CONDILLAC, Etienne Bonnot de, Abbé de Mu-reaux, well known as an eminent writer on metaphysics and education, was born at Grenoble in 1715. He was brother [7:7:204] to the Abbé de Mably; and, like him, arrived at high celebrity, though in a different line of pursuit. He seems to have been actuated by the purest motives of utility to his species, in directing his exertions to the elucidation of those subjects in metaphysical science, the imperfect state of which had involved the studies, as well as the public pursuits, of the thinking world, in perplexity, and had retarded the attainment of that degree of sound knowledge and of happiness for which the faculties of man entitled him to hope. The field of metaphysical research had been for some time laid open by the destruction of the imperious authority of Aristotle and the schools; a variety of contending doctrines, which had made their appearance, created in active minds a spirit of independence; and no admiration of the genius of another prevented the suggestions of the philosophic critic from mingling themselves with the illustrations of the enlightened pupil. Locke had led the way to a mode of investigation now rising into favour, and promising to impart a luminous simplicity to the science of mind; and philosophers emulated one another in their efforts to correct or to extend the doctrines of this author, or to found upon them others distinguished by new improvements. Condillac was one of the first who introduced this style of metaphysical inquiry into French literature. His earliest work was his Essai sur ι Origine des Connaissances Humaines, which appeared in 174G. This work contains those favourite opinions which are exhibited with more correct taste in his subsequent productions. It is not, however, superseded by the latter, as it contains a variety of interesting illustrations peculiar to itself; and although here we find his errors particularly prominent, that circumstance seems rather to proceed from the absence of art and of plausibility, than from the subsequent adoption of views more radically correct. From the outline which he first formed of philosophic methods, he seems never to have departed. The object of the first part of this essay is to confirm and extend the doctrine of Locke, that all ideas originate in the senses, and consist of sensations variously modified. Readers who conceive that Locke’s doctrine, when followed to its consequences, tends to lower the estimation in which the human mind ought to be held, will probably attach the same blame to Condillac. His curious saving clause will not vindicate his opinions among the philosophers of this country, however convenient it might be found among the adherents of the Roman Catholic church, that the dependence of the soul on the senses is one of the effects of the fall of man, and a proof of his present state of degradation. Readers who are not ambitious of possessing a fixed theory in a department of metaphysics so abstruse, will be pleased with those traits of acuteness in the observation of mental phenomena which abound in this essay, and which are often expressed with great felicity, even while the slight distortions communicated to some of his representations of facts by the tendencies of his theories obtrude themselves on our notice. The doctrine now mentioned is followed up by two other leading positions, “that the association of ideas is the foundation of the most important mental operations,” and “that language is absolutely necessary to the development of the human faculties.” Ideas, he asserts, cannot be associated with one another, except by being associated with words or other signs which become the materials of a language. On this doctrine he establishes a definition of memory, which is altogether unique, that it consists in the recalling of words or circumstances relating to a perception; the recalling of the perception itself belongs to imagination, while it is reminiscence that makes us recognise it as one which we have formerly entertained. He denies all memory to animals, because they have no language. Thus a futile fallacy led him to form a verbal distinction, founded on no difference in the nature of things. A person destitute of language, and wishing to have it in his power, on future occasions, to recal a particular idea, might certainly find means adapted to his purpose, by associating it with different objects. These objects would serve the same purpose as the signs of which our languages consist. Some such associations are essential to memory. The slightest attention will show us that words or signs serve no other purpose than is done by all kinds of ideas, in assisting the mind to make use of one another. What this author calls a sign, is merely another idea intentionally associated with that which we principally wish to recollect. We may give the latter numerous associations, that it may have many chances of being recalled. We associate it either with the most important or with the readiest of our perceptions, that it may be recalled more perfectly, or with greater certainty. The only circumstances that render some perceptions better adapted to this end than others, are their importance, their familiarity, and their analogy with those which have been previously used. We generally choose our instruments of private recollection from the materials of language, because these materials are already employed for communication. They are rendered convenient by their variety, and by the classifications and analogies which were followed in the first formation of them, as necessary for rendering them the media of communication, and which, by connecting them powerfully together, give them a high adaptation for extensive arrangements. Language, in that state of improvement in which it exists in a cultivated age, extends intellectual operations; but it neither adds any radically distinct faculty, nor gives origin to any new genus of mental exercise. Condillac says, that “a man without language could not recal his ideas, except when placed in the same circumstances in which they had been formerly presented.” The obvious answer to this is, that language, in so far as it serves this purpose, consists in the multiplication of the assisting circumstances in which a man is placed when a perception is formed. Many ingenious illustrations are subjoined, which are deserving of attention; but when well considered they will lead to conclusions diíFering from those which the author endeavours to establish. In viewing the mind in its active state, he justly observes, that objects attract its attention only as they are connected with our temperament, our passions, our condition, and our wants; and this principle is afterwards beautifully applied to the illustration of the earliest acquisitions of knowledge, and of the difference of character between them and many that succeed at a later period. But no person would affirm that our wants are the signs of our perceptions, though various perceptions are powerfully recalled by their means.

The opinions of the author certainly led him to ascribe too much to language. It is to the want of signs that he traces the whole disadvantages of the deaf, whereas we know that they are entirely owing to the deficiencies of their mental intercourse with others, that is, to their privation, not of the private, but of the social use of language. We find that the great improvements now made in the art of communicating with the deaf have made these disadvantages to disappear. The young man of Chartres, who was born deaf, but acquired the faculty of hearing when of adult age, and was therefore able to describe the state of his understanding during his former deafness, declared, that when he made the sign of the cross, and joined in the other ceremonies of the Roman Catholic religion, he had never attached to them any meaning, or supposed that any thing was represented by them. Thus, for want of language, he is represented as destitute of ideas. In this instance, however, we only perceive [7:7:205]the facility with which men imitate one another’s acts and professions, without exercising independent thought. The difference between this deaf man and most other persons was, that he took the propriety of the ceremonies for granted, being entirely led by example, while those who had heard their meaning explained acquiesced with reverence and complacency in certain verbal positions connected with them, without ever inquiring into their meaning or their merits. Another illustration is taken from a man, who, though lie enjoyed the faculty of hearing, had lived apart from all association with his species in the forest of Lithuania. But it is easy to show that the great mental deficiencies of that individual arose from the want of society, and not simply from the want of a language to supply his private meditations with signs.

It is in the art of calculation that the utility of signs is most conspicuous in forwarding the progress of intellectual operation, and it is there that we find a language presented to the eye, which is adapted in a most perfect degree to the purposes of the mind. Hence the use of signs for expressing our ideas of number is a favourite topic with Condillac and the other adherents of the doctrines of the Nominalists. The number ninety-nine could not be distinguished from a hundred, except by language. Ninety-nine objects placed together would not convey a different perception from a number varying from it by one less or one more. It is an error, however, to imagine, that the words one hundred, or the ciphers (100) by which the number is represented, give us a perfect idea of any number. They only represent one relation of it to a certain mode of accumulation, the decimal series. Independently of all language, general features may be perceived to characterize objects too complicated to be comprehended by any human mind.

Condillac, seduced by his favourite theories, condemns one of the most profound and useful of the practical observations of Locke, that the best way of arriving at correct knowledge is to consider ideas by themselves, independently of their signs. This exercise our author pronounces to be utterly impracticable; and all that he attempts to recommend in its stead is the precaution of employing only such words as are well understood. How can words be understood, unless the ideas which they represent are considered as detached from all association with them, and thus exempted from the embarrassing influence of fallacious analogies?

Regarding language as a necessary instrument of mental operations, he makes some observations on the parts of speech, and the manner in which they are connected in sentences. He describes with ingenuity the steps by which words pass from expressing sensible qualities to become the names of mental faculties. Here we perceive a glimmering of some truths which have been since luminously displayed in the Philosophical Essays of. Mr Dugald Stewart. He introduces at the same time some speculations on the origin of abstract terms, which are not entitled to equal approbation. He takes occasion, however, to make one remark which is both beautiful and just, that men have too often imagined that words perfectly explain the essence and nature of tilings, whereas they express in reality nothing more than some imperfect analogies. This position, followed to its consequences, would suggest a correction of a great part of the author’s errors.

In describing the pronoun, he gives way to a species of metaphysical mysticism, by which he is grievously misled. He conceives that this class of words must be of late formation, because some difficulty must have occurred in substituting another word for the proper name of an object. He did not here consider that nothing of the essence of an object, nothing but qualities, circumstances, or accidents, is expressed by the proper name, more than by the pronoun. The same man may be “John,” “father,” “brother,” “master,” “subject,” “I,” “thou,” or “he,” according to the occasions on which the mention of him is introduced. All the designations applied to him are equally proper and easily made.

Yet this work is well worthy of an attentive perusal. We find in it a brilliancy of expression which renders it more amusing than metaphysical dissertations often are; although it must be confessed that there is in some instances a false simplicity, arising from an attempt to represent metaphysical science as easier than it really is. In his subsequent works he acknowledges that he had fallen into some errors from the precipitate views which he took of the mental powers; but he specifies no particulars; and a reader who does not acquiesce in all his improved views will not easily see the exact corrections which the author made on those contained in his Essai.

In 1749 he published his Traité des Systèmes, the object of which was to show the futility of the doctrines derived from those hypothetical systems which were the offspring of an erroneous mode of procedure in the pursuit of knowledge; such as those which set out with general or abstract maxims, and pretend to establish on them a body of profound science. Another kind consists of arbitrary suppositions, laid down as principles for the explanation of things which cannot be otherwise accounted for. These are a convenient resource for ignorance; they are formed with so much pleasure and so little trouble, that a man in bed may, by their aid, create and govern the universe. He illustrates the conspicuous influence which this mode of systematizing had on opinions in metaphysics. He takes a view of the system of innate ideas as maintained by Descartes; that of Malebranche, who reduced all knowledge and all mental activity to operations which had the divine essence for their objects; that of Leibnitz, who explained the laws both of matter and of mind by general functions pertaining to simple and indivisible beings, which he called monades; and that of Spinoza, who reduced all nature and all existence to one simple substance, of which the various phenomena, material and mental, are only modifications. The last of these systems had created some commotion in the philosophical and religious world, as adverse to a belief in moral distinctions. Condillac treats the argument with a dignified delicacy, as having received a wrong direction in the writings of that author, in consequence of the erroneous methods of investigation which he employed. His words are, “Does Baylc believe that he has refuted Spinoza, by exposing the consequences which he himself draws from the system of that philosopher? If these are not really its consequences, he does not attack Spinoza. If they are, Spinoza will reply that they are not at all absurd, and only appear so to persons who are unable to ascend to the principles of things. Destroy, he will say, my principles, if you would overthrow my system; or if you let my principles alone, assent to the propositions which are their necessary consequences.” “My object,” says Condillac, “has been to show that Spinoza had no idea of the positions which he advanced; that his definitions are vague, his axioms inaccurate, and his propositions entirely the work of imagination, and include nothing that can lead to the knowledge of things. Having done this, I proceed no farther. To attack the phantoms which arise from his principles, would be as preposterous as the feats of the knights-errant, who combated the spectres of the sorcerers. The wisest plan is to destroy the enchantment.” Having shown the radical fallacy of the principles adopted by the preceding writers, he points out the cases in which hypotheses assist human knowledge. The first is, [7:7:206]when we can exhaust all the hypotheses that can be formed on any subject, and possess a rule for distinguishing that which is admissible. Of this we have examples in the pure mathematics. A second kind of hypothesis includes those which are employed in astronomy, provided they are limited to the object of accounting for the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. A third occasion on which they ought not to be rejected is, when they facilitate observation, by giving greater palpability to truths attested by experience, he mentions the importance of general systems formed by a process of induction. He points out the necessity of general systems in politics, founded on the character and condition of the different classes of men who constitute the body politic; and concludes with a view of the advantage derived from system in the arts. He gives some useful practical observations on the application of mathematical and metaphysical analysis. This treatise abounds in excellent remarks on human character, as displayed both in intellectual pursuits and in the business of life. His comparison of Locke and Malcbranche is a masterpiece of description.

Next in order, his Traité des Sensations made its appearance in 1754∣; a work which displays a truly philosophical spirit, uniting boldness with circumspection. The mode in which he investigates the origin of ideas of sense, and the progress of intellectual operation, bad the merit of some originality, and afforded an undoubted advantage to the prosecution of the most interesting inquiries. He considers the sense in a separate state, by forming the supposition of a being created without sensations. He supposes this being in the first instance to be endowed with the sense of smell, and describes the mental character which would thus be formed. He gives a similar account of the other senses, and examines successively the effects of their combinations, till he arrives at the description of a complete human being.

His uniform aim is to show that all ideas and alimentai phenomena consist of sensations transformed. Those who reject that doctrine will still acknowledge the beauty and ingenuity of his train of description. The conclusion itself is refuted by the slightest reflection on the very scope of the author. He evidently supposes the man who becomes thus complete by receiving his different external senses in succession, to have been previously in possession of dormant intellectual faculties; for his descriptions, while they apply to man, will not apply to many other animated beings whose senses are equally perfect, because the use which they are able to make of the impressions received is either incomparably more limited or different in kind. If the results of intellectual operation are nothing else than sensations transformed, the transformation is certainly more important than the original materials, and the transforming power cannot be lightly esteemed by any one who values extended knowledge. The favourite theme of the author, however, detracts but little from the pleasure which this ingenious work imparts. Some would pronounce the discussions which it contains to be not strictly analytical. Analysis should begin with man as he exists in a complicated state, with all his senses as well as his faculties entire, and proceed to separate his constituent powers by successive subdivisions, till, in its progress downwards, it arrives at the description of each sense and each species of intellectual operation in a separate and simple state. The description of a man endowed in that kind of succession which Condillac describes, is a purely hypothetical process, more allied to arbitrary synthesis than to analysis. By analysis, however, the author means, in a general way, the task of surveying in succession the parts of which compound objects consist, and examining separately the relations by which they are connected, without any reference to the order of procedure. Decomposition and recomposition he, in a subsequent work, represents as alike belonging to analysis; and though from etymology the Greek word synthesis is the same with that of the Latin word composition, he limits the former term to that mode of composition which he condemns, that which begins with general or abstract doctrines, and which regards these as the ground of systems pretending to explain the existing world. Although his order of description of the senses is so far hypothetical as to have nothing corresponding to it in the natural history of man, he regarded it as sufficiently capable of being substantiated by close comparison with every man’s experience, and thus distinguished from the offspring of an arbitrary synthesis.

These works having procured for the author a distinguished character in the philosophical world, he was appointed preceptor to the infant Duke of Parma, grandson of Louis XV.; and, in applying himself to the discharge of the duties of that office, he brought into exercise the same talents which had shone so conspicuously in his writings. He composed a course of studies (Cours d’Etudes'] in thirteen volumes, including Grammaire, ÎArt dEcrire, ïArt de Raisonner, l’Art de Penser, occupying the first four volumes, succeeded by nine volumes On Ancient and Modern History. His Grammaire exhibits, in his own able manner, doctrines in universal grammar nearly allied to those which generally prevailed, and which we find in the Grammaire Générale et Raisoìinée of the Port Royal. The author’s favourite principle, that every language is an analytical method, runs through the body of his work, and probably leads him to pay too great respect to the technical differences of the parts of speech, as indicating thoughts of different classes. L’Art d' Ecrire is a most agreeable and enlightened system of general criticism, and adds to this the merit of exhibiting an interesting view of French literature, in the examples of good and of faulty writing by which the precepts contained in it are illustrated. The whole rules relative to style are referred to one principle, that a writer ought to conform his diction and his imagery to the most fundamental associations of ideas. His rules thus deduced do not exhibit any such difference from those of other authors as to form in his readers a style marked by any singularities. On the contrary, we find him exempting literature from the shackles of some rules, the close observance of which secures an apparent accuracy at the expense of a natural ease, and showing his susceptibility to the influence of a pure taste by bestowing approbation on passages which a critic of a more formal cast would have thought himself called upon to censure. His Art de Raisonner is a work of singular excellence and utility. It is a luminous exemplification of the rules of reasoning, in the steps of that mental progress by which physical philosophers have unfolded the laws of motion, the principles of mechanics, and the theory of the heavenly bodies. He discriminates with just and beautiful effect the different kinds of evidence on which the various doctrines of those branches of natural philosophy rest. This treatise is well worthy of being known in our language, as it exhibits an uncommonly pleasing road to an elegant department of physical knowledge, and furnishes a model for the prosecution of other studies. His^4r∕ de Penser, notwithstanding all the ability which it displays, will probably be found the least interesting part of the Cours dEtudes, as it chiefly consists in an explanation and recommendation of the author’s peculiar notions on the nature of mind. His Ancient and Modern History forms a body of morality and legislation. His details are not inspirited with the ardent eloquence of a popular historian who excites a deep interest in individual[7:7:207] characters or insulated events. He does not exhibit paintings to the imagination, but contents himself with furnishing leading principles to the understanding. His style, though pure, is without ornament and without fire, and hence his history has been much less read than his other works.

In 1768 he was admitted into the Academy of Sciences, on the death of the Abbé d’Olivet; but he never afterwards appeared at any of the meetings of that body.

His attention being habitually directed to those subjects in which intellectual exertion was most wanted, for the advancement of objects of general utility, he published, in 1776, the results of his studies on Political Economy, in a work entitled Le Commerce et le Gouvernement, considérés relativement l’un à l’autre. This work became an object of attack to the Economists; and the author, no doubt, like most others who have written on that subject, committed some mistakes. Yet he essentially improved the discussions connected with it, and he exhibits a model of luminous arrangement in his mode of delivering his opinions.

The extended fame of Condillac procured for him a most honourable testimony of esteem from the Polish nation. The council of public instruction of that nation requested him, through the medium of Count Ignatius Potocki, to draw up an elementary treatise on logic, for the use of their palatinal schools. This gave birth to liis Logique, which was published in 1780, a few months before his death. The object of this work is to give a condensed account of the principles of analysis, taken in the acceptation already mentioned. This process, he observes, is taught by nature, and is always conducted with accuracy when man is in quest of the means of supplying the urgent necessities of his being. It is when curiosity forms to him a separate order of objects for his gratification, that he becomes precipitate in grasping at conclusions, and embraces them with readiness, though not the produce of that rigorous correctness of method which necessity imposes on his earlier pursuits. In giving an account of the origin of ideas and the mental faculties, he exemplifies his views of analysis, and, at the same time, prepares the way for further applications of the mental powers of his pupils. He adheres to his doctrine of the supreme and exclusive influence of language in conducting all intellectual pursuits. Generalization and classification arc, with him, nothing more than the contrivance of generic names. The art of reasoning is made to consist in the formation of an appropriate language for the different sciences. He considers the justness of our reasonings as depending on the degree of perfection of the languages which we possess. The superior certainty of mathematical compared with other knowledge is ascribed by him to the superior accuracy of mathematical language. Hence his favourite illustrations of the progress of the mind are taken from arithmetic and algebra.. This principle is certainly carried by' him to great excess in the framing of his general positions; yet we find him on other occasions recommending to his readers to cultivate the unbiassed study of nature, and to choose their words rather from the correctness of their application to objects, as they have fallen under actual observation, than from having their meaning fixed by the unsatisfactory formality of verbal definitions. He lays down some highly useful rules for the prosecution of knowledge. His errors arise chiefly from a strained effort to give to his subject a degree of simplicity not adapted to its nature. Hence some of his maxims are more quaint than just; but, compared with the complicated systems of logic previously in use, that of our author formed an improvement which merited the grateful reception that was given to it; and, even at the present day, if we pardon the paradoxical generalities by which it is disfigured, we may profitably trace, in company with the author, the steps by which many intellectual attainments are made, and the means by which the process admits of being facilitated.

The last work of Condillac, his posthumous treatise, entitled La Langue des Calculs, formed an important acquisition to science, which has not in this country been duly appreciated. In some subordinate points it is not unexceptionable; for example, he here, as in some of his former works, particularly his Art de Raisonner, perpetually repeats the assertion as of the greatest importance, that just reasoning consists in tracing identical propositions, and in passing from identity to identity. Aware of the objection to which this assertion was exposed, that identical propositions can amount to nothing more than futile and stagnant truisms, he imagines that this objection is answered by stating that, in the different steps of a process of calculation, there is an identity of ideas, but a difference in words, which is certainly a gross paralogism. In one or two passages he states with greater truth, though apparently by accident, that a process of calculation consists in considering the same objects in different points of view; a proposition which ought to have had that conspicuous place in his treatise which he gives to his doctrine of perfect identity. If this single alteration is made in the mind of the reader, the Langue des Calculs will be perused with the highest profit. An English translation of it would form an important accession to the means of an enlightened education in this country', as leading, by pleasant steps, to the highest scientific attainments.

Condillac is to be considered as in the soundest sense of the word an amiable man. If he had an apparent reserve, and in some respects a want of fervour, these apparent defects were more than compensated by the steadiness of his conduct. In early life he was intimate with J. J. Rousseau, Diderot, and Duclos. But he indulged no hazardous speculations on the general interests of mankind, and cherished no modes of thinking which tended to divide or distract the age. He was sincerely public-spirited; and his conciliating sentiments will, perhaps, among those who most accurately weigh them, be respected as morally sublime. As a well-wisher to the fortunes of his species, he acted on a principle which he considers as having uniformly operated in the production of former improvements. He dwells on the value of the attainments already made, as an exercise fitted to create a spontaneous disposition to extend them, divested of the spirit of party, and exempt from rashness. Hence his works were not only' much read by individuals, but were employed in many of the continental seminaries of education, and, without exciting discontent or apprehension, except among the inflexible scholastics of Spain, proved successful in illuminating the age in which they appeared. He died in August 1780, on his estate near Bangenci, where he had cultivated a life of retirement, though not more allied to solitude than as it was exempt from the scenes of public bustle and prevalent ambition.