erved was suppressed by Destutt de Tracy (1754-1836);
his ideology was no more than a province of zoology.

The morals of the sensationalist school were expressed by
CLAUDE-ADRIEN HELVETIUS (1715-71), a worthy and benevolent
farmer-general. The motive of all our actions is self-love, that
tendency which leads us to seek for pleasure and avoid pain; but,
by education and legislation, self-love can be guided and trained
so that it shall harmonise with the public good. It remained for a
German acclimatised to Paris to compile the full manifesto of
atheistic materialism. At Holbach's hospitable table the
philosophers met, and the air was charged with ideas. To condense
these into a system was Holbach's task. Diderot, Lagrange, Naigeon
may have lent their assistance, but PAUL-HENRY THIRY, BARON D'HOLBACH
(1723-89) must be regarded as substantially the author of the _Systeme
de la Nature_ (1770), which the title-page prudently attributed to
the deceased Mirabaud. What do we desire but that men should be happy,
just, benevolent? That they may become so, it is necessary to deliver
them from those errors on which political and spiritual despotism
is founded, from the chains of tyrants and the chimeras of priests,
and to lead them back from illusions to nature, of which man is a
part. We find everywhere matter and motion, a chain of material causes
and effects, nor can we find aught beside these. An ever-circulating
system of motions connects inorganic and organic nature, fire and
air and plant and animal; free-will is as much excluded as God and
His miraculous providence. The soul is nothing but the brain receiving
and transmitting motions; morals form a department of physiology.
Religions and governments, as they exist, are based on error, and
drive men into crime. But though Holbach "accommodated atheism," as
Grimm puts it, "to chambermaids and hairdressers," he would not hurry
forward a revolution. All will come in good time; in some happier
day Nature and her daughters Virtue, Reason, and Truth will alone
receive the adoration of mankind.[1]

[Footnote 1: The Swiss naturalist Charles Bonnet (1720-93)
endeavoured to reconcile his sensationalism with a religious faith
and a private interpretation of Christianity.]

Among the friends of Holbach and Helvetius was C.-F. de Chasseboeuf,
Count de VOLNEY (1757-1820), who modified and developed the ethics
of Helvetius. An Orientalist by his studies, he travelled in Egypt
and Syri