6/30 "The virtues are only virtues because they are useful to the human race." OEuvres choisis (ed. 211.] As, a hundred years before, his influence had inspired the foundation of the Royal Society, so now his name was invoked by the founders of the Encyclopaedia. [Footnote: See d'Alembert's tribute to him in the Discours preliminaire.] Beneath all philosophical speculation there is an undercurrent of emotion, and in the French philosophers of the eighteenth century this emotional force was strong and even violent. They aimed at practical results. |