Page:Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica - with preliminary dissertations on the history of the sciences - illustrated by engravings (IA gri 33125011196181).pdf/164

110 of the sources of our knowledge, according to the principles of the Epicurean philosophy; —so very little is there of novelty mm the consequences deduced by modern materialists from the scholastic proposition, . The same doctrine is very concisely and explicitly stated in a maxim formerly quoted from Montaigne, that “the senses are the beginning and end of all our knowledge;”—a maxim which Montaigne learned from his oracle Raymond de Sebonde;—which, by the present race of French philosophers, is almost universally supposed to be sanctioned by the authority of Locke;—and which, if true, would at once cut up by the roots, not only all metaphysics, but all ethics, and all religion, both natural and revealed. It is accordingly with this very maxim that Madame du Deffand (in a letter which rivals anything that the fancy of Moliere has conceived in his Femmes Savantes) assails Voltaire for his imbecility in attempting a reply to an atheistical book then recently published. In justice to this celebrated lady, I shall transcribe part of it in her own words, as a precious and authentic document of the philosophical tone affected by the higher orders in France, during the reign of Louis XV.

“J’entends parler d’une refutation d’un certain livre, (Systême de la Nature.) Je voudrois l’avoir. Je m’en tiens à connoitre ce livre par vous. Toutes refutations de systême doivent être bonnes, surtout quand c’est vous qui les faites. Mais, mon cher Voltaire, ne vous ennuyez-vous pas de tous les raisonnemens métaphysiques sur les matières inintelligibles. Peut-on donner des idées, ou peut-on en admettre d’autres que celles que nous reçevons par nos sens?”—If the Senses be the beginning and end of all our knowledge, the inference here pointed at is quite irresistible.

A learned and profound writer has lately complained of the injustice done by the present age to Gassendi; in whose works, he asserts, may be found the whole of the doctrine commonly ascribed to Locke concerning the origin of our knowledge. The re-