Enlightenment and Dissent No. 20 2001 Enlightenment and Dissent No. 20 2001 CONTENTS Page vii Editorial 1 David Hartley’s new words for action: ‘Automatic’ and ‘Decomplex’ Richard C Allen 23 Joseph Priestley and ‘the proper doctrine of philosophical necessity’ James A Harris 45 Joseph Priestley on morals and economics: reconciling the quest for virtue with the pursuit of wealth Vilem Mudroch Comment: 88 Socinianism, heresy and John Locke’s Reasonableness of Christianity Steven Snobelen Review Articles: 126 David Hartley on human nature Anthony Page 139 Enlightened interventions Ken Smith Reviews 146 Mark Goldie ed., The reception of Locke’s politics H T Dickinson 152 Paul Wood ed., The culture of the book in the Scottish Enlightenment, An exhibition with essays by Roger Emerson, Richard Sher, Stephen Brown, and Paul Wood Christa Knellwolf 156 Harriet Guest, Small change: women, learning, patriotism, 1750-1810 William McCarthy Contents 160 M L Brooks ed., Mary Hays. Memoirs of Emma Courtney Eva Perez 164 John Locke, Epistola de tolerantia. Epistole gia ten anexithreskia. Eisagoge, metaphrasis, scholia. Introduction, translation and notes by Giannes Plangesis, Politike &Threskia ste Philosophia tou John Locke David Rees 165 William Godwin, Memoirs of the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Edited by Pamela Clemit and Gina Luria Walker Glynis Ridley 169 Alan P F Sell, Confessing and commending the faith. Historic witness and apologetic method Boyd Stanley Schlenther 175 Jeremy Waldron, God, Locke, and equality:Christian foundations of John Locke’s political thought D O Thomas 181 Peter C Myers, Our only star and compass: Locke and the struggle for political rationality Catherine Wilson Documents 185 Two Pamphlets on the Regency Crisis by William Godwin Pamela Clemit 194 [William Godwin] The law of Parliament in the present situation of Great Britain considered Pamela Clemit 226 [William Godwin] Reflexions on the late consequences of His Majesty’s recovery from His late indisposition. In a letter to the people of England Pamela Clemit 249 Books received vi Editorial We regret that it has taken so long to produce this number. It is hoped that the following number will come out in the next six months so that we shall, to a degree, catch up on the years. It is a great pleasure to welcome to the editorial advisory board Dr. Pamela Clemit, Reader in English Studies, University of Durham. A contributor to Enlightenment and Dissent, she is an expert on the literature of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century and author of The Godwinian Novel (Oxford, 1993, repr. 2001), numerous articles and editor of the literary works of William Godwin, Mary Shelley and Elizabeth Inchbald. She will bring a new dimension of expertise to the advisory board. We are very sorry to report the death of Maurice E Ogborn. He was formerly General Manager and Actuary of the Equitable Life Assurance Society. He had a particular interest in the early development of the society, in which Richard Price played a key role. A member of the Editorial Advisory Board since the inception of our journal, we are grateful for his support over the years. M H F J D vii DAVID HARTLEY’S NEW WORDS FOR ACTION: ‘AUTOMATIC’ AND ‘DECOMPLEX’ Richard C Allen ‘Theorists have been so preoccupied with the task of investigating the nature, the source, and the credentials of the theories that we adopt that they have for the most part ignored the question what it is for someone to know how to perform tasks. In ordinary life, on the contrary, as well as in the special business of teaching, we are much more concerned with people’s competencies than with their cognitive repertoires, with the operations than with the truths that they learn’ Gilbert Ryle, The concept of mind ([1949] 1963, 28–29). When David Hartley’s Observations on man appeared in early 1749, a reader would have been struck by the range of topics in it. There were the discussions of theoretical questions – concerning the forces of attraction and repulsion that Newton had proposed, the architecture of matter, the nature of neural transmissions, and recent developments in the theory of probability – which all required an understanding of the latest developments in science, mathematics, and medicine to appreciate. Equally striking, to the attentive reader, would have been the many unusual aspects of human nature observed. Scattered throughout the text are, for 1 example, brief discussions of phantom limbs (prop. 5, cor. 3), 2 number maps (prop. 61), artificial memory (prop. 70), eidetic memory in idiots savants (prop. 90), and mental calculators (prop. 93). Similarly, there are comments about the experiences and 1 Citations of the Observations refer to the proposition in which a passage occurs, rather than to the page number of a particular edition. The first edition is: David Hartley, Observations on man, his frame, his duty, and his expectations (Bath and London, 1749). In preparing this article, I have used the 1791 quarto edition (London, 1791) and a paperback reprint of the 1834 edition. 2 For more on mental calculators and number maps, see Oliver Sacks, ‘The Twins’, The man who mistook his wife for a hat (New York, 1987). Hartley's new words for action mental development of the blind and the deaf (props. 34, 69, 78, 80, 3 93). Hartley was working toward a general science of human nature – a science with a resemblance to what today goes by the 4 name of ‘neurophilosophy’. Hence both the application of the latest ideas in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and medicine – and also the inclusiveness of the observations. When explored with an appropriate set of concepts, the excesses and deficits of certain individuals become more than curiosities and reveal much about human nature. Also notable were the new words. Three words, according to the OED, appear in the Observations for the first time: ‘automatic’, ‘decomplex’, and ‘theopathy’. The first has become so common that it is difficult to think that there was a time when the word was not. The latter two have not survived. Hartley’s use of ‘theopathy’ is a topic for another occasion. ‘Decomplex’, however, is closely linked with ‘automatic’; the two words provide the key vocabulary for Hartley’s analysis of human competencies – of, that is, the many skilled actions we learn how to perform. Automatic Hartley introduces the adjective ‘automatic’ in the Introduction to the Observations, where he differentiates between automatic and voluntary motions: ‘The automatic motions are those which arise from the mechanism of the body in an evident manner. They are called automatic from their resemblance to the motions of automata, or machines, whose principle of motion is within 3 Hartley’s teacher at Cambridge, the remarkable Nicholas Saunderson, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, was blind from infancy, as was Hartley’s wife’s grandfather, Sir Henry Winchcombe, Bart. The second French translation of the Observations (1802) was by the abbé Roch- Ambroise Sicard, director of the National Institution for Deaf-Mutes in Paris, founding member of the Society of Observers of Man, and author of the ground-breaking Cours d’instruction d’un sourd-muet de naissance (1800). 4 For discussion of Hartley in this context, see John Sutton, Philosophy and memory traces: Descartes to connectionism (Cambridge, 1998). And for further discussion of the topics in this article, see Richard C Allen, David Hartley on human nature (Albany, N.Y., 1999). 2 Richard C Allen themselves. Of this kind are the motions of the heart, and the peristaltic motion of the bowels’. Prior to Hartley’s Observations, readers of books in English would have encountered the noun ‘automaton’, or ‘automata’. The OED cites works by Sir Kenelm Digby (1645), Henry More (1660), Ralph Cudworth (1678), Robert Boyle (1686), and John Ray (1691).5 Hartley thus formed the adjective from an existing noun. The distance from a noun to an adjective may seem slight, but in this instance the change of grammatical form represents a significant conceptual shift. Hartley’s definition, referring to ‘the motions of automata, or machines, whose principle of motion is within themselves’, conveys two of the meanings available to users of ‘automaton’. On the one hand, to call something an automaton is simply to say that its ‘principle of motion’ is ‘within itself’, that it is self-moving. The OED cites Digby: ‘we call the intire thing automatum, or se movens, or living creature’. If this were the only meaning the word bore, ‘automaton’ would have troubled no one, for it would have been neutral with regard to theories as to how living beings moved themselves. But this mild meaning is here set beside another: ‘the motions of automata, or machines’. This second meaning does put forward a theory: to call a living being an automaton is to say it is a machine. Descartes describes such an automaton in L'Homme (1664): it is an earthly machine whose 5 Digby uses ‘automaton’ to refer to a living being that moves itself: ‘Because these parts [the mover and the moved] are parts of one whole, we call the intire thing automatum, or se movens, or living creature’ (Two treatises, in the one of which, the nature of bodies, in the other the nature of mans soule, is looked into [(1645) 1658, 259]). Similarly, Boyle refers to ‘these living Automata, Human bodies’ (A free inquiry into the vulgarly receiv'd notion of nature [1686, 305]). But ‘automaton’ could also, according to the OED, refer to ‘a piece of mechanism having its motive power so concealed that it appears to move spontaneously.... In 17–18th c. applied to clocks, watches, etc., and transf. to the Universe and World; now usually to figures which simulate the action of living beings, as clock-work mice, images which strike the hour, etc.’ Henry More is cited: ‘God will not let the great Automaton of the Universe be so imperfect’ (An explanation of the grand mystery of Godliness [1660, ii, iii, 37]).