stitution and Morality, nearly the same part which Hartley and Darwin played in England, died in 1808. Volney, author of the Ruins, died a few years since; Gall, quite recently. To this list I might, I should perhaps, but I shall not dare to do it, add a man who, by his age, belongs to this generation of celebrated men, rather than to the century and the movement in which we are; the respectable old man who, by the elevation and goodness. of his character, by the vigor of his thought and the lucidness of his style, is now among us the most faithful and complete representative of the sensualistic school of the eighteenth century: you are all thinking of our compatriot so justly and so generally esteemed, M. Destutt de Tracy.

In Germany, without speaking of some fine minds, whether French* or German, belonging to the court of Frederic, the sensualistic school gives us Feder, a distinguished professor of the University of Gottingen, who preceded the revolution of Kant and survived it; Tittel, his disciple, Weisshaupt,§ and several other metaphysicians or logicians who belong to the school of Locke, and of whom the best known are Herder and Tiedemann. Herder has written much against Kant; but the work to which his name is attached is the Philosophy of the History of Humanity. Tiedemann has served the sensualistic school by a multitude of theoretical and historical writings, especially by his Spirit of Speculative Philosophy.

If you will consider the other parts of Europe, you will find for the school which occupies us, scarcely more than two names

*For example. La Methrie, born in 1709, died in 1751. His principal works are: l'Homme Machine, 1748, and l'Homme Plante, 1748. His works have been collected in 2 vol. in-8. Amsterdam, 1753-1764.

+ Born in 1740, died in 1821. Institutiones Logica et Metaphysicæ, 1777.— On Time and Space as serving for the examination of the Philosophy of Kant (German), 1787, etc.

Of the Forms of Thought, or Categories of Kant (German), 1788, etc. Doubts in regard to the doctrine of Kant, on the subject of Space and Time (German), 1788, etc.

See Vol. 1 of this Series, Lecture 11.

Ibid., Lecture 12.

worthy the attention of history. There is, first, in Italy, Geno. vesi, of Naples; his writings retain something of the philosophy of the seventeenth century and of Leibnitz; but Locke predominates in them, and in the end appears there alone. In Switzerland, you have Bonnet, who seems formed in the school of Hartley, a sincerely religious and openly materialistic naturalist and metaphysician, who belongs to the history of philosophy by reason of his Analytical Essay on the Faculties of the Soul.†

renown.

Such is the list of the names and the systems which fill up the sensualistic school of the eighteenth century: it is upon this list that it is necessary to work. I believe it to be nearly complete, or at least there are wanting to it only names and works of little To each must be accorded the place in history which really belongs to him, that is, we must occupy ourselves only with the men who have advanced science, and have left upon it their trace. Let it, then, be a principle with us that we will give our attention only to the great representatives of the sensualistic school, and that we will leave in obscurity, doubtless mentioning them, but without according to them a lengthy analysis, all those who have done nothing else than to follow beaten paths, and to group themselves around illustrious men, who alone should interest us. This first consideration already reduces our task; it remains to know in what order we should accomplish it; it is necessary to fix this order, under penalty of marching blindly on the route before us.

It seems that we might adopt the order which we have just been following. What have we done? We have run over Europe from nation to nation; we have considered England, then France, then Germany, then Italy and Switzerland: this is what is called the ethnographical order. But to this order we may make three fundamental objections.

* Born in 1712, died in 1769.

+ Born in 1720, died in 1798. His complete works appeared in 9 vol. in-4, from 1779 to 1783.

At first, it has pleased us to begin with England; but why have we commenced with England, and not with France or Germany? What reason is there for commencing with one nation rather than with another? It will be replied that the choice is not arbitrary, because it is an Englishman, Locke, who is the founder of the whole modern sensualistic school; hence it is necessary to commence with Locke. That is true in regard to Locke; but towards 1750, the principles of Locke are spread through all Europe; they are developed everywhere else as well as in England. For example, after Locke and Hartley, according to the ethnographical order, you should take Darwin and Priestley; but they are no more the disciples of Locke than were Voltaire, Helvetius, and Saint-Lambert, and especially Condillac, who kept himself so near to Locke, and propagated his metaphysics. Moreover, when you shall have exhausted England, with what nation will you continue? Will you go from England to France, or to Germany, or to Switzerland, or to Italy? Will you commence with Condillac, or with Herder, or with Bonnet, or with Genovesi? There is no particular reason for choosing France rather than any other country. Thus, whatever step you take, you cannot escape what is arbitrary.

Behold another impropriety of the ethnographical method. When you start with such or such a country, with England, for example, should you pursue there the entire development of the sensualistic school, and successively run over Locke, Hartley, Darwin, Priestley, Horn Tooke, Godwin, Bentham, before having made known Condillac, Helvetius, Saint-Lambert, etc., you would do nothing less than destroy the real relations of the European systems to each other, and the reciprocal action of these systems upon each other. When Priestley wrote, Condillac had created a lively sensation in Europe; consequently, the mind of Condillac must have had some influence on that of Priestley if you neglect this relation, you do not make the character, the merit, and true place of Priestley understood. But this remark is much more applicable to Godwin and Bentham, who are disciples of

the sensualistic school of France quite as much as of this same school in England. I might multiply examples, but one is sufficient to show that the ethnographical method has the great inconvenience of destroying the natural relations of systems, their order of dependence, and thereby the most general character of European philosophy in the eighteenth century, that is, its unity. In fact, Europe is one in the eighteenth century. That which commences in England is developed in France, reacts upon England, repasses into France, returns again into England, and it is from this action and reaction, and by these perpetual counterstrokes, that the European philosophy is formed. This concatenation is the very life of history, and, at the same time, it is the light of history, for it alone teaches causes from effects and effects from causes; where this relation of cause to effect, this progressive order, this logic of events does not exist, there are many materials for history, but there is no real history.

The ethnological order does more, it objects that from history there should spring any scientific result. You commence with England, and you meet at first the father of the English school, Locke. Locke is a metaphysician. You will, in course, meet Hartley, Darwin, Priestley, who are, properly speaking, physiologists; you, therefore, lose sight of metaphysics, in order to plunge into physiology. Then you pass to Horn Tookę, who is a grammarian, and you leave physiology as you have just left metaphysics. Finally, you arrive at Bentham, who is a publicist, and you are separated at once from metaphysics, and physiology, and grammar. In going from England into France, you find Condillac, with whom you resume your metaphysical studies, soon to abandon them, and to take up your studies of politics and morals with Helvetius and Saint-Lambert. You therefore traverse the same interruptions which had at each step broken the chain of your studies in England. They await you in Germany. You continually abandon one subject for another, then this second in order to return to the first. Now, I ask, what do metaphysics gain, what do morals, æsthetics, all the parts of philosophic sci

ence gain, by studies which are begun only to be suspended, and resumed only to be abandoned again? It is impossible thus to acquire any thing else than a superficial and incomplete instruction, and the history of philosophy thus studied, entirely fails of its highest aim, which is the advancement and the formation of science.

Such are the three objections which, in my opinion, do not permit us to think of adopting the ethnographical method. We must, therefore, find a method which may be free from these objections: 1st, a method which may not be arbitrary; 2d, which shows the connection of systems; 3d, which sheds a true light upon each one of the sciences of which history is composed.

Against the peril of what is arbitrary we shall employ chronology. There is nothing less arbitrary than figures and dates. By taking successively all systems in chronological order throughout Europe, you take an order which is that of reality itself; you do not put yourselves in the place of history, you take history such as it has been made. Under this relation, the chronological method is that which we should adopt; but this alone would not suffice, and it is necessary to fertilize and elucidate the chronological order by joining to it that of the reciprocal independence of systems. As soon as a system is given with its date (and we here suppose a system capable of exercising some influence in Europe, for otherwise it would not belong to history), we ought to search out what are the effects of this system, that is, what are the systems which it directly or indirectly engenders, and which are joined to it, whether as reproducing it, or as combating it. We must not here confine ourselves to such or such a country; all Europe must be given as a theatre. Wherever the effect of a cause may appear, it must there be pursued, and this effect must be related to its cause; if the cause is in England and the effect in Germany, we must go from England to Germany in order to proceed in course, if it is necessary, from Germany to Italy, or to return to England. We have no jurisdiction over reality; and if being produced by each other from