a few months, nor in a year, shall we be able to arrive at its termination. It is important, therefore, that we should take the first steps as soon as possible, and I shall take up, in the coming lecture, the first great school which offers itself to us in the eighteenth century, to wit, the sensualistic school. LECTURE XIV. SENSUALISTIC SCHOOL IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Subject of this Lecture: Review of the different systems of the sensualistic school in Europe during the eighteenth century, in England, France, and Germany.—That, even for the sake of fidelity, the historian should attach himself to the most celebrated systems. In what order must they be studied? Ethnographical method. Three objections: 1st, arbitrary; 2d, shows not the concatenation, the reciprocal action of systems; 3d, unfavorable to scientific instruction.-Of the true method of its characters: To follow at once the dates of systems, their reciprocal dependence, and the analogy of subjects. To commence with the metaphysics of Locke. THE last lecture gave you the general classification of the systems which fill up the philosophy of the eighteenth century. We reduced these systems so diverse and so numerous to four schools; we determined the order in which these four schools have appeared, and consequently the order in which it is necessary to reproduce them. It is the sensualistic school which precedes the others: we will therefore examine it first. But this school is vast; it embraces several nations and many systems! Where shall we commence? Observe that it is not I that detains you some time yet upon this preliminary question; it is method itself, method, which checks the natural impetuosity of thought, and condemns it to undertake nothing of which it has not rendered to itself a strict account. It is the peculiarity of nascent philosophy to let itself be carried away by its object, to precipitate itself at first into every route that is offered to it; but it is the character of a more advanced philosophy to borrow from reflection the motives of all its proceedings, and to set out upon no route without having wholly measured it, without having recognized its point of departure and its issue. Thus, as we have not approached the eighteenth century at hazard, and as we have commenced by searching out the order in which we should study the different schools of which it is composed, so we cannot approach at venture the sensualistic school; before engaging in it, it is necessary to search out also the order in which we should study the different systems which this school contains. But we cannot classify systems of which we have not the least idea; it is, therefore, necessary to commence by a kind of recognition, by a rapid review, of all the monuments of the sensualistic school of the eighteenth century. Surely I ought not, neither do I wish to, enter into any detail, for I should anticipate the extended lectures which are to follow; I only wish to cite for you some proper names, some titles of works, and some dates; but, finally, these proper names, these titles, these dates are absolutely necessary in order that we may be able to find our way in the world where we are now taking the first steps. I am about to designate to you nearly all the phenomena which it is necessary to classify and to distribute into a convenient order. Locke is the father of the sensualistic school of the eighteenth century; placed between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, he forms the transition from one to the other; he is the last term of the sensualistic school of the seventeenth century, and the first term of the sensualistic school of the eighteenth. In fact, run over all the sensualistic philosophers of the eighteenth century, there is not one who does not invoke the authority of Locke; and I do not speak merely of metaphysicians, but of moralists, publicists, and critics. Locke is the chief, the avowed master of the sensualistic school of the last century. Behold now the disciples and the representatives of this school. * In England, without speaking of Collins, Dodwell, and Mandeville, whom you know, we find, somewhat later, David Hartley, with his Observations on Man. It is the first attempt to join * See, in the preceding volume, the 12th Lecture, and in Vol. 3 of the 1st Series, Lecture 2, p. 79. + David Hartley, a physician, born in 1704, died in 1757. He published: The the study of intellectual man to that of physical man. author of Zoonomy* follows the work of Hartley. Contemporaneous with Darwin, Priestley, so well known as a physical philosopher, travelled in the same route and left a great number of works, the most celebrated of which is the treatise on Matter and Spirit, in which he identifies spirit and matter. He combats the Scotch school; he is also a theologian, a heterodox theologian, as you would suppose; finally, he is a hardy publicist. He died in 1804. Horne Tooke, so famous for his political adventures, applied to grammar‡ the general principles of the English sensualistic school. He died in 1812. There come in course two publicists, who are still living, Godwin, the author of Political Justice; § and Bentham, who is now the great representative of the sensualistic political school of all Europe: his age, his renown, his foreign character, give us, I think, the right to occupy ourselves with a philosopher who belongs to history.|| Observations on Man, his Frame, his Duty, and his Expectations, London, 1749, in-8. The best edition, with the notes and additions of Pistorious, translated into English, is that of London, 1791, 3 vol. This edition has been several times reprinted. There is a French translation, by the Abbé Jurain, 2 vol., Rheims, 1755. Priestley gave a posthumous work of Hartley, entitled: Theory of Human Mind, London, 1775, not translated. * It has been translated into French, Gand, 4 vol. in-8, 1810-1812. + Principal works of Dr. Priestley: An Examination of Dr. Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind, Dr. Beattie's Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, and Dr. Oswald's Appeal to Common Sense, London, 1774.-Letters on Materialism and Hartley's Theory of the Human Mind, London, 1776.-Dis quisitions relating to Matter and Spirit, London, 1777.-The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity Mustrated, etc., London, 1777.-Three Dissertations on the Doctrine of Materialism and Philosophical Necessity, London, 1778.-Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever containing an examination of the principal objections to the doctrines of Natural Religion, and especially those contained in the writings of Mr. Hume, Bath, 1780.-Additional Letters, 1781-1787.-A continuation of the Letters, 1794.-His discourses on History and Politics have been translated into French, Paris, 4th year of the republic, 2 vol. in-8. In his work entitled: "Entа #TEρóevra, or Diversions on Purley, 1786, Vol. 1st; the second appeared in 1805. § Inquiry concerning Political Justice, 2d edition, London, 1796, 2 vol Godwin is celebrated for his romance of Caleb Williams. We did not dare to take this liberty in 1819, 1st Series, Vol. 3, p. 7. 7 If we pass into France, we there find at the head of the movement which is made on every hand towards the middle of the eighteenth century, Condillac, whose numerous works are known to you. He applied his principles to all parts of philosophy; but he excels as a metaphysician. He died in 1780. We cannot speak of the eighteenth century in France without mentioning Diderot and the Encyclopédie; for the Encyclopédie is the monument which best represents the eighteenth century among us, with all its grandeur and its hardihood, and with all its irregularities. Diderot is especially remarkable for his ideas on the theory of the fine arts; he is a paradoxical and enthusiastic critic. Helvetius died, it is true, in 1771, that is, before Condillac; but the work de l'Esprit is several years posterior to the first writings of Condillac. The book de l'Esprit appeared in 1758, whilst the Essai sur l'Origine des Connaissances Humaines belongs to 1746, the Traité des Systèmes to 1749, and the Traité des Sensations to 1754; so that it is impossible not to place Helvetius after Condillac, although he died before him; for it is less the date of their death than that of their works which constitutes the age of philosophers. After Helvetius comes Saint-Lambert,§ whose Catechism of Universal Morality obtained the honor in the competition for prizes at the commencement of this century. Saint-Lambert died in 1803. You can place at nearly the same epoch, Condorcet, Dupuis, and Cabanis. Condorcet belongs to the history of philosophy on account of his Sketch of the Progress of the Human Mind. died prematurely, in 1794. Dupuis, whose work on the Origin of Worships is so widely circulated, died in 1809. Cabanis, who played in France, with his Relations between the Physical Con He * First Series, Vol. 3, Lectures 2 and 3. + First Series, Vol. 2, Lectures 15 and 16, p. 204; Vol. 3, Discours d'Ouverture, p. 6. First Series, Vol. 8, Lectures 4 and 5. First Series, Vol. 3, Lecture 6. See Vol. 1 of this Series, Lecture 11. |