Modern French Philosophy

his treatise, or _mémoire_, entitled Habitude, which appeared in 1803. This work well illustrates Maine de Biran's historical position in the development of French philosophy. It came at a tome when attention and interest, so far as philosophical problems were concerned, centred round two "foci." These respective centres are indicated by Destutt de Tracy,_*_ the disciple of Condillac on the one hand, and by Cabanis_/-_ on the other. Both were "ideologues" and were ridiculed by Napoleon who endeavoured to lay much blame upon the philosophers. We must notice, however, this difference. While the school of Condillac,_/=_ influenced by Locke, endeavoured to work out a psychology in terms of abstractions, Cabanis, anxious to be more concrete, attempted to interpret the life of the mind by reference to physical and physiological phenomena.

[Footnote _*_ : Destutt de Tracy, 1754-1836. His Elements of Ideology appeared in 1801. He succeeded Cabanis in the Académie in 1808, and in a complimentary