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David Hartley’s Enlightenment Psychology: From Association to Sympathy, Theopathy, and Moral Sensibility
Richard T. G. Walsh Wilfrid Laurier University
In Observations on Man, His Frame, His Duties, and His Expectations David Hartley (1749/1971) presented a systematic, comprehensive, complex, and medically informed psychological treatise, drawn from Newtonian mechanics. Evidently motivated by religious beliefs about the perilous state of humankind, he speculated that human nature’s physical foundation in vibrations and association ranged from sensory pro- cesses and simple ideas to sympathy (i.e., benevolent social relations, leading to perspective-taking), theopathy (i.e., loving union with God), and moral sensibility (i.e., reliance on moral principles to guide conduct). However, typical accounts of scientific psychology’s roots in Enlightenment thought have neglected the complex psycholog- ical processes and developmental, interpersonal, societal, religious, and moral aspects of Hartley’s system. For him, manifestations of sympathy, theopathy, and moral sensibility are central to human experience, whereas self-fulfillment results from the developmental transit of self-interest to moral sensibility. Thus, after describing the multiple facets of association in sensation, ideas, action, language, and memory, I show how Observations synthesizes contemporaneous scientific, religious, and moral thought about human psychology. Then I relate Hartley’s views to subsequent psychological thought, identify parallels with concepts in past and present scientific psychology, and suggest the value of his synthesis for exploring the interface between psychology, and religion and spirituality. However, philosophical impediments in psychology’s tradi- tions make such explorations unlikely without facilitative institutional changes.
Keywords: David Hartley, associationism, psychology and religion, philosophical psychology, history of psychology
According to E. G. Boring’s (1950) history of experimental psychology, David Hartley (1705–1757) elaborated the seminal concept of association in his 1749 work, Observations on Man, His Frame, His Duties, and His Expecta- tions. Boring attributed scientific psychology’s intellectual foundation to association as prac- ticed by many Anglo American psychologists. Hartley is also credited with producing in Ob- servations “the first distinctly psychological treatise” (Walls, 1982, p. 260), based on the mechanistic assumptions of the Scientific Rev- olution. Yet if textbooks of psychology’s his- tory include Hartley, they typically do not de- scribe how he construed association not just
mechanistically but also in terms of social, re- ligious, and moral development, which stemmed from both his medical practice and his approach to Christianity. In Volume I of Obser- vations, Hartley (1749/1971) discussed biolog- ical, psychological, and social development pri- marily, while integrating extant Christianity and natural and social philosophy with conceptions of self-interest and moral sensibility (also termed “the moral sense”). In Volume II he argued for the existence of God, prescribed so- cial morality for humankind, and identified the terms of universal eternal life.
In effect, Hartley integrated biophysical, psy- chological, developmental, social, and religious aspects of human nature (Allen, 1999, 2013). His scope was biophysical in positing neurolog- ical “vibrations” (internal physical responses produced by sensory impressions) that operated in tandem with association (Webb, 1988). His scope was psychological in explaining associa- tion as the catalyst for the relationship between
This article was published Online First August 29, 2016. Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-
dressed to Richard T. G. Walsh, Department of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3C5, Can- ada. E-mail: [email protected]
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Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology © 2016 American Psychological Association 2017, Vol. 37, No. 1, 48 – 63 1068-8471/17/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/teo0000047
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perception and action. It was developmental in incorporating biopsychosocial growth across the life span, such as the emergent relationship between language and thought. Hartley’s scope was social in accounting for interpersonal and societal relations. It was religious in positing the ultimate annihilation of the self in both sympa- thy (i.e., benevolent social relations leading to perspective-taking) and theopathy (i.e., the per- fectibility of humans in loving union with a divine being). Ultimately, Hartley’s scope was moral. Accordingly, his treatise has been char- acterized as “one of the great [psychological] syntheses of the eighteenth century” (Robinson, 1995, p. 271). Mindful that the overarching purpose of Hartley’s (1749/1971) Observations was to substantiate belief in God’s existence and strengthen moral conduct (Allen, 1999, 2013), I discuss its psychological, religious, and moral facets in the context of scientific, social, and religious Enlightenment thought. Then I compare it to subsequent and modern psycho- logical thought.
Hartley structured Observations as a formal logical argument with specific propositions. Ac- cordingly, when quoting from the edition that I consulted, I identify the volume and proposition numbers before the page numbers because of differences in pagination across editions.
Philosophical and Religious Roots
Hartley was an English physician with a mas- ter’s degree but not a medical degree (Allen, 1999, 2013). With a colleague he conducted research on kidney stones, from which he suf- fered chronic severe pain. Attracted to practical applications of science, known then as natural philosophy, he was enamored of mathematics and emergent statistics. Although his father was an Anglican pastor, Hartley became an outspo- ken, nonconforming Christian idealist. Thus, his standpoint in Observations was rooted in both natural philosophy and religion.
Philosophical Heritage
Examination of Observations reveals the her- itage of Hartley’s Enlightenment forebears, Isaac Newton (1642–1727), John Locke (1632– 1704), and George Berkeley (1685–1753).
Newton’s and Locke’s Influence
Broadly speaking, Newton’s mechanistic conception of the universe as matter in motion is one foundation for Hartley’s (1749/1971) psychological system, including its religious and moral aspects (Allen, 1999, 2013). Accord- ing to Newtonian theory, matter is composed of atomic particles cohering into molecular sys- tems of attraction, repulsion, and motion grav- itating toward Earth. As Newton had described the reciprocal influence of these mechanistic forces underlying the physical universe, so Hartley deduced his conception from Newton’s hypothesis of vibrations operating in sensation and motion and proposed interacting laws of vibrations and association underlying bodily and mental functions.
Like Locke, whom he often cited in Obser- vations, Hartley held that just as mechanical laws govern natural objects, composed of at- oms, so they govern the component particles of human bodies (Allen, 1999). He also followed Locke in adopting Newton’s view that one ac- cesses the mind only through sensory impres- sions and Locke’s explanation of habits as as- sociation. But unlike Locke, he focused on the mind/body problem, uniting physiological and psychological phenomena and situating con- sciousness in processes of the brain stem.
Yet Hartley’s psychological system also is dynamic in that he adopted Newton’s principle that reciprocal forces of attraction and repul- sion, which shift between concretion and disso- lution, are inherent in all natural objects, includ- ing minute particles (Allen, 1999, 2013). Besides mathematics and physics, Newton had studied the relationship of natural philosophy, morality, and law to divine wisdom (Westfall, 1980). Newton’s explorations of this relation- ship apparently inspired Hartley to provide an account of human psychology based on an an- alogue to the Newtonian principle of reciproc- ity. In effect, Hartley’s analogy was: attraction is to association and concretion as repulsion is to counterassociation and dissolution. Just as the forces of repulsion are as necessary as those of attraction, he reasoned, so the countervailing forces of pleasure and pain, associations and counterassociations, are in balance. His overar- ching intention in Observations was to show the operation of “a divinely preordained moral or-
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der” both in psychological processes (Danziger, 2008, p. 46) and an ideal social order.
Berkeley ’s Influence
As a bishop in colonial Ireland, Berkeley endeavored to preserve the relationship between the Anglican state religion and a society threat- ened by sociopolitical and intellectual develop- ments (Leary, 1977). He strove to counter the danger that materialist natural philosophy posed to faith in immaterial reality, an immortal soul, and an omniscient, benevolent God. Material- ists held that, even if God created nature, He (sic) was peripheral; nature functioned mecha- nistically; and all natural objects, including hu- mans, were explicable only materially. Conced- ing material reality exists, Berkeley viewed it is a mental product and God as the origin of ideas. Representing the only certainty for Berkeley, ideas encompass sensing, perceiving, imaging, and thinking, and constitute all natural objects.
In addition, Berkeley argued that just as nat- ural objects are attracted to each other through gravity, so humans are naturally sociable (Leary, 1977). Social harmony, anchored by the existing class structure, requires order, duty, and virtue (Kelly, 2005), whereas self-centered desires expressed in greed and display of wealth impair the common good (Leary, 1977). For Berkeley, individuals act morally by exercising rational free will (Darwall, 2005). A benevolent God requires that humans conform to His will by obeying his earthly representatives, namely clergy and the sovereign, who administer di- vinely sanctioned religious and secular laws.
Apparently, Hartley (1749/1971) adopted much of Berkeley’s thought. He too held that an active mind renders sensory experience mean- ingful with perceptual categories that direct hu- man action. Employing the term “frame” to mean anatomical and physiological composi- tion, Hartley stated, “The internal frame of our minds [is] the source and spring from whence our external actions flow” (Vol. II, prop. 71, p. 326). Like Berkeley, he proposed that touch and kinesthetics link perception with action (Allen, 2013).
However, Hartley insisted that the term “mind” encompasses all physiological and psy- chological phenomena. Consciousness, he pos- ited, results from the mechanistic laws of vibra- tions and association. Moreover, animals,
depending on the species, have some level of consciousness, the essential difference with hu- mans being anatomical (Allen, 2013). As parts of nature, matter and spirit simultaneously con- stitute humans; thus, Hartley rejected belief in a separate, immaterial mind/soul. Although his acquaintance with them is unknown, French peers Denis Diderot (1713–1784) and Julien La Mettrie (1709 –1751) also argued that the mind/ soul is based materially in the brain (Walsh, Teo, & Baydala, 2014). Still, Hartley believed in the soul’s potential for eternal life with God and was deeply troubled by social and moral decay.
Free Will
The notion of a rational will guiding the mind to take specific actions was central in Berk- eley’s, Thomas Reid’s (1710 –1796), and Im- manuel Kant’s (1724 –1804) metaphysics, as well as in Christian theology (Royce, 1961). But for Hartley (1749/1971), “the seat of the soul” is the brain, which operates mechanisti- cally (Vol. I, prop. 21, p. 110); therefore, vibra- tions are the basis of ideas and voluntary motion or will. Hartley recognized the operations of “practical freewill,” but claimed “it results from the frame of our natures” (Vol. I, p. viii). The expression, “an act of will,” he asserted, is an inaccurate attribution to a mechanistically ex- plicable situation, the result of an associatively produced motive. In his words, “The will is therefore that desire or aversion [that] is stron- gest for the present time” (Vol. 1, prop. 89, p. 371).
In critiquing free will Hartley (1749/1971) distinguished between “popular” language, meaning oral and written discourse in which humans speak or write about what we intend to do or not, and “philosophical” language, mean- ing recognition that any presumed voluntary action is “excited by an associated circum- stance” (Vol. I, prop. 70, p. 235). It is “popular” language, he maintained, that implies that we can choose actions because of free will. Al- though popular language is appropriate in its domain, it is not equivalent to “philosophical necessity,” for which the “doctrine of associa- tion” is the scientific basis, he argued. Thus, in the Conclusion to Volume I, Hartley (1749/ 1971) reasserted a mechanistic foundation for “free will in the philosophical sense” (p. 501).
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Nevertheless, Hartley appealed to divine neces- sity as the ultimate explanation for human con- duct: “Man is subject to a necessity ordained by God” (p. 508), given that we “are what we are entirely by the grace and goodness of God” (p. 510), known in the form of a benevolent Father God. Moreover, as he asserted later, the moral sense monitors one’s conduct.
Philosophical Reflection
Hartley adhered to the Newtonian proposi- tions of universal necessity and the certainty of cause-and-effect relations. This “doctrine of ne- cessity” or “necessitarianism” meant that just as an absolute God bent the physical world to His (sic) will, so humans as God’s biological cre- ations follow it by necessity (Swartz, 1985). Consequently, the laws of physics determine the laws of body and mind that, in turn, mirror the structure of the natural world and the harmonies of the universe, revealing a divine system of moral governance. In this regard, Hartley’s syn- thesis seems to reflect idealism. Thus, his claim that “virtue has always the fairest Prospect, even in this Life; and Vice is always exposed to the greatest Hazards” (Vol. II, prop. 79, p. 363) suggests Gottfried Leibniz’s (1646 –1716) opti- mistic faith in a benevolent God and benign world that Voltaire (1694 –1778) satirized (Walsh et al., 2014). In addition, echoes of natural and revealed religion reverberate throughout Observations.
Religious Heritage
In Hartley’s context the prominent systems of religious beliefs were religious revivalism, de- ism, and revealed religion (Hirst, 2005). Angli- can Christianity was (and remains) the state religion, which like other revealed religions, provides its adherents with explanations of mat- ters of faith and morals based on what revela- tion (i.e., personal experience and scripture, subject to interpretation by religious authorities) shows about God, human nature, and moral conduct.
Religious revival movements, such as the Philadelphian Society, emphasized the practice of benevolence, love, peace, and piety (Hirst, 2005). Hartley’s concepts of sympathy and moral sensibility coincide with the revivalist notions of benevolence and peace and the Uni-
tarian stress on agape (i.e., fraternal and sororal love), but Observations is not laced with reviv- alism per se.
Among natural philosophers and their devo- tees deism was common. Deists believe that empirical observation and logical argument, ex- clusive of revelation, are sufficient to establish the existence of a God who set nature in motion and let it be (Gay, 1968). Deism relies on what natural religion, grounded in empirical reality and reason, shows about God, human nature, and moral conduct. Thus, for Hartley (1749/ 1971), natural law dictated how the universe and human nature function. He argued, “Since God is the cause of all things . . . he must be the cause of all the motions in the material world” (Vol. II, prop. 6, p. 31). Moreover, during his era a nascent counterpoint to religion consisted of indifference to religion as well as agnostic and atheistic discourses in English society (Fairchild, 1942). Perhaps Hartley sought to counter this cultural strain with a religiously inspired but scientifically grounded explanation of human nature, known as religious material- ism, that fused natural philosophy with natural religion.
Nevertheless, his persistent exhortation for society to return to God shows the influence of revealed religion, specifically Anglican con- cepts. Hartley (1749/1971) affirmed faith in “the existence and attributes of God, his provi- dence, a future state [an afterlife], and the re- wards and punishment of it” (Vol. I, prop. 76, p. 347). He echoed the doctrine of universal sal- vation by which fallen humanity will become reconciled with God through the Second Com- ing of Christ and will return to Eden, the Garden of Paradise. Believers thereby will “become members of the mystical body of Christ; all have an equal care for each other; all increase in love and come to their full stature, to perfect man- hood [sic]” (Vol. II, prop. 68, p. 287, emphasis in original).
Hartley (1749/1971) also held a virtually apocalyptic vision of the human condition, ex- claiming in the penultimate sentence of the Conclusion to Volume II, “The present circum- stances of the world are extraordinary and crit- ical, beyond what has ever yet happened” (Vol. II, p. 455). In this section he lamented the practice of “Christian countries of Europe” (p. 441) turning their backs on ideals of the faith. He claimed that a “torrent of vice and impiety
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. . . seem ready to swallow us up” (p. 440) because of the following, interconnected reli- gious and societal dangers that “threaten ruin and destruction to the present states of Chris- tendom” (p. 441): atheism and infidelity to Christianity, male and female lewdness, civic administrators’ self-interest, contempt for hu- man and divine authority among the inferior classes, clergy’s obsession with worldly mat- ters, and careless education of youth and their consequent corruption.
Reflection on Religious Roots
It appears that Hartley was convinced that only by adopting a religiously but scientifically sound, psychological synthesis could human- kind secure salvation. In Observations he at- tempted to provide a plausible rationale for ob- jectively regarding the natural world as a reflection of divine laws. He understood the person as explicable by those laws and as in- tended for salvation in eternal union with God, pending ethical conduct. As such, Hartley’s standpoint evinces both revealed and natural religion. But it is not theological per se.
Hartley’s Psychological System of Thought
In 99 propositions in Volume I of Observa- tions and 95 in Volume II, Hartley (1749/1971) explained psychological functions in terms of the complementary “laws” or “doctrines” of vibrations and association. Vibrations explain a person’s frame and cause association, whereas association explains mental capacities in rela- tion to developmental and social processes. Vi- brations and association are “subject to the laws of mechanism . . . [i.e., body and mind have] a mechanical nature” (Vol. I, prop. 78, p. 267), while “all reasoning, as well as affection [i.e., a hierarchy of passions], is the mere result of association” (Vol. I, prop. 99, p. 499).
Proposing an inclusive system of psycholog- ical dimensions that develop across the life span, Hartley characterized all sensory, kines- thetic, psychological, social, religious, and moral action as reciprocally related, just as body and mind are; hence, he cautioned, one can investigate individual psychological phenom- ena only artificially (Allen, 2013). Giving nu- merous medical examples (e.g., phantom-limb experiences), he addressed unconscious phe-
nomena that influence mental life (Richardson, 2001) as well as social, religious, and moral development.
Basic Processes
To explain how basic psychological pro- cesses occur in humans and animals, Hartley accepted Newton’s hypothesis that physical im- pulses vibrate. He reasoned that the spinal cord, brain stem, and nerves collectively govern sen- sations and movement, whereas the brain gov- erns ideas. Hartley (1749/1971) assumed that “since the human body is composed of the same matter as the external world, it is reasonable to expect that its component particles should be subjected to the same subtle laws” (Vol. I, prop. 9, p. 62). He also argued that human action is motivated by “obtaining pleasure and removing pain” (Vol. I, prop. 22, p. 112). However, the source of all good, he insisted, is God, who is associated with all our pleasures. For Hartley, the divine being is the ultimate cause of reality, and the ultimate goal of human development is union with it.
Sensation
According to Hartley, sensory impressions evoke physical vibrations in the molecular par- ticles of the nerves, the spinal marrow, and ultimately the medulla. Vibrations occur as “vi- bratiuncles,” (i.e., little vibrations), which are positive and negative charges in the electro- chemical transmission of impulses. As Har- tley’s biographer explained, “A nerve fiber vi- brates, changes its frequency or amplitude of vibration, and transmits those changes to other fibers” (Allen, 1999, p. 398). Sensory input stimulates vibratiuncles traveling to the brain, causing a response. For instance, a sound wave evokes a vibration that one hears as a specific tone. Moderate vibratiuncles produce pleasure, violent ones produce pain. The nervous system then “remembers” experiences of pleasure and pain. Anything not a sensation is an “idea.”
The close relationship between an individu- al’s sensations and actions, particularly skilled actions, is the basis for the biophysical union of vibratiuncles, which, Hartley (1749/1971) pro- posed, “cohere together through joint impres- sion, i.e., association” (Vol. I, prop. 11, p. 71). In this respect he concurred with Berkeley that
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the perception of coherence is the result of ideas generated by joint impression from the senses, and that “the fundamental source of information in respect of the essential properties of matter” and “our first and principal key to the knowl- edge of the external world” are embodied in the sense of touch (Vol. I, prop. 30, p. 138).
Ideas
Concerning the relationship among physical events, neurological processes, and psycholog- ical phenomena, Hartley discussed how the mind categorizes experience. Ideas represent the mechanistic conjunction of vibratiuncles and association. Just as the concepts of vibra- tions and vibratiuncles explain sensations of the body, so association explains processes of the mind. Designated collectively as ideas, associ- ation encompasses perception, movement, memory, emotions, language, and cognition. Although vibrations necessarily accompany mental events through association, the latter generates ideas and perfects secondarily auto- matic actions.
Hartley (1749/1971) hypothesized that the plethora of associative connections among nerve fibers, expressed in physical sensations, brings the brain to the verge of complex psy- chological phenomena. An “attraction” exists, he hypothesized, between sensory impressions and simple ideas, motivated by pleasure- seeking and pain-avoidance, analogous to how gravity mechanistically and deterministically binds physical bodies together. This psycho- physiological attraction constitutes association, Hartley speculated, in that interacting vibrati- uncles within nerve fibers are transmitted to other nerve fibers in connected webs of associ- ation. These webs represent the active process that engenders ideas that jell from aggregated impressions.
Frequent repetition of simple sensations leaves “images” of them that amalgamate to form what Hartley (1749/1971) termed “simple ideas.” These are “the individual and largely imperceptible neural events that register sen- sory stimuli” (Allen, 1999, p. 189). In turn, as Locke (1690/1975) had held, aggregates of sim- ple ideas become complex ones. Compounded complex ideas then assemble into what Hartley (1749/1971) termed “decomplex” ideas, such as multifarious language. Thus, “Complex ideas
are our primary categories of perception, emo- tion, and action,” whereas “decomplex ideas are the sequences we form out of complex ideas” (Allen, 1999, p. 189). Using his analogy, simple ideas are like letters, complex ideas like words, and decomplex ideas like sentences, whereas the mind is a “hyper-complex” idea. Hartley claimed that because sensations are corporeal, ideas are as well. He illustrated this point by asserting that association enables a person to interpret the circumstances of suffering a bodily wound.
Hartley explained complex psychological processes as the eventual result of neuronally associated, joint impressions, by which mean- ingful perceptions emerge from sensory impres- sions conveyed by two or more sensory modal- ities simultaneously. Thanks to association, every whole perception is greater than the sum of its parts, to employ an anachronistic concept, and coheres. Association connects sensations with ideas in that cerebral vibrations run parallel to mental events, whereas the latter are linked with the internal feelings of sensations and ideas (Walls, 1982). Hartley’s example was learning to play the violin, when the interacting pro- cesses of audition, vision, and kinaesthetic movement, aided by self-monitoring, are in- volved. At each level of learning, he posited, a given psychological body–mind sequence func- tions as a totality.
According to Hartley (1749/1971), just as association arises from vibrations, so “most complex ideas arise from sensation” (Vol. I, prop. 83, p. 360), not from reflection, which contradicted Locke’s position. Yet Hartley also held that ideas can entail physiological and psy- chological processes not derived immediately and directly from sensations. Rather, they can result from, using current terms, perceptual and cognitive constructions. But regardless of their origins, ideas for Hartley always occur in de- velopmental processes and social contexts.
Action
In Hartley’s (1749/1971) synthesis motoric action is central and results from the conjunc- tion of vibrations and association. In his words,
If any sensation A, idea B, or motion C, be associated for a sufficient number of times with any other sensa- tion D, idea E, or muscular motion F, it will, at last, excite d, the simple idea belonging to sensation D, the
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very idea E, or the very muscular motion F. (Vol. I, prop. 20, p. 102, emphasis in original)
Mundane activity across the life span takes the form of initiated, then practiced movements. Giving the example of an infant learning to grasp, Hartley explained how any movement, sensation, or idea can excite associated move- ments, sensations, and ideas in a stepwise fash- ion. His term “automatic” describes involun- tary, homeostatic physiological responses at the basic level (e.g., pulse rate), caused by vibra- tions (Allen, 1999). Reflexive action is the ori- gin of semivoluntary and voluntary actions, whereas motoric action and its control occur by means of association. The perception of action and ideas proceeds in the same way that sensa- tion does. In sum, learning voluntary skilled movements results from the union of motoric vibrations, physical sensations, and correlated ideas. To use modern psychological language, automatic biological associations serve as stim- uli for sensations, ideas, and motoric action that become, in Hartley’s terms, “secondarily auto- matic” or “voluntary.” Such action, including spontaneous and improvised action, comprises skilled movements. For instance, Hartley under- stood the flexible actions of adept musicians responding to the technical and interpretive de- mands of musicianship as decomplex actions. All told, association, triggered by substitutions of the original stimulus, explains all voluntary action, including sexual attraction and lan- guage.
Language
Although, for Hartley, humans resemble “brute creatures” in that the twin laws of vibra- tions and association apply to all animals, lan- guage makes humans distinct. We learn to speak motorically on the basis of reflexes, he claimed, then from the sounds we create and those that we perceive and imitate. Mastery of language occurs through joint impression (in current terms, through perceptual categoriza- tion). As we develop, we exercise conscious control of complex actions (e.g., the motoric actions involved in babbling) that become sec- ondarily automatic and engage in decomplex actions (e.g., comprehensible language) that comprise clusters of complex actions. Associa- tion triggered by listening, watching, and mak- ing speech-like sounds produces ideas, which
are the result, not the cause, of language devel- opment. However, Hartley asserted, the mean- ing of any sentence derives from its entire con- text, not from its component ideas, because conveying a sentence occurs interpersonally (Allen, 2013).
Although for Locke, language is analogous to a dictionary and expresses ideas, for Hartley, language is sensorily and motorically based ini- tially, but then entails learning the rules for making sequences of sounds acceptable within a given culture (Allen, 2013). The biopsycho- social action that constitutes language, then, produces ideas, Hartley argued, rather than, as Locke held, that ideas produce language. Only association generates words and phrases, and only words and phrases generate ideas. Hartley explained that humans develop personal associ- ations with particular words; for some listeners, a speaker’s use of the term “greed,” for exam- ple, elicits one connotation, whereas for other listeners different connotations emerge.
According to Hartley (1749/1971), language has two chief aspects: First, it proceeds from automatic physiological motions to simple, complex, and decomplex ideas operating under voluntary control. Second, the association of ideas is tied to decomplex motoric action, in- cluding expressive language. Thus, “the decom- plex idea belonging to any sentence is not com- pounded merely of the complex ideas belonging to the words in it” (Vol. I, prop. 12, p. 79) additively. Rather, individuals derive meaning from a complete linguistic expression—no mat- ter its length—that captures decomplex ideas always in relation to a particular interpersonal context.
Memory
In Hartley’s (1749/1971) account of second- arily automatic action, memory is pivotal among psychological “faculties”: “All our vol- untary powers are of the nature of memory” (Vol. I, prop. 89, p. 381). Recalling an experi- ence that seems like “yesterday” is the result of “vividness of the clusters and their associations corresponding to the nature of a recent event” (p. 378). At the root, “Memory depends entirely or chiefly on the state of the brain” (p. 374), and “the most perfect memory is that which can receive most readily and retain most durably” (p. 381). In addition, the state of one’s memory
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has ramifications: “No man [sic] can have a strong judgment with a weak original power of retaining and remembering” (p. 382).
For Hartley, memory is also connected with “the passions.” Just as children achieve volun- tary control over their bodily movements by substituting for original associations, so in sit- uations fraught with emotion a series of substi- tutions (“transferences”) occurs that shapes per- sonality. In this regard, Hartley gave an example of potentially enduring, painful asso- ciations and transferences formed by a child’s fearful encounter with her or his inebriated fa- ther. In keeping with Newtonian dynamics, for- getting is as essential as remembering for Hart- ley.
Intellectual Affections
Crucially in Hartley’s (1749/1971) synthesis association serves as an adherent for the self, social relations, and religious and moral devel- opment. It does so, mediated by six sequential classes of “intellectual affections” (“passions”) that “can be no more than aggregates of simple ideas united by association . . . or traces of the sensible pleasures and pains [made up] by their number and mutual influence upon one another” (Vol. I, prop. 89, p. 368). Stemming from sen- sation and ideas, enacted motorically, and con- stituted in verbal and symbolic language and memory, the affections are (1) imagination (i.e., perceiving human and nonhuman objects as pleasurable or painful); (2) ambition (i.e., striv- ing for status and approval from valued others); (3) three types of self-interest, each entailing the hedonistic principles of seeking pleasure while avoiding pain: (a) gross (objects of one’s imag- ination and ambition), (b) refined (objects of one’s sympathy), and (c) rational (objects of one’s theopathy, namely, the divine); (4) sym- pathy; (5) theopathy; and (6) the moral sense, which arises from sympathy and theopathy but guides them.
Observing that an affection can be pleasur- able or painful, depending on the situation, Hartley (1749/1971) summarized the affections as twofold: love and hatred. These biologically based dispositions are manifest across the life span as desire and aversion and are expressed socioculturally as virtue and vice. The final res- olution to the perpetual tension between the reciprocal forces of virtue and vice, attraction
and repulsion, occurs during the Second Com- ing, when reconciliation with Christ will occur, enabled by mechanistic association.
Developmentally, according to Hartley (1749/1971), “we do, and must, upon our entrance into the world, begin with idolatry to external things, and, as we advance in it, proceed to the idolatry of ourselves” (Vol. II, prop. 4, p. 22). Initially, then, the affections of imagination and ambition prevail. We adapt to pleasurable and painful experiences by relying on gross self-interest that—to in- sert an ahistorical psychoanalytic concept— eventually exercises ego-functions to monitor the demands of imagination and ambition. As development unfolds, pleasure and pain trans- fer from one class of affections to the next. Ideally then, sympathy, theopathy, and the moral sense prevail during adulthood. Al- though the affections proceed mechanisti- cally, they are rooted in association, not in vibrations; hence, they are reciprocally influ- ential. In Hartley’s (1749/1971) words, “As sensation is the common foundation of all these, so each in its turn, when sufficiently generated, contributes to generate and model all the rest” (Vol. I, prop. 89, p. 368).
Sympathy
As our social relations become more com- plex, Hartley (1749/1971) argued, “the plea- sures of sympathy improve those of sensation, imagination, ambition, and self-interest by limiting and regulating them” (Vol. I, prop. 68, p. 283). Growth from egocentric pursuit of happiness to sympathy and allocentric be- nevolence directed to everyone’s wellbeing bridges the biological and transcendent as- pects of human nature. It is God’s will, Hart- ley believed, that inclines us to do good to others. Rejoicing at others’ “happiness,” ex- pressed in generosity and benevolence, or grieving for their “misery,” expressed in em- pathy and mercy, represents sympathy’s plea- sures. Conversely, rejoicing at others’ misery, expressed in jealousy and cruelty, or grieving for their happiness, expressed in envy, repre- sents sympathy’s pains. Assuming benign de- velopment occurs, one’s “primary pursuits” are sympathy and theopathy.
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Theopathy
For Hartley, theopathy meant the pleasures and pains, love and fear, stimulated by contem- plating God, the ultimate cause of all natural objects and the object with whom we associate our deepest pleasure. Accordingly, theopathy represents the highest possible state; as Hartley (1749/1971) put it, “the love of God affords a pleasure which is superior in kind and degree to all the rest of which our natures are capable” (Vol. II, prop. 71, p. 311). “Theopathetic affec- tions”—faith, fear, gratitude, hope, trust, and resignation—are the basis of moral sensibility from which we induce practical moral conduct, culminating in loving God.
In Hartley’s synthesis, therefore, develop- ment consummates in religious experience, ex- pressed in sympathy, piety, and moral conduct, yet motivated by the pursuit of pleasure, not by reason. Thus, for him the highest form of knowledge, including natural philosophy, is natural and revealed religion. As Hartley (1749/ 1971) explained, “The temper of mind pre- scribed by religion, viz., modesty, impartiality, sobriety, and diligence, are the best qualifica- tions for succeeding in all inquiries” (Vol. I, prop. 88, pp. 366 –367). Rather than a turning away from empirical reality, therefore, theopa- thy represents a turning into spiritual reality (Allen, 1999).
Moral Sensibility
Earlier, Anthony Ashley Cooper, known as Shaftesbury (1671–1713), advanced the concept of moral sensibility (Billig, 2008). Against the individualistic standpoint of his foster father, Locke, he construed human nature interperson- ally and promoted benevolence and virtue as the organizing principles for living a moral life in service to the common good and in accord with a divinely and morally ordered universe. Hart- ley expanded Shaftesbury’s perspective by sit- uating moral sensibility as the guide for embod- ied sympathy and theopathy. Assuming virtuous action is associated with pleasure, Hartley af- firmed that the pleasurable effects of past action guide future action. But transcending hedonism, he held that emerging capacities for expressing imagination, personal ambition, and self- interest shape our actions (Allen, 1999). As we develop over the life span, individual desire
defers to sympathy, facilitated by what today is known as perspective-taking. In Hartley’s (1971/1749) words,
The rule of placing ourselves in the several situations of all the persons concerned and inquiring what we should then expect is of excellent use for directing, enforcing, and restraining our actions and for begetting in us a ready constant sense of what is fit and equitable. (Vol. I, prop. 70, p. 294)
Moreover, sympathetic human relations orient us to contribute to the common good, Hartley argued. Accordingly, he admonished readers against hedonistic living and indulging in pos- sessions, because they contradict charitable re- lations with the poor. In his synthesis, although the intellectual affections remain secondary pursuits, ideally they become transformed into positive perceptions of others and the natural world.
According to Hartley (1749/1971), all the pleasures and pains of imagination, ambition, self-interest, sympathy, and theopathy coalesce within moral sensibility, leading “to the love and approbation of virtue and to the fear, hatred, and abhorrence of vice” (Vol. I, prop. 99, p. 497). At this apex of development, in full rela- tionship with others and God, moral sensibility enables the individual to moderate sympathy and theopathy by, to credit Hartley’s notion, annihilating the self. The moral sense elicits sympathetic and theopathetic conduct, because the aim of benevolence, piety, and rational self- interest, Hartley (1749/1971) reasoned, is to serve as “explicit guides of life in deliberate actions” (Vol. II, prop. 74, p. 338). Practicing benevolence and piety in conjunction with the moral sense enables fully experiencing the plea- sures of honorable human relations. Further- more, such practice not only enhances gross self-interest, but it is the sole means of securing refined and rational self-interest.
However, Hartley acknowledged the poten- tial for weak development of moral sensibility and resultant negative content in sympathy and theopathy. He also did not deny the power of negative human passions and motives and rec- ognized that behaving compassionately can be tiresome, even nettlesome. No matter how highly developed one’s moral sensibility might be, the pains of sympathy are ever present, such as rejoicing in the misery of others, deriving pleasure from treating others malevolently,
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grieving about others’ happiness, and experi- encing pain from treating others benevolently. In Hartley’s (1749/1971) words,
As we must forgo the pleasures of malevolence, so we must patiently and resolutely endure the pains of be- nevolence, particularly those of compassion. . .. In like manner, theopathy, and the moral sense, are the occa- sions of some pain, as well as of great and lasting pleasure. (Vol. 1, prop. 68, p. 289)
Hartley’s belief that even, or especially, the most fully developed persons struggle psycho- logically with the capacity to do evil to others seems similar to the existentialist views of So- ren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) and Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881; Allen, 2013). But in Hartley’s system the ultimate resolution to the perpetual tension between the reciprocal forces of good and evil, attraction and repulsion, oc- curs during the final reconciliation with Christ. Again, association is the mechanism that en- ables this climactic transformation to occur.
In sum, Hartley’s (1749/1971) abiding inter- est was to strengthen the association between benevolence and pleasure and “to extinguish all kinds and degrees of malevolence” (Vol. I, prop. 69, p. 291). He maintained that the “rule of life,” his term for how nature, created by God, dictates how we should behave, favors conformity with conventional Christian virtue, not vice. The aim of this rule is to actualize benevolent relations by practicing the principle of loving others as ourselves. At the heart of Hartley’s synthesis, identification with divine purposes induces both moral conduct and hap- piness. Moral sensibility integrates the inferior classes of pleasure—sensation, imagination, ambition, and self-interest—with the superior classes of sympathy and theopathy, which are essential for sustaining moral sensibility. How- ever, he did not address how moral sensibility might operate in relation to the subtle psycho- logical functions of such hyper-complex ideas as reflection and human action or how it differs from free will.
The Self
In Hartley’s (1749/1971) system, the self is subordinate to the moral sense in that associa- tion is the basis for the sense of self, which develops in a sociolinguistic context of emo- tional memories of one’s intimate relationships (Allen, 1999). Emotions, for Hartley, are ex-
pressed somatically in response to concrete cir- cumstances. Emotions then generate by associ- ation the self’s emergence, development, and ultimate transcendence. The catalyst for the self’s journey is the transference of emotions from sensory vibrations of pleasure or pain to associated perceptions of memories, verbal and symbolic language, and hypothesized causes. We learn to love what we approach and hate what we avoid. In current terms, the stories we tell about our experiences and the emotions we ascribe to them shape our memories and per- sonality.
According to Hartley, when we become more able to love others, the self matures, but is only transformed by a loving relationship with God (Allen, 2013). Whereas the lower self is fulfilled in rational self-interest, animated by imagina- tion and ambition, the higher self is fulfilled in moral sensibility, inspired by sympathy and the- opathy. When we fully express the latter, we experience “perfect self-annihilation and the pure Love of God” (Vol. II, prop. 67, p. 282). Identification with divine purposes, Hartley posited, leads to moral conduct and happiness.
Self in Society
One foundation for Hartley’s (1749/1971) psychological standpoint lay in the attributes of the Judeo-Christian Father God, the truth of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles as the literal “Word of God,” and the superiority of Judeo- Christianity, in descending order, to “Mahomet- ans,” pagans, and savages. These beliefs con- cerning one’s relations with society mirrored extant patriarchal and paternalistic views of gender relations and the social order.
Hartley (1749/1971) insisted that benevolent “commerce between the sexes” requires con- forming to conventional morality and gendered social relations (Vol. II, prop. 53, p. 228). Al- though he stated that “entire equality of the two sexes” occurs when the “love [between husband and wife] is mutual and perfect,” men possess “greater bodily strength and firmness of mind” than women (Vol. II, prop. 70, p. 301), which was the consensus in his era. Yet he deviated from the social norm by promoting the view that “the Negro nations” descended from the same Biblical ancestors as “Europeans” (Vol. II, prop. 24, p. 109, emphasis in original).
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Regarding the social order, Hartley (1749/ 1971) urged inferiors to obey “the civil magis- trate” (Vol. II, prop. 70, pp. 296 –297), who represents “God’s viceregent on earth”:
It is evidently for the public good that every member of a state should submit to the governing power, whatever that be. Peace, order, and harmony result from this in the general [sic]; confusion and mischief of all kinds from the contrary. (p. 296)
Hartley (1749/1971) held that good persons do not challenge magistrates and they join mil- itary service when commanded to do so. In turn, a magistrate’s duty is to serve as a benevolent “father of a people” (p. 305). Just as “private persons . . . to obtain [their] greatest happiness . . . must obey the precepts of benevolence, piety, and the moral sense,” so should civil authorities and even “foreign states” (p. 306). Submission to civil authority also included viewing “property as a thing absolutely deter- mined by the laws” (Vol. II, prop. 70, p. 297). His rationale was “Benevolence [is] the rule of duty, public good the end of benevolence, and submission to magistrates [civil authorities] is the means of promoting the public good” (p. 297). However, Hartley’s interest in benevo- lence was not balanced by economic justice.
On the one hand, Hartley (1749/1971) be- lieved governments will be “overturned,” be- cause they are innately corrupt and thus cannot approximate his ideal society. For him, the “body politic” is analogous to the “body natu- ral” in tending toward “destruction and dissolu- tion,” and it is romantic “to project the scheme of a perfect government in this imperfect state [of society]” (Vol. II, prop. 81, p. 369). On the other hand, Hartley regarded civil and religious government as intertwined. Thus, Christians must “obey both the civil and ecclesiastical powers under which they were born” (Vol. II, prop. 82, p. 374), because they represent “God’s viceregent on earth” (Vol. II, prop. 70, p. 296 – 297). They also are duty-bound to evangelize all nations, he asserted. Clearly, Hartley’s views on the self and society represent a conservative political standpoint.
Hartley’s Synthesis and Subsequent Psychological Thought
Hartley’s biophysical perspective, grounded in natural philosophy, led him to reject the
dualism of an immaterial mind/soul against a material body. For him, a material mind inte- grates all physiological, psychological, and re- ligious phenomena:
By presenting religious and moral ideas as determined in the same manner and with the same necessity as ideas of the physical world, Hartley made it possible to argue that such ideas are as valid as our ideas of the trees and rocks that we “see,” and that religious and moral laws have an objective existence in “reality” as well as a subjective existence in the mind. (Haven, 1959, p. 480)
Given that many contemporaries shared this perspective, Hartley’s synthesis seemed empir- ically legitimate and his influence extended to continental Europe after German, French, and Italian translations of Observations (Allen, 2013). The reformist physician Benjamin Rush (1746 –1813) was one U.S. figure who was im- pressed by Hartley’s integration of natural sci- ence, metaphysics, and Christian beliefs and was enthused about practical applications of his ideas (C. Smith, 1987).
Yet in positing body–mind connectedness mechanistically, Hartley (1749/1971) might have employed a literalist interpretation of hy- pothesized corporal vibrations and association (Danziger, 2008). During his lifetime, of course, neurophysiological knowledge was rather limited and the tools needed to confirm vibrations did not exist. In contrast, David Hume (1711–1776) also posited that the asso- ciation of ideas operates deterministically (C. Smith, 1987). (He and Hartley likely were un- aware of each other’s work; Allen, 2013). But Hume saw the value of mechanics to rest in the analogy of mental associations between sensory impressions and ideas operating like Newton’s corpuscular bodies that give coherence to the physical world. Hume’s metaphorical interpre- tation would provide a useful rationale for those early psychologists who aimed to explain psy- chological phenomena independently of physi- ology (Danziger, 2008).
As to subsequent scholars, Reid, like Hartley, believed that moral sensibility is the capacity that enables knowing the right course of action and exercising conscious monitoring of the ac- tion itself (Lehrer, 1989). Reid’s views also converged with Hartley’s regarding individuals securing protection and socioeconomic benefits by contributing to the well-being of society (Haakonssen, 1990). However, although Reid
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accepted Newtonian laws of nature, he held that moral laws are not reducible to biophysical ones. According to Reid’s conception of “com- mon sense,” once beliefs held in common are certain, we know what moral conduct is, on the basis of empirical induction and introspection. Thus, for him and contrary to Hartley, episte- mology is foundational to morality, and moral conduct is intertwined with both practical rea- son and will.
Within Kant’s deontological system, by con- trast, behaving morally entails confronting one’s radical freedom to exercise the will to act. For Kant, the mind organizes experience (Brook, 1994), and the capacity for reason is the fount from which ethical judgments should flow (Leary, 1982). Self-awareness and the self as a moral agent hold pride of place in his system. Although he upheld the concept of individual freedom of action, Kant argued that the state is the means for actualizing freedom, including property rights. Like Hartley, he stressed the importance of a social contract to encompass the common good so as to ensure everyone’s well-being, including the destitute. As a loyal subject of the Prussian monarchy, Kant advised compliance with the state, opposed rebellion, and supported capital punishment (Kneller, 2006).
Some practitioners of natural philosophy who also were social reformers found Hartley’s (1749/1971) ideas appealing. Joseph Priestley (1733–1804), the renowned chemist, published an abridged version of Hartley’s book in 1775, from which Priestly excised the moral and reli- gious content, to emphasize the scientific foun- dations of social reform in the concept of asso- ciation (Walls, 1982). For Priestley, Hartley’s theory showed that societal conditions shape conduct (R. Smith, 1997). However, he omitted the concept of vibrations, which distorted Har- tley’s system in that vibrations enable the pro- gression of simple to complex to decomplex associations.
Culturally, some Romantic poets took up Hartley’s notion of theopathy as a turning into spiritual reality (Richardson, 2001). For Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), Hartley’s syn- thesis made “the religious experience of anni- hilation of self and union with God” scientifi- cally credible (Haven, 1959, p. 481). As well, four psychological themes derived from Obser- vations resonated in Romanticism: the close
relationship among animal and human sensory, emotional, and mental properties, exemplified by infants’ development of speech; the function of sensory impressions as “miniatures” of com- plex ideas, like the capacity of poets to experi- ence vivid sensory impressions that arouse in- tense emotions and complex ideas, independent of the direct action of objects on a person; the potential for internalized imagery to evoke emotional aftereffects and for inner stress to evoke emotionally painful dreams; and the alignment of pain with pleasure and the body’s capacity to assuage pain (Knox-Shaw, 2011).
In addition, 19th-century philosophical psy- chologists James Mill (1773–1836), John Stuart Mill (1806 –1873), and Alexander Bain (1818 – 1903), agreed with Hartley that association is the basic process that produces all mental struc- tures (Allen, 2013). The younger Mill credited him with his own concept of “mental chemis- try” (i.e., compounded associations that like a chemical union are more than the sum of their parts), but insisted that his father was Hartley’s superior as a philosopher. For the Mills and Bain, mental processes originated in the expe- rience of associated thoughts, not in bodily pro- cesses. Hartley (1749/1971) promoted the op- posite view: “The powers of generating ideas and raising them by association must also arise from corporeal causes, and consequently admit of an explication from the subtle influences of the small parts of matter on each other” (Vol. I, prop. 11, p. 72). In fact, 20th-century physiol- ogists were to verify his notion that the brain is the organ of thought (Richardson, 2001).
Hartley’s Synthesis and Modern Psychology
When natural-science psychology (i.e., the study of psychological phenomena as natural objects in terms of causal laws) ascended to cultural prominence in the 20th century (Teo, 2005; Walsh et al., 2014), it overshadowed earlier philosophical psychologists’ interest in Hartley’s union of the biological, psycho- logical, social, religious, and moral (Allen, 2013). Yet when behaviorists adopted the concept of association, they limited it to ex- planations of basic learning. Other parallels between Hartley’s and modern psychologists’ concepts are apparent.
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Relation to Behaviorism
Originally in natural-science psychology, as- sociation typically was viewed in terms of pas- sive mental processes, leading to the conclusion that Hartley’s (1749/1971) ideas were closer than other natural philosophers to establishing the intellectual framework for the new disci- pline (Walls, 1982), at least in the United States. Elsewhere when scientific psychology emerged internationally, different conceptual emphases were manifest (Walsh et al., 2014). But associ- ationism, concretized as stimulus–response con- nections and laws of contiguity and repetition, undergirded behaviorism (Boring, 1950), which B. F. Skinner’s (1904 –1990) operant condition- ing model epitomized.
Yet associationism alone could not capture Hartley’s (1749/1971) system of thought. Al- though he regarded the formation of ideas through association as equivalent to physical processes involving natural elements, that was simply the first stage of his synthesis. As Ob- servations shows, Hartley also employed asso- ciation to explain complex psychological pro- cesses, interpersonal and social relations, union with the divine, and moral conduct. Thus, asso- ciation does not refer solely to a biologically based phenomenon; rather, Hartley used it met- aphorically to give meaning to the constellation of psychological, social, religious, and moral phenomena. Those psychologists who em- ployed a literalist notion of association by- passed this broader and deeper meaning. From their perspective, the social, moral, and reli- gious aspects of Hartley’s synthesis, which suf- fuse Observations, likely appeared irrelevant, if not antithetical to psychology. Skinner’s asso- ciationist school of thought, for example, differs radically from Hartley’s system, and Skinner’s (1948, 1971) utopian societal treatises are res- olutely secular.
Other Parallels in Psychology
From an international perspective on the his- tory and philosophy of psychology (Walsh et al., 2014), parallels between Hartley’s (1749/ 1971) concepts and developments in modern psychology are apparent. Theodule Ribot’s (1839 –1916) and Hugo Münsterberg’s (1863– 1916) respective conceptual integrations of thinking and action echo Hartley’s union of
thinking with voluntary and involuntary kinetic activity. For all three theorists, association cat- alyzes the relationship between perception and action, which J. J. Gibson (1904 –1979) later studied. In addition, Gestalt psychologists’ con- cept of meaningful perception of phenomena resembles Hartley’s holistic notion that individ- uals derive meaning from a complete linguistic expression that captures decomplex ideas. As well, Lev Vygotsky (1896 –1934), like Hartley, showed how language from its earliest stage is fundamentally social and shapes human action. Lastly, there appear to be parallels between the motivational dimensions of Hartley’s synthesis and diverse psychoanalysts’ stress on uncon- scious dynamics occurring intrapersonally and interpersonally.
Concerning biological psychology, Har- tley’s (1749/1971) speculations about local- ized brain functions and specific nerve energies emerged as key hypotheses in 19th- century physiology (Walls, 1982). In addi- tion, Ivan Pavlov’s (1849 –1936) conclusions about sensory nerves and later neurophysiolo- gists’ interpretation of action potentials in sensory nerves resemble Hartley’s concept of sensory vibrations irradiating the brain (C. Smith, 1987). After World War II, further counterparts with Hartley’s notions material- ized. Donald Hebb’s (1904 –1985) “cell- assemblies” concept, in particular, is similar to Hartley’s compounded associations. Ac- cording to Hebb (1958), neurons group them- selves into a neural-cell assembly by means of sensory experience; this grouping “corre- sponds to a particular sensory event or a com- mon aspect of a number of sensory effects” (p. 628). For Hebb, a given assembly corre- sponds to a particular image or thought. Cell assemblies prepare perceptual sensitivity for particular stimuli, whereas interacting neu- rons become associated permanently, which is known as “Hebb’s rule.” Currently, Har- tley’s notion of vibrations is paralleled by action potentials traversing sensory nerves, whereas “joint impression” is akin to a cog- nitive-labeling process shaping perceptual categories. Overall, neural capacities for per- ceptual and cognitive categorization, con- sciousness, memory, and language support the view that association aids forming mental structures (Walsh et al., 2014).
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Historiographical and Philosophical Reflection
From a “sophisticated-presentist” perspective on history, which is the use of historical re- sources to elucidate current perspectives theo- retically (Walsh et al., 2014), it seems that, if psychologists have been acquainted with Har- tley’s (1749/1971) Observations, they likely have had difficulty viewing his systematic state- ment of 18th-century English psychology as germane to the discipline. Informed by natural philosophy, his synthesis encompassed a broad spectrum of psychological processes for the purpose of revivifying moral conduct in accord with his religious yet materialist beliefs. At the heart of his synthesis is the transit of sympathy, theopathy, and moral sensibility as sequential transformations of the self. As such, his system might have been metaphorical anathema to those who a priori rejected the value of religious and spiritual beliefs and practices for psycho- logical knowledge. After all, many early psy- chologists expended much energy striving to distinguish their new science from pseudoscien- tific practices of the day (e.g., spiritualism) to ensure the academic survival of the new science (Coon, 1992).
As we have seen, however, Hartley (1749/ 1971) neither relied on mechanistic and deter- ministic explanations exclusively nor attributed the development of compounded ideas to pas- sive processes of association. In fact, instead of serving as “the very model of a modern major prophet of associationist psychology,” to para- phrase the patter song from Gilbert and Sulli- van’s operetta “The Pirates of Penzance,” he understood association as a multipurpose and complex concept that met an explicitly evangel- ical aim. Hartley’s overarching vision was “the pure happiness that comes from total identifica- tion with God’s purposes” (R. Smith, 1997, pp. 252–253). His premise was that God inclines humans toward moral conduct and happiness, whereas his chief interest was how a person “learns to love the good—and to act upon that love” (Allen, 1999, p. 290). Moreover, he was not unusual in addressing morality and religion, inasmuch as many of his Enlightenment peers did as well (Walsh et al., 2014). Consequently, to perpetuate the historiographical tradition in psychology of limiting Hartley’s notion of as- sociation to sensory-motor and learning pro-
cesses, while footnoting or ignoring his concep- tions of social relations, relationship with a divine being, and moral sensibility, not only misrepresents his approach but constitutes a missed opportunity for contemporary psycholo- gists to explore these issues.
Hartley’s (1749/1971) synthesis, I would ar- gue, serves as an analogy to potential concep- tions of psychological theory and practice that transcend the philosophical prejudices of past psychology against incorporating religious and spiritual experience in the discipline (see James, 1902; Spilka, 1987). From a human-science perspective on psychology that aims to under- stand and interpret the meaning of human action in social historical context (Teo, 2005), Har- tley’s stress on transcending the ego to effect both self-actualization and union with the di- vine is akin to concepts in transpersonal psy- chology (Maslow, 1969), which is focused on spiritual and religious experience (e.g., Wal- lace, 2012). Such a focus is scientifically rea- sonable for the discipline, given that many peo- ple consider themselves religious, spiritual, or both (Bergin, 1991; Leeming, 2014; Richards, 2011). Furthermore, aboriginal peoples in North America view a right relation with “the creator” as integral to their personal and collective iden- tity, endeavoring to live in harmony with the created world, participate in religious ceremo- nies and spiritual practices, and behave morally to ensure the common good (Mohawk, 2010). Accordingly, it makes empirical sense for psy- chology to expand its horizons by engaging with culturally diverse points of view on reli- gion and spirituality (e.g., Walsh-Bowers, 2000).
At the least, familiarity with Hartley’s (1749/ 1971) complex description of human nature, featuring the developmental manifestations of sympathy, theopathy, and moral sensibility, might encourage more psychologists to incor- porate religious, spiritual, and moral aspects of the human condition in the discipline’s theory, practice, and curricula than has occurred thus far. Ideally, by broadening and deepening the discipline’s domain of interests, scientific psy- chology would do greater justice than it has in the past to the complex realities of the human condition that religious and spiritual beliefs and practices and moral sensibility reflect. The re- sult might be enhanced human validity for our inquiries and interventions with individuals,
61HARTLEY’S ENLIGHTENMENT PSYCHOLOGY
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families, groups, and communities, with whom we share a common humanity. Moreover, the ramifications of climate change for the sustain- ability of human life on Earth suggest the ur- gency for a social-ethical reorientation in psy- chology, grounded in a revolutionary praxis of environmental, economic, and social justice, and compassion (Walsh & Gokani, 2014; Walsh, 2015). For some psychologists and other citizens, religious and spiritual beliefs and prac- tices would inspire such a reorientation, whereas for others secular morality would suf- fice.
However, certain impediments to psycholo- gists incorporating the study of religious and spiritual experience must be acknowledged. Historically the institutionalization of a natural- science orientation in psychology has marginal- ized the value of a human-science orientation that poses research questions typically requiring qualitative methods to answer them (Walsh et al., 2014). Yet from the era of functionalism to current cognitive neuroscience, an ideology of materialistic and mechanistic reductionism has prevailed in the discipline’s theory, research, professional practice, and education, which mil- itates against qualitative study of religious and spiritual experience. The critical concept of sci- entism (Habermas, 1968/1972) captures this in- tellectual tradition, expressed partly in virtually fundamentalist adherence to objectivistic meth- odological beliefs and practices (Walsh- Bowers, 1999). A scientistic disposition is par- ticularly ironic—and disappointing—when juxtaposed against psychologists’ reluctance to accommodate religious and spiritual experi- ence. Therefore, until the discipline fosters a facilitative intellectual and social climate of catholicity by encouraging philosophical, theo- retical, and methodological pluralism (Walsh- Bowers, 2010) and by providing the appropriate institutional resources that can enable col- leagues and students to pursue the theories and methods that match their research questions, the marginalization of religious and spiritual expe- rience likely will endure in psychology.
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Received January 25, 2016 Revision received April 27, 2016
Accepted July 24, 2016 �
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