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    f 293 }

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    Among * those who have directed any portion of their attention to inquiries connected with mental and moral philosophy , there are few who have not beard of Hartley ' s Observations on Man . If we were to add , that there are fewer still who have read this remarkable work with the care and study which it requires and would abundantly repay , we should probably hot be far from the truih .

    One rfeason for the neglect to which the wntings of Hartley have been Consigned by many who wish to be considered as persons of taste , may * perhaps , be found in the peculiarities of his style , and the dry formality of propositions , corollaries , &c . ; a mode of arrangement which has certainly not much to recommend it to those in whose estimation accuracy of thought and reasoning are of little value unless accompanied by the graces , but may nevertheless be of service in enabling the attentive reader to trace the different

    steps of hi * argument , and combine the separate parts into one complete and regular system . It may also in part be accounted for b y the author ' s unfortunate attachment to the hypothesis of vibrations , which occupies so prc-mi-i iient a place in the first volume ; a place so little due either to its value or its evidence . It has , doubtless , prevented many from going further , and had thus defrauded them of the instruction they might otherwise have derived from the variety of interesting speculations connected with the theory of the human mind , derived from the fundamental principle of the association of

    ideas . Here we are not busied with mere baseless hypothesis , but are engaged in tracing and generalizing facts of unquestionable evidence ; facts , as Mr . Stewart has well observed , of which we can no more doubt , than of

    any thing for which we have the testimony of our senses . Even of those few who have attempted the study of Hartley , it may be doubted whether any considerable portion have bestowed much attention on its most valuable practical applications . Philosophical students have been so much more interested to examine the foundations of his theory of the human mind , considered merely as a theory , which are detailed in the first

    volume , that they have been apt to overlook and neglect the interesting and truly important inferences derived from it on the principal questions connected with religion and morals , which form the subject of the second . Dr . Priestley , in his edition of Hartley ' s Theory of the Human Mind , with the best intentions , has been unfortunately instrumental in confining the attention to the merely theoretical part of the work , by entirel y omitting the second volume , and even representing the views which it contains of the

    leading princi p les of morality and religion as having no necessary connexion with the doctrine of association . This is so far from being the case , that they flow from it in the most direct manner possible ; arising immediately from the view which it presents of the origin of our ideas , their mutual influence upon each other , and from the analysis which it furnishes of our intellectual powers and the various classes of mental pleasures and pains . Establish this doctrine , and the most important practical conclusions of the " rule of life" appear necessarily to follow ; if it be denied , they , many of

    them , fall to the ground . Without following it out to these conclusions , the whole system appears lame and incomplete ; we deprive it of its principal excellencies , and leave it exposed to . the misplaced objections of its adversaries . They commonly represent the Hartleyan theory as degrading man into a mere machine ; as chaining him , down to the earth , the passive sub- *

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    REMARKS ON $ 6 Vtti PORTIONS OP HARfLEY * S RULE OF LIFE ,

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1828, page 293, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2560/page/5/