CONDILLAC, Etienne Bonnot de.

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Traité des Animaux, First edition of this study of animal intelligence by one of the leading figures of the French Enlightenment, in a well-preserved contemporary binding. Etienne Bonnot de Condillac (1715-1780), a radical empiricist philosopher, was, after Voltaire, the leading exponent of John Locke in 18th-century France. His network variously included such figures as Diderot, Helvetius, and Rousseau. In the Traité, Condillac extends his adaptation of Lockean empiricism to focus on the difference between God's relationship with humans and with animals. As this implies, Condillac's tract is as concerned with the intelligence of humans as it is with that of animals. In particular, he concludes that, in contrast to humans, the inability of animals to comprehend moral laws, and their corresponding inability to obey God knowingly, precludes the immortality of their souls.

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