A history of philosophy copleston download

Modern Philosophy - The British Philosophers. Hobbes to Paley. Berkeley to Hume. The modern Philosophy. The French Enlightenment to Kant. Fichte to Hegel. Schopenhauer to Nietzsche. Modern Philosophy -Bentham to Russell. Modern Philosophy - Maine de Biran to Sartre. The Revolution to Henri Bergson. Bergson to Sartre. There are no reviews yet. Be the first one to write a review. Greece and Rome. Medieval philosophy. Augustine to Bonaventure. Albert the Great to Duns Scotus. Late Mediaeval and Renaissance Philosophy.

Ockham to the Speculative Mystics. Modern Philosophy. Descartes to Leibnitz. Modern Philosophy - The British Philosophers. Hobbes to Paley. Berkeley to Hume. The modern Philosophy. The French Enlightenment to Kant. But, as will be seen in due course, it is arguable that his efforts were not particularly successful. He attempted to 'rationalize' the mediaeval or, more accurately, Christian conception of the mystery of personal and voluntary creation, while retaining the fundamental idea; but the task which he set himself was no easy one.

Descartes was, indeed, a believing Catholic, and Leibniz professed himself a Christian. But in continental rationalism as a whole we can see a tendency towards the speculative rationalization of Christian dogmas.

We have seen that the certainty of mathematics, its deductive method and its successful application in Renaissance science helped to provide the continental rationalists with a model of method and an ideal of procedure and purpose. But there was another side to Renaissance science besides its use of mathematics. For scientific progress was also felt to depend very largely on attention to empirical data and on the use of controlled experiment.

Appeal to authority and to tradition was ousted in favour of experience, of reliance on factual data and on the empirical testing of hypotheses. And although we cannot account for the rise of British empiricism merely in terms of the conviction that scientific advance was based on actual observation of the empirical data, the development of the experimental method in the sciences naturally tended to stimulate and confirm the theory that all our knowledge is based on perception, on direct acquaintance with internal and external events.

Indeed, 'The scientific insistence on going to the observable "facts" as a necessary basis for explanatory theory found its correlative and its theoretical justification in the empiricist thesis that our factual knowledge is ultimately based OIl perception. There is, of course, such a thing as a priori reasoning. We see it in pure mathematics. And by such reasoning we reach conclusions which are certain.

But mathematical propositions do not give us factual information about the world; they state, as Hume put it, relations between ideas. For factual information about the world, indeed about reality in general, we have to turn to experience, to sense-perception and to introspection. And though such inductively-based knowledge enjoys varying degrees of probability, it is not and cannot be absolutely certain.

If we wish for absolute certainty, we must confine ourselves to propositions which state something about the relations of ideas or the implications of the meanings of symbols, but which do not give us factual information about the world. If we wish for factual information about the world, we must content ourselves with probabilities, which is all that inductively-based generalizations can give us.

A philosophical system which possesses absolute certainty and which at the same time would give us information about reality and be capable of indefinite extension through the deductive discovery of hitherto unknown factual truths is a will-o'-the-wisp. True, this description of empiricism certainly will not fit all those who are customarily reckoned as empiricists.

But it indicates the general tendency of this movement of thought. And the nature of empiricism is revealed most clearly in its historical development, since it is possible to regard this development as consisting, in large part at least, in a progressive application of the thesis, enunciated by Locke, that all our ideas come from experience, from sep.

The appositeness of this name is not however, so clear in the case of Hobbes. He maintained, indeed: that all our knowledge begins with sensation and can be traced back to sensation as its ultimate fount. And this entitIes us to call him.

But these writers. III, p. He was, however, a nominalist, and he did not think that we can in fact demonstrate causal relations.

He certainly tried to extend the scope of Galileo's mechanics to cover all the subject-matter of philosophy; but it is more appropriate, I think, to class him with the empiricists than with the rationalists, if we have to choose between the two labels. And I have followed this procedure in the present volume, while at the same time I have attempted to point out some of the requisite qualifications.

The real father of classical British empiricism, however, was John Locke , whose declared aim was to inquire into the source, certainty and extent of human knowledge, and also into the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion and assent. In connection with the first problem, the source of our knowledge, he delivered a vigorous attack on the theory of innate ideas.

He then attempted to show how all the ideas which we have can be explained on the hypothesis that they originate in sense-perception and in introspection or, as he put it, reflection. But though Locke asserted the ultimately experimental origin of all our ideas, he did not restrict knowledge to the immediate data of experience. On the contrary, there are complex ideas, built up out of simple ideas, which have objective references. Thus we have, for example, the idea of material substance, the idea of a substratum which supports primary qualities, such as extension, and those 'powers' which produce in the percipient subject ideas of colour, sound and so on.

And Locke was convinced that there actually are particular material substances, even though we can never perceive them. Similarly, we have the complex idea of the causal relation; and Locke used the principle of causality to demonstrate the existence of God, of a being, that is to say, who is not the object of direct experience.

In other words, Locke combined the empiricist thesis that all our ideas originate in experience with a modest metaphysics. And if there were no Berkeley and no Hume, we might be inclined to look on Locke's philosophy as a watered-down form of Scholasticism, with Cartesian elements thrown in, the whole being expressed in a sometimes confused and inconsistent manner. In point of fact, however, we not unnaturally tend to regard his philosophy as the point of departure for his empiricist successors.

Berkeley attacked Locke's conception of material substance. He had, indeed, a particular motive for dwelling at length on this point. For he considered that belief in r.

But he had of course other grounds for attacking Locke's thesis. There was the generai empiricist ground or reason, namely, that material substance as defined by Locke is an unknowable substrate. We have, therefore, no clear idea of it, and we have no warrant for saying that it exists. A so-called material thing is simply what we perceive it to be. But nobody has perceived or can perceive an imperceptible substrate.

Experience, then, gives us no ground for asserting its existence. But there were other reasons which arose out of Locke's unfortunate habit or common, though not invariable, practice of speaking as though it is ideas which we perceive directly, and not things. Starting with Locke's position in regard to secondary and primary qualities which will be explained in the chapter on Locke , Berkeley argued that all of them, including the primary qualities, such as extension, figure and motion, are ideas.

Hethen asked how ideas could possibly exist in or be supported by a material substance. If all that we perceive is ideas, these ideas must exist in minds. To say that they exist in an unknowable, material substrate is to make an unintelligible statement.

The latter has no possible function to fulfil. To say that Berkeley got rid of Locke's material substance is to mention only one aspect of his empiricism. And just as Locke's empiricism is only a part of his philosophy, so is Berkeley's empiricism only one aspect of his philosophy. For he went on to build up a speculative idealist metaphysic, for which the only realities are God, finite minds and the ideas of finite minds. And this attempt to erect a metaphysical phllosophy on the basis of a phenomenalistic account of material things constitutes one of the chief points of interest in Berkeley's thought.

But in giving a brief and necessarily inadequate sketch of the development of classical British empiricism it is sufficient to draw attention to his elimination of Locke's material suostance.

If we leave aside the theory of 'ideas', we can say that for Berkeley the so-called material thing or sensible object consists simply of? And this, in Berkeley's opinion, is precisely what the man-in-the-street be. For he has never heard of, let alone percelved, any occult substance or substratum. And we perceive, and can perceive, only qualities.

Now, Berkeley's phenomenalistic analysis of material things was not extended to finite selves. In other words, though he eliminated material substance, he retained spiritual substance.

Hume I7II , however, proceeded to eliminate spiritual substance as well. All our ideas are derived from impressions, the elementary data of experience. And in order to determine the objective reference of any complex idea, we have to ask, from what impressions is it derived. Now, there is no impression of a spiritual substance. If I look into myself, I perceive only a series of psychic events such as desires. Nowhere do I perceive an underlying, permanent substance or soul.

That we have some idea of a spiritual substance can be explained by reference to the working of mental association; but we have no ground for asserting that such a substance exists.

Analysis of the idea of spiritual substance, however, does not occupy so prominent a position in Hume's writings as his analysis of the causal relation. In accordance with his regular programme he asks from what impression or impressions is our idea of causality derived. And he answers that all that we observe is constant conjunction. When, for example, A is always followed by B, in such a. To be sure, the idea of necessary connection also belongs to our idea of causality.

But we cannot point to any senseimpression from which it is derived. The idea can be explained with the help of the principle of association: it is, so to speak, a subjective contribution.

We can inspect the objective relations between cause A and effect B as long as we like; we shall find nothing more than constant conjunction. In this case we obviously cannot legitimately use the principle of causality to transcend experience in such a way as to extend our knowledge. We say that A is the cause of B because, so far as our experience goes, we find that the occurrence of A is always followed by the occurrence of B and that B never occurs when A has not previously occurred.

We cannot argue, therefore, that phenomena are caused by substances which are not only never observed but also in principle unobservable. Nor can we argue, as in their different ways both Locke and Berkeley argued, to the existence of God.

We can form a hypothesis if we like; but no causal argument in favour of God's existence can possibly give us any certain knowledge. For God transcends our experience. With Hume, therefore, the metaphysics of both Locke and Berkeley go overboard, and both minds and bodies are analysed in phenomenalistic terms. In fact we can be certain of very little, and scepticism may seem to result. But, as will be seen later, Hume answers that we cannot live and act in accordance with pure scepticism.

Practical life rests on beliefs, such as beliefin the uniformity of nature, which cannot be given any adequate rational justification. The aspect of classical British empiricism which first impresses itself on the mind is perhaps its negative aspect, namely, the progressive elimination of traditional metaphysics. But it is important to note the more positive aspects. For example, we can see the growth of the approach to philosophy which is now generally known as logical or linguistic analysis.

Berkeley asks what it means to say of a material thing that it exists. And he answers that to say that a material thing exists is to say that it is perceived by a subject. Hume asks what it means to say that A is the cause of B, and he gives a phenomenalistic answer.

Moreover; in the philosophy of Hume we can find all the main tenets of what is sometimes called 'logical empiricism'. That this is the case will be shown later. But it is worth while pointing out in advance that Hume is very much a living philosopher.

True, he often expresses in. But this does not affect the fact that he is one of those philosophers whose thought is a living force in contemporary philosophy. The succeeding century is not marked to the same extent by brilliant and bold metaphysical speculation, and in its last decades philosophy takes a new tum with the thought of Immanuel Kant. If we leave out of account Francis Bacon, we can say that the seventeenth century is headed by two systems, that of Descartes on the Continent and that of Hobbes in England.

From both the epistemological and the metaphysical points of view their philosophies are very different. But both men were influenced by the ideal of mathematical method, and both were systematizers on the grand scale. One can note that Hobbes, who had personal relations with Mersenne, a friend of Descartes, was acquainted with the latter's Meditations and wrote a series of objections against them, to which Descartes replied.

The philosophy of Hobbes excited a sharp reaction in England. In particular the so-called Cambridge Platonists, such as Cudworth and Henry More , opposed his materialism and detenninism and what they regarded as his atheism. They were also opposed to empiricism and are frequently called 'rationalists'. But though some of them were, indeed, influenced to a minor extent by Descartes, their rationalism sprang rather from other sources.

They believed in fundamental speculative and ethical truths or principles which are not derived from experience but discerned immediately by reason, and which reflect the eternal divine truth. They were also concerned to show the reasonableness of Christianity. They can be called Christian Platonists, provided that the term 'Platonist' is understood in a wide sense.

In histories of philosophy they are rarely accorded a prominent position. But it is as well to remember their existence if for no other reason than as a corrective to the not uncommon persuasion that British philosophy has been throughout empiricist in character, apart, of course, from the idealist interlude of the second half of the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth centuries. Empiricism is doubtless the distinguishing characteristic of English philosophy; but at the same time there is another, if less prominent, tradition, of which Cambridge Platonism in the seventeenth century forms one phase.

Cartesian ism was far more influential on the Continent than was the system of Hobbes in England. At the same time it is a mistake to think that Cartesianism swept everything before it, even in France. Pascal, the Kierkegaard. In the interests of Christian apologetics he emphasized on the one hand the weakness of man and on the other his need of faith, of submission to revelation and of supernatural grace. We have already seen that Descartes left behind him a legacy 10 the form of. Among their names we sometimes find that of Malebranche As it is, his philosophy remains one of the most notable products of French thought.

Incidentally, it exercised some influence on the mind of Bishop Berkeley in the eighteenth century. In the seventeenth century we have, therefore, the systems of Hobbes, Descartes and Malebranche. But these philosophies are by no means the only notable achievements of the century. But their lives, as well as their philosophies, were very different. Spinoza was more or less a recluse, a man dominated by a vision of the one reality, the one divine and eternal substance, which manifests itself in those finite modifications which we call 'things'.

This one substance he called God or Nature. Obviously, we have here an ambiguity. If we emphasize the second name, we have a naturalistic monism in which the God Of. Locke, on the contrary, was by no means a recluse. A friend of scientists and philosophers, he moved on the fringe of the great world and held some government posts.

His philosophy, as has already been remarked, followed a rather traditional pattern; he was much respected; and he influenced profoundly not only the subsequent development of British philosophy but also the philosophy of the French Enlightenment in the eighteenth century.

Indeed, in the extent of Locke's influence we see an evident refutation of the notion that British and continental thought in the pre-Kantian era flowed in parallel channels without any intermingling of their waters. In , ten years after the birth of Locke, there was born another of the most influential figures in modern thought, Isaac Newton.

He was not, of course, primarily a philosopher, as we understand the word today, and his great importance consists in the fact that he completed to all intents and purposes the classical scientific conception of the world which Galileo in particular had done so much to promote.

But Newton laid more stress than had Galileo on empirical observation, induction and the place of probability in science. And for this reason his physics tended to undermine the Galilean-Cartesian ideal of a priori method and to encourage the empiricist approach in the field of philosophy.

Thus he influenced the mind of Hume to a considerable extent. At the same time, though Newton was not primarily a philosopher, he did not hesitate to go beyond physics or 'experimental philosophy' and to indulge in metaphysical speculation. Indeed, the confident way in which he drew metaphysical conclusions from physical hypotheses was attacked by Berkeley who saw that the tenuous character of the connections between Newton's physics and his theological conclusions might make a for Berkeley unfortunate impression on men's minds.

And in point of fact a number of French philosophers of the eighteenth century, while accepting Newton's general approach to physics, employed it in a nontheistic setting which was alien to the latter's mind.

At the end of the eighteenth century Newton's physics exercised a powerful influence on the thought of Kant. Though he lived until , Leibniz can be considered the last of the great seventeenth-century speculative philosophers. He evidently had some regard for Spinoza, though he did not manifest this regard to the public. Further, he attempted to hang Spinoza, as it were, round the neck of Descartes, as though the former's system were a logical development of the latter's.

In other words, he seems to have been at pains to make it clear that his own philosophy differed greatly from those of his predecessors or, more accurately, that it contained their good points while omitting the bad points in Cartesianism which led to its development into the system of Spinoza.

However this may be, there can be no doubt that Leibniz remained faithful to the general spirit and inspiration of continental rationalism. He made a careful critical study of Locke's empiricism, which was eventually published as New 32 33 Essays Concerning the Human Understanding. Like Newton and, indeed, like Descartes , Leibniz was an eminent mathematician, though he did not agree with Newton's theories about space and time; and he carried on a controversy about this subject with Samuel Clarke, one of the latter's disciples and admirers.

But though Leibniz was a great mathematician, and though the influence of his mathematical studies upon his philosophy is clear enough, his mind was so many-sided that it is not surprising if a great variety of elements and lines of thought can be found in his diverse writings. Again, through some aspects of his thought such as his interpretation of space and time as phenomenal, he prepared the way for Kant. If, however, one mentions the influence of Leibniz or his partial anticipation of a thesis maintained by a later thinker, this is not to deny that his system is interesting in itself.

This term can hardly be defined. For though we speak of the philosophy of the Enlightenment, no one school or set of determinate philosophical theories is meant. The term indicates, however, an attitude and a prevalent disposition of mind and outlook, and these can be described in a general way. Provided that the word 'rationalistic' is not understood as necessarily referring to rationalism in the sense explained in section two of this chapter, one can say that the general spirit of the Enlightenment was rationalistic in character.

Just as Newton had interpreted Nature and had set the pattern for the free, rational and unprejudiced investigation of the physical world, so should man employ his reason for interpreting moral, religious, social and political life. It may be said, of course, that the ideal of using the reason to interpret human life was in no way alien to the mediaeval mind.

And this is true. But the point is that the writers of the Enlightenment generally meant by reason a reason unhampered by belief in revelation, by submission to authority, by deference to established customs and institutions.

In the religious sphere some explained away religion in a naturalistic manner; but even those who retained religious belief based it simply on reason, without reference to unquestionable divine revelation or to emotional or mystical experience. In the moral sphere the tendency was to separate morality from all metaphysical and theological premisses and in this sense to make it autonomous.

In the social and political spheres too the characteristic thinkers of the Enlightenment endeavoured to discover a rational foundation for and justification of political society. Mention was made in the first section of this chapter of Hume's idea that a science of man was needed to complement the science of Nature. And this idea represents very well the spirit of the Enlightenment.

For the Enlightenment does not represent a humanistic reaction against the new development in science or natural philosophy, which began with the scientific phase of the Renaissance and which culminated in the work of Newton. It represents rather the extension of the scientific outlook to man himself and a combination of humanism, which had been a characteristic of the first phase of the Renaissance, with this scientific outlook.

There were, indeed, considerable differences between the ldeas of the various philosophers of the Enlightenment. Some believed in self-evident principles, the truth of which is immediately discerned by the unprejudiced reason. Others were empiricists. Some believed in God, others did not. Again, there were considerable differences of spirit between the phases of the Enlightenment in Britain, France and Germany.

In France, for example, the characteristic thinkers of the period were bitterly opposed to the ancien regime and to the Church. Hence we would not expect to find among the British philosophers of the Enlightenment the same degree of hostility towards the Established Church or towards the civil powers that we can find among a number of their French contemporaries.

Again, crudely materialistic interpretations of the human mind and of psychical processes were more characteristic of a certain section of French thinkers than of British thinkers of the time. At the same time, in spite of all differences in spirit and in particular tenets, there was considerable interchange of ideas between the writers of France and England.

Locke, for instance, exercised a very considerable influence on eighteenth-century thought in France. There existed in fact a kind of international and cosmopolitan-minded set of thinkers and writers who were.

And they looked on philosophy as an instrument of liberation, enlightenment and social and political progress. They were, in short, rationalists more or less in the modern sense, freethinkers with a profound ccnfidence in the power of reason to promote the betterment of man and of society and with a belief in the deleterious effects of ecclesiastical and political absolutism.

Or, to put the matter another way, the liberal and humanitarian rationalists of the nineteenth century were the descendants of the characteristic thinkers of the Enlightenment.

The great systems of the seventeenth century helped, of course, to prepare the way for the Enlightenment. But in the eighteenth century we find not so much outstanding philosophers elaborating original and mutually incompatible metaphysical systems as a comparatively large number of writers with a belief in progress and a conviction that 'enlightenment', diffused through philosophical reflection, would secure in man's moral, social and political life a degree of progress worthy of an age which already possessed a scientific interpretation of Nature.

The eighteenthcentury philosophers in France were scarcely of the stature of Descartes. But their writings, easily understandable by educated people and sometimes superficial, were undeniably influential.

They contributed to the coming of the French Revolution. One may have a favourable or an unfavourable view of the ideas of men such as Diderot and Voltaire; but one can hardly deny that.

In England, Locke's writings contributed to the philosophical current of thought which is known as deism. In his work on the Reasonableness of Christianity and elsewhere he insisted on reason as the judge of revelation, though he did not reject the idea of revelation.

The deists, however, tended to reduce Christianity to natural religion. True, they differed considerably in their views about religion in general and Christianity in particular. But, while believing in God, they tended to reduce the Christian dogmas to truths which can be established by reason and to deny the unique and supernatural character of Christianity and God's miraculous intervention in the world.

Among the deists were John Toland , Matthew Tindal c. Among the opponents of the deists were Samuel Clarke and Bishop Butler , author of the famous work The A nalogy of Religion.

In eighteenth-century philosophy in England we find also a strong interest in ethics. Characteristic of the time is the moralsense theory, represented by Shaftesbury , Hutcheson , to a certain extent Butler, and Adam Smith 17 2 As against Hobbes's interpretation of man as fundamentally egoistic they insisted on man's social nature.

And they maintained that man possesses an inborn 'sense' or sentiment by which he discerns moral values and distinctions. David Hume had affiliations with this current of thought in that he found the basis of moral attitudes and distinctions in feeling rather than in reasoning or the intuition of eternal and self-evident principles.

But at the same timE: he contributed to the growth of utilitarianism. In the case of several important virtues, for example, the feeling or sentiment of moral approbation is directed towards that which is socially useful. In France utilitarianism was represented by Claude Helvetius , who did much to prepare the way for the utilitarian moral theories of Bentham, James and John Stuart Mill in the nineteenth century. In England David Hartley tried to explain man's mental life with the aid of the principle of association of ideas, combined with the theory that our ideas are faint copies of sensations.

He also tried to explain man's moral convictions with the aid of the same principle. And, in general, those moralists who started by assuming that man seeks by nature simply his own interest, in particular his own pleasure, used the principle to show how it is possible for man to seek virtue for its own sake and to act altruistically. For example, if the practice of some virtue is experienced by me as conducing to my own interest or benefit, I can come by the operation of the principle of association to approve of and practise this virtue without any advertence to the advantage which such conduct brings me.

The utilitarians of the nineteenth century made copious use of this principle in explaining how altruism is possible in spite of the supposed fact that man naturally seeks his own satisfaction and pleasure. The two outstanding eighteenth-century philosophers in Great Britain were obviously Berkeley and Hume. But it has already been mentioned that though the former's philosophy can be regarded as constituting a stage in the development of empiricism, it was at the same time much more than this.

For on an empiricist foundation Berkeley developed an idealist and spiritualist metaphysics, orientated towards the acceptance of Christianity. His philosophy thus stands apart not only from deism but also from the interpretations of man which have just been mentioned.

For the implicit tendency of the associationist current of thought was towards materialism and to the denial of any spiritual soul in man, whereas for Berkeley there are, besides God, only finite spirits and their ideas. Hume, however, though it would be wrong to call him a materialist, represents much better the spirit of the Enlightenment, with his empiricism, scepticism, liberalism and freedom from all theological assumptions and preoccupations.

In the last half of the century a reaction against empiricism and in favour of rationalism made itself felt. It was represented, for example, by Richard Price and Thomas Reid The former insisted that reason, not emotion, is authoritative in morals.

For Reid and his followers there are a number of selfevident principles, principles of 'common sense', which are the foundation of all reasoning and which neither admit of direct proof nor need it.

Just as the materialism of Hobbes stimulated the reaction of the Cambridge Platonists, so the empiricism of Hume stimulated a reaction. Indeed, there is continuity between the Cambridge Platonists and the Scottish philosophers of common sense, headed by Reid. Both groups represent a tradition in British philosophy which is weaker and less conspicuous than empiricism, but which is there none the less.

The deist movement in England had its counterpart in France. Voltaire , for example, was not an atheist, even though the Lisbon earthquake of , while not making him abandon all belief in God, caused him to modify his views about the relation of the world to God and about the nature of the divine activity. But atheism was represented by a considerable number of writers.

The Baron d'Holbach , for instance, was a pronounced atheist. Ignorance and fear led to belief in the gods, weakness worshipped them, credulity preserves them, tyranny uses religion for its own ends. La Mettrie SI was also an atheist, and he tried to improve on the assertion of Pierre Bayle that a State of atheists is possible l by saying that it is desirable. Again, Diderot , who was one of the editors of the Encyclopidie,2 passed from deism to atheism.

All these writers, both deists and atheists, were anti-clericals and hostile to Catholicism. Locke endeavoured to explain the ongm of our ideas on empiricist principles; but he did not reduce man's psychical life to sensation. Condillac 17IS , however, who aimed at developing a consistent empiricism, tried to explain all mental life in terms of sensations, 'transformed' sensations and signs or symbols.

His sensationalism, which was worked out in an elaborate manner, was influential in France; but for outspoken materialism we have to turn rather to other writers. This work edited by Diderot and d Alembert. According to him, the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile. Goethe later described the unpleasant impression made on him in his student days by d'Holbach's Systeme de la nature.

A materialist interpretation of man, however, by no means always involved a rejection of moral ideals and principles. Thus Diderot emphasized the ideal of self-sacrifice and demanded of man benevolence, pity and altruism.

D'Holbach, too, made morality consist in altruism, in service of the common good. And in the utilitarian theory of Helvetius the concept of the greatest possible happiness of the greatest number played a fundamental part. This moral idealism was, of course, separated from theological presuppositions and assumptions. Instead it was closely connected with the idea of social and legal reform. According to Helvetius, for example, the rational control of man's environment and the making of good laws would lead people to seek the public advantage.

And d'Holbach emphasized the need for social and political reorganization. With appropriate systems of legislation, supported by sensible sanctions, and of education, man would be induced by his pursuit of his own advantage to act virtuously, that is to say, in a manner useful to society.

It has been remarked that the characteristic writers of the French Enlightenment were opposed to political tyranny.