PHILOSOPHY, MENTAL. 



generally been referred to the memory. 

 pr. Locke appears to have been the first 

 vvi,o employed the principle of associa- 

 tion to account for aberrations of judg- 

 ment and feeling-, and for customary con- 

 nections of ideas ; but lie does not seem 

 to have been at all aware, that all our 

 ideas, except those which are produced 

 by mere repetitions of uncompounded 

 sensible changes (i. e. ideas of sensation, 

 or simple ideas, 8) are in reality formed 

 by the influence of the same principle ; 

 'that all our ' affections, and our mental 

 pleasures and pains, are nothing- more 

 than the relicts of sensation variously com- 

 bined by association. It seems that Mr. 

 Gay, a clergyman in the west of England, 

 was the first who endeavoured to show 

 the possibility of deducing all our pas- 

 'sions and affections from association : his 

 observations on this subject, however, as 

 Dr. Priestley observes, amount to little 

 more than conjecture. These, however, 

 led Dr. Hartley to direct his thoughts to 

 the subject ; and by an union of talents in 

 moral science, in natural philosophy, and 

 in a professional knowledge of the hu- 

 man frame, with a mind unobscured by 

 selfish tendencies, he was enabled to 

 bring into one extensive system the pro- 

 gress of the mind, from its first rudiments 

 of sensation, through the maze of com- 

 plex ideas and affections, to show how 

 man rises from sensation to intellect. 

 " After giving the closest attention to 

 the subject in a course of several years, 

 it appeared to him very probable, not 

 only that all our intellectual pleasures 

 and pains, but that all the phenomena of 

 memory, imagination, volition, reasoning, 

 and every other mental affection and ope- 

 ration, are only different modes or cases 

 of the association of ideas ;" (more gene- 

 rally of sensorial changes ;) " so that no- 

 thing is requisite to make any man what- 

 ever he is, but a sentient principle, with 

 this single property, which however ad- 

 mits of great variety, and the influence 

 of such circumstances as he has actually 

 been exposed to." His great work was 

 begun when he was about twenty-five 

 years of age ; it was published in the be- 

 ginning of 1749, when he was little more 

 than forty -three years of age. He lived 

 nine years after, but he left it without 

 any chang-e ; and he does not appear to 

 have written any additional paper on the 

 subject. As Dr. H. expected, his work 

 remained for a considerable time unnotic- 

 ed. Tucker (A. Search) was obviously 

 acquainted with it, and owed much to it ; 

 but he seldom speaks of Hartley, except 



respecting his hypothesis of vibrations. 

 Dr. Priestley had the merit of bringing 

 Hartley's system forward to the public 

 notice ; and the celebrity which he had 

 acquired among different classes of the 

 philosophic world attracted the attention 

 of thinking people to the doctrine of as- 

 sociation. About thirty years after the 

 publication of the original work, he pub- 

 lished an abridgment of it ; in which he. 

 left out the deductions from the principal 

 theory respecting the rule of life, the 

 truth of Christianity, &c. and as much as 

 he could of the hypothesis oY vibrations. 

 Since that time the system of Hartley 

 has been rapidly gaining ground in South 

 Britain ; and it is now, probably, pretty 

 generally adopted by those who think 

 closely on the subject. In North Britain, 

 owing partly to theological and metaphysi- 

 cal prepossessions,still more perhaps to Dr. 

 Priestley's rough and unjustifiably severe 

 attack upon three of the Scotch philoso- 

 phers, whose mental and moral character 

 ranked high among their contrymen, the 

 principles of Hartley have made but lit- 

 tle progress. The philosophical systems 

 of Scotland have been somewhat modifi- 

 ed by it ; but those who rank the highest 

 seem little inclined to admit it in its full 

 extent. However, the writings of Dugald 

 Stewart shew that he has done something 

 towards clearing the way, and the Glas- 

 gow Professor of Moral Philosophy in his 

 lectures does more ; and there is rea- 

 son to hope, that, when the present gene- 

 ration has passed away, the true princi- 

 ples of mental science will gain a firm 

 hold there as well as in South Britain. 

 We ardently wish the extensive adoption 

 of the Hartleyan system, because, while it 

 satifactorily explains the causes of our 

 mental phenomena, it furnishes the best 

 guide in the moral and mental culture of 

 the mind, 



18. We have already stated that the as- 

 sociative power has two grand modes of 

 operation, connection and composition: 

 it is not easy to keep them distinct ; but 

 in many cases it is practicable, and often 

 tends to precision in our reflections and 

 reasonings. In what we shall advance 

 respecting the operations of this power, 

 we shall keep this distinction somewhat 

 in view. We shall state, first, the classes 

 of connections which exist among our 

 sensorial changes; and, secondly, some 

 of the principal laws of connections : we 

 shall then proceed to detail some of the 

 leading facts relative to compositions, and 

 the fonnation of our compound notions 

 and feelings. It would be most strictly 



