Ethics: Origin and Development

happiness: his very nature urges him to avoid suffering and to seek pleasure. In his search for happiness man is guided by Reason, i.e., by the knowledge of true happiness and of the means for its attainment.11 Justice consists in permitting man to avail himself, or in not interfering with his availing himself, of his abilities, his rights, and of everything necessary for life and happines.12 Holbach's ideas were shared by most of the French Encyclopædists, who were on very friendly terms with Holbach. His salon in Paris was the gathering place for the most prominent thinkers of that time: Diderot, d'Alembert, Grimm, Rousseau, Marmontel, and others. Through them Holbach's ideas received further development and became one of the fundamental elements in the philosophic system of the Encyclopædists.13 The Encyclopædists and their philosophy are the principal and the most characteristic expression of the spirit of the eighteenth century. The Encyclopædia sums up all the achievements of mankind in the realm of science and politics up to the end of that period. It constitutes a real monument of the scientific thought of the eighteenth century, for it was produced by the collaboration of all the liberally minded, notable men of France; and they evolved that spirit of destructive criticism which later served to inspire the best men of the Great Revolution.

As is known, the initiators and the inspirers of the Encyclopædia were the philosophers Diderot (1713-1784) and d'Alembert (1717-1783). The Encyclopædists aimed at the liberation of the human mind through knowledge; they took a hostile attitude toward the government and toward all the traditional ideas upon which the old social order rested. No wonder, therefore, that both the government and the clergy, from the very outset, declared war against the Encyclopædists and put many obstacles in the way of the Encyclopædia.

The ethics of the Encyclopædists was, of course, in accord with the ideas prevalent at that time in France. Its basic principles may be stated as follows: man strives for happiness, and for its attainment men combine into societies; all men have equal rights to happiness, and consequently to the means of reaching this happiness; therefore, the just is identified with the useful.

Misunderstandings that arise from conflicts between various rights should be adjusted by the laws, which are the expression of the common will and which must sanctify only that which is useful for the happiness of all. The same general tendency was followed by Abbé Raynal (1713-1796), whose work, "History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the Indies," was written so much in the spirit of the Encyclopædia that by many it was ascribed to Diderot. It was written in such an attractive style that it went through several