Biographia Literaria
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Chapter VI [of XXII]                                                     [To read other chapters, click here.]

That Hartley's system, as far as it differs from that of
Aristotle, is neither tenable in theory nor founded in facts.

Of Hartley's hypothetical vibrations in his hypothetical oscillating
ether of the nerves, which is the first and most obvious distinction
between his system and that of Aristotle, I shall say little. This,
with all other similar attempts to render that an object of the sight
which has no relation to sight, has been already sufficiently exposed
by the younger Reimarus, Maasz, and others, as outraging the very
axioms of mechanics in a scheme, the merit of which consists in its
being mechanical. Whether any other philosophy be possible, but the
mechanical; and again, whether the mechanical system can have any
claim to be called philosophy; are questions for another place. It is,
however, certain, that as long as we deny the former, and affirm the
latter, we must bewilder ourselves, whenever we would pierce into the
adyta of causation; and all that laborious conjecture can do, is to
fill up the gaps of fancy. Under that despotism of the eye (the
emancipation from which Pythagoras by his numeral, and Plato by his
musical, symbols, and both by geometric discipline, aimed at, as the
first propaideuma of the mind)—under this strong sensuous influence,
we are restless because invisible things are not the objects of
vision; and metaphysical systems, for the most part, become popular,
not for their truth, but in proportion as they attribute to causes a
susceptibility of being seen, if only our visual organs were
sufficiently powerful.

From a hundred possible confutations let one suffice. According to
this system the idea or vibration a from the external object A becomes
associable with the idea or vibration m from the external object M,
because the oscillation a propagated itself so as to re-produce the
oscillation m. But the original impression from M was essentially
different from the impression A: unless therefore different causes may
produce the same effect, the vibration a could never produce the
vibration m: and this therefore could never be the means, by which a
and m are associated. To understand this, the attentive reader need
only be reminded, that the ideas are themselves, in Hartley's system,
nothing more than their appropriate configurative vibrations. It is a
mere delusion of the fancy to conceive the pre-existence of the ideas,
in any chain of association, as so many differently coloured billiard-
balls in contact, so that when an object, the billiard-stick, strikes
the first or white ball, the same motion propagates itself through the
red, green, blue and black, and sets the whole in motion. No! we must
suppose the very same force, which constitutes the white ball, to
constitute the red or black; or the idea of a circle to constitute the
idea of a triangle; which is impossible.

But it may be said, that by the sensations from the objects A and M,
the nerves have acquired a disposition to the vibrations a and m, and
therefore a need only be repeated in order to re-produce m. Now we
will grant, for a moment, the possibility of such a disposition in a
material nerve, which yet seems scarcely less absurd than to say, that
a weather-cock had acquired a habit of turning to the east, from the
wind having been so long in that quarter: for if it be replied, that
we must take in the circumstance of life, what then becomes of the
mechanical philosophy? And what is the nerve, but the flint which the
wag placed in the pot as the first ingredient of his stone broth,
requiring only salt, turnips, and mutton, for the remainder! But if we
waive this, and pre-suppose the actual existence of such a
disposition; two cases are possible. Either, every idea has its own
nerve and correspondent oscillation, or this is not the case. If the
latter be the truth, we should gain nothing by these dispositions; for
then, every nerve having several dispositions, when the motion of any
other nerve is propagated into it, there will be no ground or cause
present, why exactly the oscillation m should arise, rather than any
other to which it was equally pre-disposed. But if we take the former,
and let every idea have a nerve of its own, then every nerve must be
capable of propagating its motion into many other nerves; and again,
there is no reason assignable, why the vibration m should arise,
rather than any other ad libitum.

It is fashionable to smile at Hartley's vibrations and vibratiuncles;
and his work has been re-edited by Priestley, with the omission of the
material hypothesis. But Hartley was too great a man, too coherent a
thinker, for this to have been done, either consistently or to any
wise purpose. For all other parts of his system, as far as they are
peculiar to that system, once removed from their mechanical basis, not
only lose their main support, but the very motive which led to their
adoption. Thus the principle of contemporaneity, which Aristotle had
made the common condition of all the laws of association, Hartley was
constrained to represent as being itself the sole law. For to what law
can the action of material atoms be subject, but that of proximity in
place? And to what law can their motions be subjected but that of
time? Again, from this results inevitably, that the will, the reason,
the judgment, and the understanding, instead of being the determining
causes of association, must needs be represented as its creatures, and
among its mechanical effects. Conceive, for instance, a broad stream,
winding through a mountainous country with an indefinite number of
currents, varying and running into each other according as the gusts
chance to blow from the opening of the mountains. The temporary union
of several currents in one, so as to form the main current of the
moment, would present an accurate image of Hartley's theory of the
will.

Had this been really the case, the consequence would have been, that
our whole life would be divided between the despotism of outward
impressions, and that of senseless and passive memory. Take his law in
its highest abstraction and most philosophical form, namely, that
every partial representation recalls the total representation of which
it was a part; and the law becomes nugatory, were it only for its
universality. In practice it would indeed be mere lawlessness.
Consider, how immense must be the sphere of a total impression from
the top of St. Paul's church; and how rapid and continuous the series
of such total impressions. If, therefore, we suppose the absence of
all interference of the will, reason, and judgment, one or other of
two consequences must result. Either the ideas, or reliques of such
impression, will exactly imitate the order of the impression itself,
which would be absolute delirium: or any one part of that impression
might recall any other part, and—(as from the law of continuity,
there must exist in every total impression, some one or more parts,
which are components of some other following total impression, and so
on ad infinitum)—any part of any impression might recall any part of
any other, without a cause present to determine what it should be. For
to bring in the will, or reason, as causes of their own cause, that
is, as at once causes and effects, can satisfy those only who, in
their pretended evidences of a God, having first demanded
organization, as the sole cause and ground of intellect, will then
coolly demand the pre-existence of intellect, as the cause and ground-
work of organization. There is in truth but one state to which this
theory applies at all, namely, that of complete light-headedness; and
even to this it applies but partially, because the will and reason are
perhaps never wholly suspended.

A case of this kind occurred in a Roman Catholic town in Germany a
year or two before my arrival at Goettingen, and had not then ceased
to be a frequent subject of conversation. A young woman of four or
five and twenty, who could neither read, nor write, was seized with a
nervous fever; during which, according to the asseverations of all the
priests and monks of the neighbourhood, she became possessed, and, as
it appeared, by a very learned devil. She continued incessantly
talking Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, in very pompous tones and with most
distinct enunciation. This possession was rendered more probable by
the known fact that she was or had been a heretic. Voltaire humorously
advises the devil to decline all acquaintance with medical men; and it
would have been more to his reputation, if he had taken this advice in
the present instance. The case had attracted the particular attention
of a young physician, and by his statement many eminent physiologists
and psychologists visited the town, and cross-examined the case on the
spot. Sheets full of her ravings were taken down from her own mouth,
and were found to consist of sentences, coherent and intelligible each
for itself, but with little or no connection with each other. Of the
Hebrew, a small portion only could be traced to the Bible; the
remainder seemed to be in the Rabbinical dialect. All trick or
conspiracy was out of the question. Not only had the young woman ever
been a harmless, simple creature; but she was evidently labouring
under a nervous fever. In the town, in which she had been resident for
many years as a servant in different families, no solution presented
itself. The young physician, however, determined to trace her past
life step by step; for the patient herself was incapable of returning
a rational answer. He at length succeeded in discovering the place,
where her parents had lived: travelled thither, found them dead, but
an uncle surviving; and from him learned, that the patient had been
charitably taken by an old Protestant pastor at nine years old, and
had remained with him some years, even till the old man's death. Of
this pastor the uncle knew nothing, but that he was a very good man.
With great difficulty, and after much search, our young medical
philosopher discovered a niece of the pastor's, who had lived with him
as his house-keeper, and had inherited his effects. She remembered the
girl; related, that her venerable uncle had been too indulgent, and
could not bear to hear the girl scolded; that she was willing to have
kept her, but that, after her patron's death, the girl herself refused
to stay. Anxious inquiries were then, of course, made concerning the
pastor's habits; and the solution of the phenomenon was soon obtained.
For it appeared, that it had been the old man's custom, for years, to
walk up and down a passage of his house into which the kitchen door
opened, and to read to himself with a loud voice, out of his favourite
books. A considerable number of these were still in the niece's
possession. She added, that he was a very learned man and a great
Hebraist. Among the books were found a collection of Rabbinical
writings, together with several of the Greek and Latin Fathers; and
the physician succeeded in identifying so many passages with those
taken down at the young woman's bedside, that no doubt could remain in
any rational mind concerning the true origin of the impressions made
on her nervous system.

This authenticated case furnishes both proof and instance, that
reliques of sensation may exist for an indefinite time in a latent
state, in the very same order in which they were originally impressed;
and as we cannot rationally suppose the feverish state of the brain to
act in any other way than as a stimulus, this fact (and it would not
be difficult to adduce several of the same kind) contributes to make
it even probable, that all thoughts are in themselves imperishable;
and, that if the intelligent faculty should be rendered more
comprehensive, it would require only a different and apportioned
organization,—the body celestial instead of the body terrestrial,—to
bring before every human soul the collective experience of its whole
past existence. And this, this, perchance, is the dread book of
judgment, in the mysterious hieroglyphics of which every idle word is
recorded! Yea, in the very nature of a living spirit, it may be more
possible that heaven and earth should pass away, than that a single
act, a single thought, should be loosened or lost from that living
chain of causes, with all the links of which, conscious or
unconscious, the free-will, our only absolute Self, is coextensive and
co-present. But not now dare I longer discourse of this, waiting for a
loftier mood, and a nobler subject, warned from within and from
without, that it is profanation to speak of these mysteries tois maede
phantasteisin, os kalon to taes dikaiosynaes kai sophrosynaes
prosopon, kai oute hesperos oute eoos outo kala. To gar horon pros to
horomenon syngenes kai homoion poiaesamenon dei epiballein tae thea,
ou gar an popote eiden ophthalmos haelion, haelioeidaes mae
gegenaemenos oude to kalon an idae psychae, mae kagae genomenae [Plotinus]
—" to those to whose imagination it has never been presented, how beautiful
is the countenance of justice and wisdom; and that neither the morning
nor the evening star are so fair. For in order to direct the view
aright, it behoves that the beholder should have made himself
congenerous and similar to the object beheld. Never could the eye have
beheld the sun, had not its own essence been soliform," (i.e. pre-
configured to light by a similarity of essence with that of light)
"neither can a soul not beautiful attain to an intuition of beauty."


[Here ends chapter 6.  To read other chapters of Biographia Literaria, click here.]