but Gilbert was only an angry youth,
disappointed of his fame. Freron, the "Wasp" (_frelon_) of Voltaire's
_L'Ecossaise_, might sting in his _Annee Litteraire_, but there were
sharper stings in satire and epigram which he must endure. Palissot
might amuse the theatrical spectators of 1760 with his ridiculous
philosophers; the _Philosophes_ was taken smilingly by Voltaire, and
was sufficiently answered by Morellet's pamphlet and the
_bouts-rimes_ of Marmontel or Piron. The _Voltairomanie_ of
Desfontaines is only the outbreak of resentment of the accomplished
and disreputable Abbe against a benefactor whose offence was to have
saved him from the galleys.

The sensationalist philosophy is inaugurated by JULIEN OFFRAY DE LA
METTRIE (1709-51) rather than by Condillac. A physician, making
observations on his own case during an attack of fever, he arrived
at the conclusion that thought is but a result of the mechanism of
the body. Man is a machine more ingeniously organised than the brute.
All ideas have their origin in sensation. As for morals, they are
not absolute, but relative to society and the State. As for God,
perhaps He exists, but why should we worship this existence more than
any other? The law of our being is to seek happiness; the law of society
is that we should not interfere with the happiness of others. The
pleasure of the senses is not the only pleasure, but it has the
distinction of being universal to our species.

La Mettrie, while opposing the spiritualism of Descartes, is more
closely connected with that great thinker, through his doctrine that
brutes are but machines, than with Locke. It is from Locke--though
from Locke mutilated--that ETIENNE BONNOT DE CONDILLAC (1715-80)
proceeds. All ideas are sensations, but sensations transformed.
Imagine a marble statue endowed successively with the several human
senses; it will be seen how perceptions, consciousness, memory, ideas,
comparison, judgment, association, abstraction, pleasure, desire
are developed. The _ego_ is but the bundle of sensations experienced
or transformed and held in recollection. Yet the unity of the _ego_
seems to argue that it is not composed of material particles.
Condillac's doctrine is sensationalist, but not materialistic.
Condillac's disciple, the physician Cabanis (1757-1808), proceeded
to investigate the nature of sensibility itself, and to develop the
physiological method of psychology. The unnecessary soul which
Condillac pres