349 



CONDER, JOSIAH. 



CONDORCET, MARQUIS DE. 



350 



The line of Conde" became extinct in 1830 by the death of the Duke 

 of Bourbon, son of the last prince of Comic", who, in the wars of the 

 revolution, commanded a corps of French emigrants on the Rhine. 

 The Duke of Bourbon never assumed the title of prince of Conde*. 

 His only son, the young Duke d'Enghien, was put to death by Bona- 

 parte in 1804. The Duke de Bourbon himself died at Chantilly soon 

 after the revolution of July, 1830. in a manner which was much com- 

 mented upon in the newspapers of the time. 



CONDER, JOSIAH, was born in London on the 17th of September, 

 1789. He was the son of a bookseller, and very early displayed a taste 

 for literature. His first attempts were given to the world in the 

 ' Athenaeum,' a monthly magazine then edited by Dr. Aikin ; and in 

 1810, in connection with a few friends, a volume of poems was published 

 under the title of 'The Associate Minstrel.' In 1814, being at the 

 time a publisher and bookseller in St. Paul's Churchyard, he purchased 

 the ' Eclectic Review,' of which he continued to be editor until 1837, 

 though he retired from the bookselling business in 1819. Under his 

 management the ' Eclectic Review ' received the assistance of many 

 eminent men among the non-conformists, such as Robert Hall, John 

 Foster, Dr. Chalmers, Dr. Vaughan, and others. During this period 

 his industry was displayed by the production of other works also. In 

 1818 appeared two volumes ' On Protestant Nonconformity.' In 1824 

 ' The Modern Traveller ' was commenced : it extended to thirty-three 

 volumes, nearly the whole of which were compiled by Mr. Condor, and 

 all under his superintendence. In 1824 also appeared ' The Star in 

 the East,' a poem ; and in 1834 a ' Dictionary of Geography," and a 

 new translation of the ' Epistle to the Hebrews, with Notes.' In 1836 

 he edited ' The Congregational Hymn-Book," issued under the sanction 

 of the Congregational Union; and in 1837 he published 'The Choir 

 and Oratory : Sacred Poems,' to which Mrs. Conder was a contributor. 

 He was the author of many other works, but we havo mentioned the 

 principal. 



Mr. Condor's reputation having become established among the 

 Dissenters, he was requested in 1832 to undertake the editorship of 

 ' The Patriot,' a newspaper recently established in the dissenting 

 interest. From this time he took a more active part in the public 

 proceedings of the Dissenters, attending their meetings, and affording 

 them the assistance of bis counsels. ' The Patriot,' under Mr. Gender's 

 management, became the organ of what may be termed in politics 

 the Whig section of the Dissenters, as opposed to the Radical section ; 

 while in ecclesiastical affair* it represented the Congregationalista and 

 Baptists. For twenty-three years Mr. Conder fulfilled the duties of bis 

 office with exemplary care, industry, and liberality; producing also 

 occasionally works of importance, such as ' An Analytical and Compara- 

 tive View of all Religion",' ' The Harmony of History with Prophecy,' 

 fcc , and several pamphlets on stirring topics of the day. 



Mr. Conder married in 1815 Joan Elizabeth, the daughter of Mr. 

 Thomas of Soutbgate, by whom he left four sons and a daughter. 

 After a short illness, he died on December 27, 1865. 



CONDILLAC, ETIENNE BONNOT DE, was born at Grenoble in 

 1715, aod was distinguished at an early age for his taste for meta- 

 physical inquiries. The works of Locke chiefly attracted his attention, 

 and were the cause of his publishing, in 1746, his ' Essai sur 1'origine 

 de-t conuoissances humaines,' a work intended to promulgate principles 

 founded on those of the Engli-h philosopher. The tendency which 

 Locke's works had naturally produced of tracing all knowledge back 

 to sensations, induced him to publish, in 1749, his second work, the 

 ' Trait^ des Systfimes,' which wag designed to oppose the theories of 

 Leibnitz, Spiuosa, and others, as based upon abstract principles, rather 

 than what he conceived the more solid foundation of experience. His 

 third work, ' Traite' des Sensations,' ia his master-piece. The author 

 supposes a statue, which he has the power of endowing with one 

 sense at a time. He first gives it smell alone, and then traces what 

 may be the pleasures, pains, abstract ideas, desires, &c., of a being BO 

 limited with regard to its faculties ; the other senses are then added, 

 and the statue gradually becomes a complete human being. His 

 works seem to have made but little impression on the general public 

 in his time, but be was much sought after by those of high attain- 

 ments. Diderot, J. J. Rousseau, and Duclos were among the number 

 of bis most intimate friends, and his celebrity spread so far, that he 

 wan appointed preceptor to the Prince of Parma. In this capacity he 

 published his ' Cours d'e'tudes,' divided into ' L'Art d'e"crire, 1'art de 

 rauonner, 1'art de penser, and Histoire generate des homines et des 

 empires,' a series of works calculated to promote his own philosophical 

 views. Having completed the education of his pupil, he retired to 

 philosophical meditations. In the year 1768 he was admitted a 

 member of the academy in the room of Abb<5 1'Olivet, though, strange 

 to relate, ho never afterwards attended the meetings of this learned 

 body. His labours only terminated with his life, as he published his 

 ' Logique ' but a few months previous to his death, which happened 

 August 3, 1780. His ' Langue des Calculs,' a posthumous work, did 

 not appear till the year 17'J*. 



As a philosopher, Condillac rather deserves the term ingenious than 

 profound. He lias the art of developing his own views in the most 

 entertaining manner possible; in working out his theories he almost 

 becomes prolix. Not satisfied with giving his statue smi 11 alone, 

 examining its situation in that state, and then adding the other 

 senses, he considers it endowed with each of the other senses alone, 



and thus extends his ' Traite" des Sensations,' which is at best but a 

 pleasing example, to a thick volume. 



Professor Stewart has justly censured the French for taking for 

 granted that Condillac was a correct interpreter of Locke, and at the 

 same time is somewhat severe ou their Locke mania. It is clear 

 enough that Condillae was not a faithful interpreter of Locke. He 

 had, perhaps wilfully, overlooked a very short chapter in the ' Essay 

 on the Human Understanding ' ' Of simple Ideas of Reflection.' 

 Locke traced all our knowledge to sensation and reflection ; Condillae 

 stopped at sensation alone, and thus produced a system which cannot 

 be surpassed in sensualism. When his statue has smell alone, he tells 

 us, that if a rose be presented to it, it is certainly, with respect to us, 

 a statue smelling a rose ; but is, with respect to itself, nothing but 

 the smell of the flower; the very perceiving subject is to itself 

 nothing but an odour. And this was supposed to be a faithful expo- 

 sition of the doctrines of Locke of Locke, who allows the mind ideas 

 of reflection, '* when it turns its view inward upon itself, and observes 

 its own actions about those ideas it has ; " and therefore can never 

 have conceived that a perceiving being cannot divide itself in thought 

 from the thing perceived. Some have thought that Condillac imbibed 

 this notion of a sensation being to the mind only a modification of 

 itself from Berkeley ; but though Berkeley denied an inanimate sub- 

 stratum to our sensations, he certainly never went so far as to make 

 the mind take itself for a self-perceiving sensation. 



Condillac's opinion of the importance of words is much more akin 

 to Berkeley's views. Without words he contends we should have had 

 no abstract ideas (in the Locke language) ; that we can only think of 

 a particular image, and our thinking of any general idea, as man, is an 

 absurdity ; that having observed something in common to several 

 individuals, as Peter, John, &c., we agree to call them all by the term 

 man, and that the general idea is nothing but an idea of such term, 

 or an acknowledgment that the term may fit each of the individuals 

 equally well. Something very like this may be found in Berkeley's 

 Introduction to his ' Treatise concerning the principles of Human 

 Knowledge." 



The knowledge of our own and of other bodies, according to 

 Condillac, commences with the sensation of touch. He gives his 

 statue that sensation, and making it strike itself with its hand, states 

 that while this hand as it were, says, on the consciousness of a 

 sensation, ' C'est moi ' (It is I), the part touched echoes the declara- 

 tion : thus the statue concludes that both parts belong to its individual 

 self, in other words, that it has a corporeal body. On the other hand, 

 if the statue touch an extraneous body, though the hand says ' C'est 

 moi,' it perceives there is no echoing sensation, and therefore concludes 

 there is another body besides its own. 



Condillac has been much lauded for his ingenious views of the 

 progress of language. He begins with the language of action, and in 

 the absence of abstract ideas among some American tribes, who have 

 scarcely any language but that of cries and gestures, he finds a support 

 for his hypothesis that these ideas depend on words. The language 

 of action, he says, preceded that of words, and this latter language 

 still preserved much of the character of its predecessor. Thus the 

 elevation and depression of the voice succeeded the various move- 

 ments of the body. Variation of accent was so much the more neces- 

 sary as the rude people, who were beginning to lay aside their language 

 of gesture, found it easier to express their meaning by changing 

 emphasis than inventing words. This emphatic style of speaking is 

 in itself a sort of prosody, which insensibly leads to music, and the 

 accompanying of these sounds by gestures leads to dancing, all of 

 which the Greeks called by the common name iLovcrucfi, music. He 

 then proceeds to trace the drama, rhetoric, and even the peculiarity 

 of the Greek language by regular steps, the language of action having 

 formed the basis of all. 



On the whole, the philosophy of Condillac is a system of ultra- 

 BensunHsm ; by omitting reflection (in Locke's sense of the term, that 

 ia, Condillac himself employs the word reflection, but signifies by it 

 nothing more than the looking back on past impressions), he makes 

 the mind perceive nothing but sensations, itself being to itself nothing 

 but a combination of sensations, and thus turn which way we will, 

 there is no escape from the world of sense. 



The fullest account of Condillac's philosophy for those who do 

 not wist to peruse his voluminous works, will be found in La Harpe's 

 ' Cours de 1 Litte'rature : ' a short account of the influence of Locke 

 on France through his medium is given in Professor Stewart's ' Philo- 

 sophical Essays;' but those who wish to hear Condillac himself 

 without much trouble, will find his system most fully and pleasingly 

 developed in the ' Traite" des Sensations." 



CONDORCET, MARIE-JEAN-ANTOINE-NICOLAS CARITAT, 

 MARQUIS DE, was born in Picardy in 1743. His family owed their 

 name and title to the castle of Condorcet, near Nion, in Dauphiny. 

 His uncle, the bishop of Lisieux, who died in 1783, superintended 

 his education, and was the means of procuring for him the most 

 powerful patronage as soon as he was old enough to be introduced 

 into public life. He first distinguished himself as a mathematician, 

 and his success in this department Boon opened to him the door of 

 the Academy of Sciences. ' 



It is on his application of philosophy to subjects connected with 

 the happiness of mankind and the amelioration of social institutions 



