Monadology only the
beginning, not the essence, of psychical activity, while Condillac makes
no distinction between beginning and ground, but expressly identifies
_principe_ and _commencement_. With Fichte and Leibnitz sensation is
immature thought, with Condillac thought is refined sensation. The former
teach a teleological, the latter a mechanical mono-dynamism. The Science
of Knowledge, moreover, makes a very serious task of the deduction of the
particular psychical functions from the original power, while Condillac
takes it extraordinarily easy. Good illustrations of his way of effacing
distinctions instead of explaining them are given by such monotonously
recurring phrases as memory is "nothing but" modified sensation; comparison
and simultaneous attention to two ideas "are the same thing"; sensation
"gradually becomes" comparison and judgment; reflection is "in its origin"
attention itself; speech, thought, and the formation of general notions
are "at bottom the same"; the passions are "only" various kinds of desire;
understanding and will spring "from one root," etc.

The demand for a single fundamental psychical power comes from Descartes,
and Condillac does not hesitate to retain the word _penser_ itself as a
general designation for all mental functions. Similarly he holds fast to
the dualism between extension and sensation as reciprocally incompatible
properties, opposes the soul as the "simple" subject of thought to
"divisible" matter, and sees in the affections of the bodily organs merely
the "occasions" on which the soul of itself alone exercises its sensitive
activity. Even freedom--the supremacy of thought over the passions--is
maintained, in striking contrast to the whole tendency of his doctrine and
to the openly announced principle, that pleasure controls the attention and
governs all our actions. He has just as little intention of doubting the
existence of God. All is dependent on God. He is our lawgiver; it is in
virtue of his wisdom that from small beginnings--perception and need--the
most splendid results, science and morality, are developed under the hands
of man. Whoever undertakes to complain that He has concealed from us the
nature of things and granted us to know relations alone, forgets that we
need no more than this. We do not exist in order to know; to live is to
enjoy.

The theme of the _Treatise on the Sensations_, 1754, is: Memory,
comparison, judgment, abstraction, and reflection (in a