As champions of scientific inquiry, they were necessarily advocates of toleration. On this head they were, of course, in direct opposition to the church. Their sympathy with man, as man, necessarily made them the enemies of the system of social caste upon which French society rested. Their humanity, their attempts to dif fuse knowledge and turn it to good account, deserve all praise. Most of the ideas for which they fought and suffered, have now become a recognized part of educated opinion. This must not detract from our admiration of men who upheld them when the profession of them was not only unpopular but dangerous. Their fault was that they took too sanguine a view of what it was possible to accomplish in the way of immediate reform. They allowed too little for the formative influences of history and circumstances. They were too apt to forget, in their condemnation of church and state, the extent to which the characters and actions of individuals are moulded and determined by the institutions of which they are the instruments and the agents. The impartiality of after criticism is not to be looked for in the heat of conflict. The spirit which animated these men was a generous one. Their industry was unwearied. Their defects were the result of their position; and they will be remembered in history as the leaders in the great conflict against unreason.

Amongst all the writers of the age, Turgot stands pre-eminent for sagacity and insight. He was imbued with the commercial principles of the Economists to which he tried to give practical effect, first as Intendant of a province, and after as finance minister of France. He was on friendly terms with the Encyclopædists, and

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contributed articles to their great work. But on material points he was at variance with men like Diderot and D'Alembert. He agreed with them as to the importance of education. He hated, as they did, the intolerance of the church. But he was not blind to the moral and social benefits which the world has received from the Christian religion. To original genius and profound and comprehensive learning he added the experience of a practised administrator. His studies had taught him to moderate his hopes. He could not trust to principles of abstract reason as a basis of social reconstruction. The prevalent scepticism of the day seemed to him purely destructive. Though, under the circumstances, he could understand the impatient hardihood of men of letters, he was yet able to see difficulties and dangers which were hidden from them.

Two books of the century still remain to be noticed, Helvetius' treatise On Mind, published in 1758, and Holbach's System of Nature, published in 1770. According to Helvetius, man differs from the animals only in respect of the advantages which he has derived from the peculiarities of his outward form. Man's whole stock of ideas is referable to sensibility and memory, qualities which he shares with the animals. As sensation is the origin of all knowledge and opinions, rules of conduct must be relative to physical enjoyment. Man, in virtue of his physical susceptibility to pleasure and pain, has, necessarily, interests of his own. Self-interest leads him to social life, and in society justice grows up, that is, that consideration and regard for the general interest without which social life is impossible. Justice, then, is, in the last resort, self-interest; and every other so

called virtue is, finally, the observance of a rule which conduces to the pleasure of the individual. All our

feelings have grown out of, and all our actions are regulated by that desire of pleasure which is natural and necessary to beings endowed, as men are, with a physical susceptibility to pleasure and pain.

"I shall consider men as being entirely without knowledge of laws and arts, and as being nearly in the condition in which they must have been in the beginning of the world. I see them scattered in the woods like other voracious animals. I see that these first men, too feeble before the invention of arms to resist ferocious beasts, were taught by danger, necessity, or fear, that it was to the interest of each one of them to unite into a society, and to form a league against the animals, their common foes. I see next that these men, having united in this way, and having soon become hostile to one another through the desire of all to possess the same things, must have armed themselves with a view to rob one another: -that, at first, the strongest seized the property of his more intelligent neighbour who invented weapons and set ambuscades to recover his property :-that, consequently, force and skill were the first titles to property : -that the earth belonged first to the strongest, and then to the cleverest :-that, in the beginning, these were the titles by which everything was held :—but that, at last, the general misery taught men that their living together would no longer be of any advantage to them, and that societies could not exist unless, in addition to their original agreements, they covenanted that each man should renounce for himself the right to use his strength and skill, and that the community, as a whole, should

guarantee the safety of the life and property of every member, and should undertake to attack whoever violated these engagements. It was in this way that from all the interests of individuals there arose a common interest, so that actions could be called just, permissible, and unjust, according as they were useful, indifferent, or harmful to societies. Once arrived at this truth, I easily discover the origin of human virtues. I see that, without sensibility to physical pain and pleasure, men, being without desires and passions, and being equally indifferent to everything, would never have known a selfish interest. If they had had no interests of their own, they would never have formed societies nor made covenants with one another. There would thus have been no general interest, and consequently no justice or injustice. Personal interest, therefore, and physical sensibility have been the source of all morality."*

Such views, false as they are, would harmonize with the tendency of the age to seek for an explanation of everything in sensible experience. Whatever part selfinterest may have originally played in the formation of the moral sentiment, it is evident that it will not explain the developed conscience. It is evident, too, that, for us, the most important features of human nature are not those in which it resembles, but those in which it differs from the merely animal nature. Still, the reduction of morality to self-interest was a natural and a plausible, and to some extent, a useful doctrine at a time when men, after ages of oppression, were awaking to the consciousness that the universe is

* Helvetius, De l'Esprit, Dicours iii. ch. iv.

made for man, and not to be the pleasure-ground of the rich and powerful. At such a time it might well seem that the laws of morals, like the laws of states, were nothing but unjust contrivances for keeping the many in subjection to the few. It is but an instance of the way in which injustice develops and gives influence and importance to one-sided and revolutionary specu lation.

Holbach reminds his readers irresistibly of Lucretius, the Epicurean philosopher poet of Rome. In both men there is the same earnestness of conviction, and the same passionate assurance that a true conception of science is the key to the emancipation of the race. It is this combination of scientific with human interests which attracts us in both of them. The attack of Lucretius is delivered against religion, that of Holbach against both religion and governments. Revolutions, he says, are provoked by the misery into which nations have been plunged by the ignorance and indifference of their rulers. Improvement can only be hoped for from enlightenment, that is, emancipation from the superstitions of religion. Men must abandon the attempt to penetrate to the undiscoverable Cause of things. They must be content to study nature, and to turn science to practical account. His system is purely materialistic. Nature is matter in motion. Matter is eternal, and motion is an essential property of it. Human knowledge is necessarily limited to the impressions which are made by matter upon the senses. All things in the universe, man included, are made what they are by the action of unvarying causes, from which there is no escape. Everything that is, is necessary. The hypo