh) to the effect that " ho 
 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 
 by him. [Fr. 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. [Fr. on Mack., 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." 
 
 Kegarding 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- CUS TOM— ED UCA TION. 1 83 
 
 All this he thinks mei-ely 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 Mack, 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. 263]. 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 Reason, 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 
 
1 84 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 in fact 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. When it is said 
 that men ought to seek the benefit of others, and equally 
 when it is said that, in the last resort, they aim in eveiy 
 action to secure their own interests, it is to be understood 
 that " the principle of utility takes in every ingredient 
 wherein human happiness consists" [Fr. on Jf#c^., pp. 271, 
 272], and that its advocates do not (formally at least) 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 pr*ocuregood 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. 1 " \_Fr. on Mack., 
 p. 368]. In all actions there is nothing in itself moral or 
 immoial 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 disppsitions. 
 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. 
 
186 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 In his ease, in fact, as in that of so many other Utilitarians, 
 the old objection at this point strikes ns 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 Utili- 
 tarianism, both as represented by Hartley one of its earliest, 
 and by J. S. Mill one of its latest, exponents, is the same : 
 he should like what other people like, and do what other 
 people do. Humanity has found out what is best for itself. 
 Follow its experience. 
 
 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. " 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 unquestioniugly 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, 
 4 U], 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 8S HA R TLE Y A ND J A MES MILL. 
 
 and irreducible fact is sensation, and the interest attaching 1 
 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. 6 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 [IKst. 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." 
 
 6 " 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 reXij or final causes. 
 
SELF-REALIZATION. 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. 254], Here again we 
 are reminded of Plato's state-mythology, and state-poetry. 
 
igo 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 " 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. 
 
 ' " 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." 
 
igi 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE ESTHETIC DOCTRINES OF HARTLEY AND MILL. 
 
 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 Association ist'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 
 
192 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 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 (SJ), 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 BEAUTIFUL IN NATURE. -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 
 •' history " of the growth of the aesthetical 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 
 
 o 
 
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 au 
 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 marimagno" 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 
 
 1 {mb ariyrj 
 
 nvKvrjs aKOVtra*. \^f/ta$or (vdovajj (frpevi. 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 asdribe the 
 pleasure derived from a sonata of Beethoven to its association 
 with pleasurable ideas, once connected with similar soundsemitted 
 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 graee- 
 
 » Cp. ii. 250. 
 2 
 
196 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 ful curves from the fact that, since most of our bodily motioDs 
 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, but 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 sesthetie 
 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 aesthetic 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. 
 
198 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 CHAPTER Xl. 
 
 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 passioD, 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, 1 that the end of government is " public good," to use 
 Locke's expression, or, in Bentham's well-known phrase, 
 
 1 Keprinted from the JEncyclopcedia Britannica, 1828. 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 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 o£ 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 Polities and Legislation we must sup- 
 pose, with Bentham, that every man is a knave, and will 
 take everything 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 — ("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 ease 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. \T£s&ay 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 of 
 individuals.' 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 
 desires." [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 ot 
 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 MILLa 
 
 prejudice in any one direction, evidently did not find favour 
 with Mill. With him the Monarch must necessarily be 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.J 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 system. [Essay on Government, 
 p. 1 6.] 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 handled on pp. 28 — 32 of the Essay on 
 Government is made the subject of copious extracts and remarks, under 
 the title " People Unfit," and among the " 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, &c, &c. The quotations exhibit a prolonged and 
 methodical study. 
 
 4 In Legislation and Jurisprudence [Essay No. II] Mill merely follows 
 Ben tham. 
 
204 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 says Hartley [vol. i. p. 81], "that the affections and 
 passions should he analyzed into their simple compounding 
 parts, by reversing 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 
 
 6 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 but little respect. 
 "We 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 be 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 319, 320J . 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 Eut 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 
 
 « 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/' 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 bis 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 
 
208 HAR TLE Y AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 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 plrilosoplte, 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. 22—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. 8 
 
 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 
 
 3 On the want of physical education in J. S. Mill's case, see Autob. p. 
 36 (quoted above) ; on the deadening of the imaginative element and the 
 emotions, see the Autob. 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 
 
210 HARTLEY -AND JAMES 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 spoiling 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 /uepos apx aiV Kab «px°/ x€I ' 0<t [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 j 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 Chrestomathia, 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. his essay in the Edinburgh Beview on the moral systems of Bell 
 and Lancaster for the education of the Poor. 
 
 p 2 
 
212 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 the greatest contempt, 1 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 bis own, and extracts from the works of others (Bacon, 
 Gibbon, &c) against university training. 
 
 2 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. 213 
 
 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 th^ 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.J 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 
 ol its warlike propensities by the use of such an instrument. 
 
 3 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 Law, 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 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 Part m. 
 
 THE YALUE 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 ; (&) 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 " eopia 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 °), his medical fancies and digressions, his theories of 
 biblical interpretation, his minute observations of the customs 
 of young children, and the inferior animals, Tiis 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 Beligio Medici than that of Sir Thomas Browne : indeed P/iilo- 
 sophia Medici would have been an admirable title for the Observations 
 on Man. 
 
 1 Hist, of Eng. Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 68. 
 
2 1 6 II AR TLE Y AND J A MES MILL. 
 
 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 formulae 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 
 
 F 1 
 W : F : : F : L, therefore W = j-, 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 Principia 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 1 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 Nasmj'th'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 
 
218 HARTLEY AND JAMES 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, savs 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.J ; 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 Seal 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 — 492, and vol. ii. passim], and the like 
 expressions of what Mr. Leslie Stephen 4 calls his "optimism 
 run mad," whi"h remind us of similar speculations on the 
 part of Abraham Tucker. 
 
 Erom 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, '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 phj^sician 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 Lithontrijptico, 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. 65, 66, 120. 
 
 5 The curious contrasts in Hartley's work are pointed out by Mr. 
 Leslie Stephen (English Thought, Sfo. ii. 64) with his accustomed clearness 
 and vivacity. 
 
220 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 rhapsodical eulogium of the Christian religion," reminding 
 ns strongly of Bishop Berkeley's S/ris, which, as Coleridge 
 tells us," was " announced as an Essay on Tar-water, and began 
 with Tar and ended with the Trinity, the ' 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 theObservations, 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 
 
 6 Cp. p. 1 with p. 42 of the tractate "De Sensu, Motu, et Idearum 
 Geueratione " (in Dr. Parr's Metaphysical Tracts of the Eighteenth 
 Century). 
 
 J Biogr. Lit. p. 143. 
 
MILLS SEVERITY OF 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 Sensu, &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* of the salient features in a coherent, 
 as opposed to a rambling, discoui'se 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 son after the name of the 
 philosopher, as a mark of the interest and admiration with which he was 
 then studying him. See Biogr. Lit. p. 86. 
 
 9 See Mill's chapter on the Will (end of vol. ii. of 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 au educational or 
 social value to every opinion which he expressed. m 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 aud theology ; for if men can be induced to con- 
 strict a morality on better associations, they will not be long 
 in constructing a better i-eligion. Like Hartley, Mill deplores 
 the degener /re 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 havinc 
 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 
 
 Lis 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 
 into the Origin of the Human Appetites and Affections* 
 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 othei 
 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, however, of the Will was certainly more 
 full and satisfactory than Hartley's ; indeed Hartley had no 
 specific treatment of Volition as such, though he had a long 
 discussion on Necessity or Mechanism (as he preferred to call 
 it) and Freewill, — a subject omitted somewhat unaccountably 
 
 1 In the Metaph. Tracts above referred to, p. 68. Cp. Mill's Analysis 
 vol. i. p. 91. 
 
224 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 by James Mill — wherein he carefully distinguished between 
 the "philosophical" doctrine of Freewill which asserts that a 
 man can will two different things 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 meaningless 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 does 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 
 
 1 It is beginning to be generally understood now that 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 in the matter of the two philosophers are also 
 partly to be explained from the history of the Association 
 Theory. 
 
 II. We have already noticed [Part II. ch. i.] the forerunners 
 of Hartley, namely, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Gay, and his 
 contemporaries Abraham Tucker and Condillac. Coleridge 
 indeed [Blogr. Lit. ch. v.] proposes to add several names to 
 these. He denies the claim of Hobbes 's " discursus mentalis " 
 to be an original solution of the difficulty : and says that these 
 philosophers had been anticipated by Descartes in his treatise 
 De Methoclo, which appeared a year before the Hitman Nature. 
 Descartes constructed on association principles a theory ot 
 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 aether, 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 
 
 3 These two rival theories are clearly descrihed by Gay in the Enquiry 
 above mentioned [p. 60]. The nerves in the former case are regarded 
 says Ga}', 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 \_C01itemp. Engl. Psych., Eng. Transl.~\ p. 282, sqq. 
 
 * A copy of this work, once in Hume's possession, was found to have 
 
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 the same 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 
 Avlob. p. 68]. 
 
 Tucker with his " translation," and Brown with his hints 
 as to "relative suggestion," which were their respective 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 him, when subsequently lent to s 
 friend by Sir James Mackintosh, into whose hands it eventually came. 
 
 6 Namely (]) 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 
 Autobiography , — 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 
 
228 HARTLEY AND J 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 Associationism 
 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 ; 
 yet 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 ol 
 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 
 arc. " 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 Axioroata," 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. 
 
 6 As Malebranche savs [De Inquirendd Yeritate, lib. iii. p. 194] : " the 
 assent and approbation of the vulgar on a difficult subject is a sure 
 argument of the falsity of the opinion to which the assent is given." 
 
230 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 alm ost entirely to. 
 rigi dly limiting j t£_gx.tensive 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 Professor Bain has recognized an unanalyzable element in 
 Belief and in Muscular Resistance [Anal, ii. 31], and similarly 
 J. S. Mill holds Memory and Expectation to involve Belief, and 
 Belief to be ultimate, as also [see his work on Hamilton] the 
 conception 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 James Mill equally holds to be instances of Asso- 
 ciation, J. S. Mill regards as either elementary, or at all 
 events involving something beyond Association : and to 
 the ultimate elements of Resemblance and Contrast, Professor 
 Bain adds Contiguity [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 MILL'S 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. 
 Nothing is more characteristic of James Mill's philosophy 
 than the denial of the distinction between havinsr a feeling" 
 and attending to or being conscious of it. This distinction 
 however is restored on sufficient grounds by J. S. Mill and 
 Professor Bain, as also the distinction between having two 
 feelings and being conscious of their difference (also ignored 
 by James Mill) : for, though the law of Relativity (in Professor 
 Bain's sense) undoubtedly holds good ; 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 bis 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.J 
 
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. 971, and 
 by one who was at first a member of the sect, but afterwards 
 became a more qualified admirer [J. S. Mill, in his Aulobio- 
 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" 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 were opponent s of the doctrine_only 
 when pushed beyond its proper bounds into regions wbere it 
 had no title, and could do no good! TfulTTFwas" 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. No Benthamite could 
 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 
 quotes 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 Eeid, 
 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 They gave emotion the name of 
 sentimentality, with what effect on the younger members of 
 their clique, 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, 8 and a terminology bar- 
 
 1 On the inapplicability of precise methods to such material as artistic 
 emotion, see Kibot (Contemp. Eitg. Psych. (Etig. IV.)], p. 232, Mansel's 
 Metaphysics, p. 392, Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, Lect. xlvi., 
 Jouffroy's Cours d'Esthetique. 
 
 5 James Mill, Bentham, Austin, Grote, Professor Bain are all noticeable 
 for the baldness of their style. On the other hand, no more beautiful 
 
DE VO T10N TO S YS TEM. 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, 4 to their contempt for the elegancies, and (in James 
 Mill's case) even for the pleasures of life, 5 and to their efforts 
 to banish " the mj'sterious " 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 \Autob. p. 32] 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' 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 book 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. 
 
 4 J. S. Mill's Autobiography, p. 48. 
 
 6 Fr. on Mack. pp. 285, 286. Essay on Education, p. 5. Analysis, 
 vol. ii. p. 402. J. S. Mill's Autobiography, pp. 23, 37, 106. See also 
 
236 HARTLE Y 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 was the obvious insuffi- 
 ciency of the purely Deductive Method in Politics to grapple 
 with its material, which suggested to J. S. Mill what he 
 called the Inverse Deductive Method, which is a sort of com- 
 promise between the purely Deductive, and the purely Induc- 
 tive advocated by Macaulay in his strictures on the former 
 [Edinb. Review, No. 97, pp. 188, 189], and which consists in 
 
 one of James Mill's articles on Indian affairs in the Edinburgh, Review, 
 vol. xvi. p. 136. 
 
 7 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. 2tf 
 
 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, 
 21 0J. 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 religio'n. 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/ not 
 as a permanent sentiment in human nature, — an irresistible 
 
 8 James Mill was not, however, so cynical as Bentham in his treat- 
 ment of 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 ot 
 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 so scanda- 
 
MILLS INFL UENCE ON HIS DISCIPLES. 239 
 
 lized Hegel/ 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. 1 A more powerful, 
 because informal and involuntary, indictment of all theories 
 
 9 Werke, xiii. 72, vi. 13. 
 
 1 Cp. the Autobiography, pp. 66, 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 combinationsmight one 
 day be exhausted, gave him for days the greatest pain, and tended to 
 destroy his enjoyment of music. 
 
240 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 
 
 with a single solvent for every difficulty, could scarcely have 
 been written. 
 
 Several of the deficiencies noticeablejn the writings 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 
 Niebulir 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. 241 
 
 [James Mill] ; that too much division and dissolution renders 
 construction impossible in practice, and neglected in theory ; 2 
 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. 1 
 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 bis theory, and thereby improves greatly on James Mill. 
 See Eibot's Contemp. Eng. Psych. (Eng. Tr.), p. 246. 
 
 4 Autobiography , p. 169. Cp. the chapter on Necessity in the 
 Logic. 
 
 6 See the Essay on Liberty, and the Autob., pp. 255, 256. 
 
 It 
 
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 [Au/ob. 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 his study of Plato. It is curious 
 on what differently constituted minds Plato has exerted a large influence. 
 One 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 meutioned 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 Gr. 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 
 further 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 a theory of the Social Organism, 
 founded on the doctrine of Hereditary Transmission, has been 
 established, which was wholly beyond the ken of Hartley and 
 James Mill, who disregarded 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 Ribot, 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 286 sqq. (two very interesting 
 articles). 
 
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; ' 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 
 
 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 his 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 ninke him what be is. [See Leslie 
 Stephen's Hist, of Eng. Thought in the Eighteenth Cent., vol. ii. 
 p. 267] 
 
 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 oil 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 on a careful collec- 
 tion of data, is now fully recognized in most systems of psycho- 
 logy, not necessarily Association ist, 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 sesthetical 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 JEsihetics, 
 Mind, vol. ii. p. 38, and article on the Sublime, vol. iii. 
 p. 324, &c), and, in Germany, Pechner and Zeising (with his 
 law of the Golden Section, and other curious applications 
 of mathematics to the phenomena of Art) . Last]}', 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 j 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 placed before 
 him some of the materials for a decision. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX. 
 
 I. Authorities foe the Lives. 
 
 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 Eose's 
 Biographical Dictionary, vol. viii. Compare Watson's History of 
 Halifax, and the Monthly Review, vols, liii., Hv., 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 earlier 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 Fenny 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. Theib Philosophical Wbitings. 
 
 David Hartley : 
 
 1. Conjecture Qucedam de Sensu, Motu, et Idearum Qeneratione, 
 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. 
 174,9. 
 
 3. The same, in three vols. With notes and Essays by Dr. Pistorius, 
 Rector of Poseritz, in the island of Riigen. 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 Hitman 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 Encyclopmdia 
 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 Wobks. 
 
 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 how 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 Origine des Connaisances Humaines. This may advan- 
 tageously be read with Hartley. 
 
 4. Belshara (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 Biographia 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, »37i (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 Ideas, 
 in the first volume of Mind. [The volumes of Mind, 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 aasthetical part of 
 his system). 
 
 4. Mansel's Metaphysics [pp. 233 — 248, and passim]. 
 
 .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 Philosophy, by Dr. Noah Porter. 
 
 6. G. H. Lewes 's History of Philosophy, vol. ii. (2nd edition). This 
 should be referred to, because the history is written from the point cf 
 view of Association, supported and enriched by the latest results ol 
 Positivism and the Sciences. 
 
 7. Sir William Hamilton's elaborate note on the genesis and growth of 
 Associationism in his edition of Reid'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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