NATURAL PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE 



the existing political institutions. In the interest 

 of " reason," all hitherto existing ideas and in- 

 stitutions had to be submitted to the most ruthless 

 criticism, and this " reason " was nothing else but 

 the dictates of the class-interests of the French 

 bourgeoisie. In England on the other hand, the 

 bourgeois revolution had at that time found its 

 temporary armistice in the compromise of 1689, 

 which left the great land-owners in possession of 

 the spoils of political office, while it at the same 

 time safeguarded the economic interests of the 

 rising bourgeoisie sufficiently for the time being. 

 The English bourgeois, was, therefore, as much 

 interested as the nobility in maintaining the in- 

 fluence of religion " for the people," meaning for 

 the exploitation of the working class, while the 

 French bourgeois was compelled, by the require- 

 ments of the historical situation in France, to stir 

 the working class to the highest pitch of revolu- 

 tionary activity against the feudal nobility. 



Materialism, therefore, in the i8th century, 

 took up its abode in France. Once more the 

 irony of fate would have it that the metaphy- 

 sicians had to furnish the weapons for their own 

 undoing. For French materialism developed two 

 schools, and one of them took its departure from 

 the physics of the metaphysician Descartes. The 



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