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to Men in the early part of their adult Age, what Playthings are to Children; they teach them a love for
Regularity, Exactness, Truth, Simplicity; […] and when [these] social, moral, and religious Affections
begin to be generated in us, we may make a much quicker progress towards the perfection of our
natures. (Hartley, Vol 2, 244)
In this way, then, the objects of nature are envisaged as having something of an instructive role in the development
of character, especially regarding moral development.
Hartley also hypothesized on the origins of language. He thought that since speech was a necessary requirement for
Adam and Eve to name the animals in Eden, God granted it to them and from this faculty the original Edenic or
Adamic language developed. Initially, this language was monosyllabic and its usage was limited to referring to visible
phenomena. After the Fall, Hartley supposes that Adam and Eve “extended their Language to new Objects and Ideas”
and principally to those associated with pain (Hartley, Vol 1, 298). Eventually, this language became corrupted, as
humans acquired names for evil things, which led to a greater propagation of self-interest and such aspirations as the
Tower of Babel which the Babylonians thought they could build high enough to reach the Heavens (Genesis 11; 1-9).
In response, God disrupted the construction of the Tower by causing the workers to speak in different tongues, thus
protecting the Edenic language from further corruption and doing something to limit the dissemination of false
perceptions.
These false perceptions were the result of the corrupted language having acquired the means to become ambiguous
- a major departure from Adam’s original language, which was unequivocal. By the eighteenth century, the
expansion of knowledge had resulted, as Hartley saw it, in humanity having moved closer to an original state of pure
knowledge. This being the case, it was necessary to go back to the original language of Adam, integrating the
languages of the world in the process, to reinstate the purity of the original language. This language would be a
philosophical one “without any Deficiency, Superfluity, or Equivocation” (Hartley, Vol 1, 315). (This idea anticipates
the aspirations of the Logical Positivists, c. 1920-40.)
Among those who were influenced by Hartley’s ideas were William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In his
Preface to Lyrical Ballads Wordsworth refers on several occasions to mental associations, and it is possible to see
how Hartley’s theory is the source of his interest in bodily sensation that is evident in passages such as “our bodies
feel, where’er they be / Against or with our will” (“Expostulation and Reply”); “sensations sweet, / Felt in the blood,
and felt along the heart; / And passing even into my purer mind” (“Tintern Abbey”). Similarly, in Coleridge’s verse
we can see references to Hartley’s notion of a physiological process causally linking mind and matter, as the
following lines dedicated to him in Religious Musings illustrate:
he of mortal kind
Wisest, he first who marked the ideal tribes
Up the fine fibres through the sentient brain.
Moreover, we can see Hartley’s theory implicitly expressed in poetic terms in Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight”. In
further demonstrations of his esteem for Hartley, Coleridge not only had his portrait painted with Observations on
Man resting on his knee, but he famously named his son (David Hartley Coleridge) after Hartley. However,
Coleridge’s passion for Hartley was later to diminish when he came to see that Hartley’s theory was untenable in
relation to what Coleridge had observed of his infant son’s attempts at language acquisition.
Hartley’s ideas found favour amongst many other leading thinkers, including the scientist Joseph Priestley, who
considered Observations on Man as second only to the Bible in significance. Others who were directly or indirectly
influenced by him include: James Mill, John Stuart Mill, William Benjamin Carpenter, Alexander Bain, Abraham
Tucker, Archibald Alison and Thomas Brown.
Hartley died on August 28, 1757 whilst still a practicing physician in Bath.
Works Cited
Coleridge, S. T., The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. by J. D. Campbell (London: Macmillan, 1938)
Hartley, D., Observations of Man: His Frame, His Duty, His Expectations, 2 vols (New York: Delmar, 1976)
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