Condillac, Stephen-Bonnot De

, of the French academy and that of Berlin, abbe of Mureaux, preceptor of the infant don Ferdinand duke of Parma, was born at Grenoble about the year 1715, and died of a putrid fever at his estate of Flux near Baugenci, the 2dof August 1780. Strong sense, sound judgment, a clear and profound knowledge of metaphysics, a well chosen and extensive reading, a sedate character, manners grave without austerity, a style | rather sententious, a greater facility in writing than in speaking, more philosophy than sensibility and imagination; form, according to the opinion of his countrymen, the principal features in the portrait of the abbe de Condillac. A collection in 3 vols. 12mo, under the title of his Works, contains his essay on the origin of human sciences, his treatise of sensations, his treatise of systems; all performances replete with striking and novel ideas, advanced with boldness, and in which the modern philosophic style seems perfectly natural to the author. His “Course of Study,” 1776, 16 vols. 12mo, composed for the instruction of his illustrious pupil, is esteemed the best of his works. He also wrote “Commerce and Government considered in their mutual relations,” 12mo, a book which has been decried by anti-qeconomists, and it is allowed by his admirers that it might have been as well if the author had not laid down, certain systems on the commerce of grain; that he had given his principles an air less profound and abstracted, and that on those matters that are of moment to all men, he had written for the perusal of all men. It is observed in some of the abbe Condillac’s works, that he had a high opinion of his own merit, and thought it his duty not to conceal it. He has also been more justly censured for having, in his treatise of “Sensations,” established principles from which the materialists have drawn pernicious conclusions and that in his course of study, he has, like an incompetent judge, condemned several flights of Boileau, by submitting poetry, which in its very nature is free, irregular, and bold, to the rules of geometry. His works we may suppose are still in favour in France, as a complete edition was printed in 1798, in 25 vols. 8vo. ¹