Background
David Hartley was born in 1705 in the vicinity of Halifax, Yorkshire. His mother died three months after his birth. His father, an Anglican clergyman, died when David was only fifteen.
(His principal work Observations on Man, his Frame, his Du...)
His principal work Observations on Man, his Frame, his Duty, and his Expectations in two parts - the first dealing with the frame of the human body and mind, and their mutual connections and influences, the second with the duty and expectations of mankind.
1749
David Hartley was born in 1705 in the vicinity of Halifax, Yorkshire. His mother died three months after his birth. His father, an Anglican clergyman, died when David was only fifteen.
David Hartley was educated at Bradford Grammar School and Jesus College, Cambridge, of which society he became a fellow in 1727. Originally intended for the Church, he was deterred from taking orders by certain scruples as to signing the Thirty-nine Articles, and took up the study of medicine.
Nevertheless, he remained a member of the Church of England, and was on intimate terms with the most distinguished churchmen of his day. He considered it his duty to obey ecclesiastical as well as civil authorities. The doctrine to which he most strongly objected was that of eternal punishment.
Hartley practised as a physician at Newark, Bury St Edmunds, London, and lastly at Bath, where he died in 1757.
Observations on Man, his Frame, his Duty, and his Expectations
(His principal work Observations on Man, his Frame, his Du...)
1749Hartley was born into the family of a poor Anglican country clergyman in Yorkshire. Nevertheless, he remained a member of the Church of England, and was on intimate terms with the most distinguished churchmen of his day.
Hartley's physical theory gave birth to the modern study of the intimate connection of physiological and psychical facts. He believed that sensation is the result of a vibration of the minute particles of the medullary substance of the nerves, to account for which he postulated, with Newton, a subtle elastic ether, rare in the interstices of solid bodies and in their close neighbourhood, and denser as it recedes from them. Pleasure is the result of moderate vibrations, pain of vibrations so violent as to break the continuity of the nerves. These vibrations leave behind them in the brain a tendency to fainter vibrations or "vibratiuncles" of a similar kind, which correspond to "ideas of sensation." This accounts for memory.
David Hartley lived a simple life, devoted to the health of both rich and poor. He was a vegetarian.
Hartley was married twice. The first time was in 1730 to Alice Rowley, who died the next year giving birth to their son David (1731-1813). His second marriage was in 1735 to Elizabeth (1713-1778), the daughter of Robert Packer of Shellingford and Bucklebury, both in Berkshire. This marriage was undertaken in spite of the opposition of Elizabeth's influential and very wealthy family. This union produced two additional children, Mary (1736-1803) and Winchcombe Henry (1740-1794).