192 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



former qualities is unquestioned, but their controversial value may be 

 doubted. But to return to the German charge. Condillac, or the 

 Abbé de Condillac, to give him a title that sat lightly upon him, was 

 not a mere popularizer. He loved philosophy for its own sake. A 

 devoted adherent of Locke, he proceeded, like Hume in England, to 

 carry the ideas of Locke to their necessary conclusion. Locke had found 

 the source of our ideas in reflection operating upon sensation, but had 

 scarcely told us how we reflect. Condillac boldly enough makes all 

 the faculties of the mind originate in sensation alone. To enforce 

 his theory he assumes the existence of a statue without and within 

 shaped as we are, and possessing all our organs of sense. These senses 

 he then awakens in succession, beginning with smell as being the most 

 rudimentary, and ending with touch, the sense whereby we perceive 

 cur distinction from the external world. From sensation he thus 

 deduces all the faculties of the mind. 



This animated statue is eminently characteristic of XYIII. cen- 

 tury habits of thought, which conceived man as a mechanical automaton, 

 gTiided infallibly by the omniscient sway of reason, and unmoulded by 

 the multitude of impalpable forces which play upon him from birth to 

 death. 



Helvétius' book " De l'Esprit " has been characterized by Turgot 

 as "a book of philosophy without logic, literature without taste, and 

 morality without goodness." Helvétius was born of German parents 

 in 1715, and amassed great wealth in France, the country of his adop- 

 tion, as a farmer-general of the revenue. Tradition credits him 

 with having sheltered Prince Charles Stuart for the space of two 

 years. Our interest in him is not sentimental, however, and save for 

 that one incident his history is thoroughly unromantic. Several 

 theories that were probably in the air are consolidated in his book. He 

 proceeds from Locke, Condillac and the sensational school, but super- 

 adds a political aim. Man, since nothing is innate, possesses no 

 original proclivities for evil. His judgment is open to error through 

 the passions or ignorance, and error it must be the function of educa- 

 tion to eliminate. Now, as Helvétius sees in self-interest, or the pur- 

 suit of happiness the supreme motive to human action, it must be the 

 duty of education to make self-interest square with virtue and the com- 

 mon weal. Further, it is clear to our philosopher that traditional 

 laws are the barrier to public welfare, and that kings and priests, whose 

 interests are traditional, are obstacles in the path of progress. There- 

 fore it is only too evident that ancient laws and customs, royalty and 

 priestcraft must be ruthlessly swept aside. Here we have then for 

 the first time the theory boldly and distinctly enunciated that the laws 



