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Hartley, David (1705-1757), attributed. Observations on the Progress to Happiness. Manuscript on Paper.
England, March 7, 1734/5.
Quarto format manuscript in English on laid paper consisting of 103 numbered pages, 22 lines per page, written in brown ink in a consistent secretarial hand; divided into twelve Observations, on the titular premise; bound in contemporary limp parchment wrappers; stab sewn through the covers with extensive damage to back cover; holes somewhat patched up with parchment from the inside; slight losses to last leaf corner; contents very good; 8 1/4 x 6 1/2 in.
Hartley founded the Associationist school of psychology and pursued a study of Enlightenment philosophy. We know from his correspondence that Hartley was privately sharing a treatise on universal happiness in 1736. Writing to Joseph Lister, he notes, "a Man who disregards himself, who entirely abandons Self-Interest & devotes his Labours to the Service of Mankind, or in that beautiful and expressive phrase of the Scriptures, who loves his neighbor as himself is sure to meet with private Happiness," a true Hartleian commandment. The present text rings with the same tone and includes the central tenet of Hartley's known work verbatim on the very first page: The whole art of living may be briefly comprehended under this general precept: never to sacrifice a greater pleasure to a less.
