ist, although not what it is. By force we mean the
unknown, but indubitably existent, cause of motion.

There are no indifferent mental states; every sensation is accompanied by
pleasure or pain. Joy and pain give the determining law for the operation
of our faculties. The soul dwells longer on agreeable sensations; without
interest, ideas would pass away like shadows. The remembrance of past
impressions more agreeable than the present ones is need; from this
springs desire (_desir_) then the emotions of love, hate, hope, fear, and
astonishment; finally, the will as an unconditional desire accompanied by
the thought of its possible fulfillment. All inclinations, good and bad
alike, spring from self-love. The predicates "good" and "beautiful"
denote the pleasure-giving qualities of things, the former, that which is
agreeable to smell and taste (and the passions), the latter, that which
pleases sight, hearing, feeling (and the intellect). Morality is the
conformity of our actions to laws, which men have established by convention
with mutual obligations. In this way the good, which at first was the
servant of the passions, becomes their lord.

Man's superiority to the brute depends on the greater perfection of his
sense of touch; on the greater variety of his wants and his associations
of ideas; on the idea of death, which leads him to seek not merely the
avoidance of pain but also self-preservation; and the possession of
language. Without denomination no abstractions, no thought, no handing
down of knowledge. Although all that is mental has its origin, in the last
analysis, in simple sensations, its development requires emancipation from
the sensuous, and language is the means for freeing ourselves from the
pressure of sensations by the generalization and combination of ideas.

A more moderate representative of sensationalism was Charles Bonnet, who
later exercised a considerable influence in Germany, especially until
Tetens (1720-93; _Essay in Psychology, or Considerations on the Operations
of the Soul_, 1755; _Analytical Essay on the Faculties of the Soul_, 1760;
_Philosophical Palingenesis, or Ideas on the Past and the Future of Living
Beings_, 1769, including a defense of Christianity; _Collected Works_,
1779). Sensations, to which he, too, reduces all mental life, are, in his
view, reactions of the immaterial soul to sense stimuli, which operate
merely as occasional causes. On the other hand, he emphasizes more stron