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[ Interesting details are found in the little stories by Diderot as, for instance, "Les deux amis de Bourbonne." But elsewhere he is a partisan, especially in the "Religieuse," and conveys a false impression of things.]
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[ "To attain to the truth we have only to fix our attention on the ideas which each one finds within his own mind." (Malebranche, "Recherche de la Vérité," book I. ch. 1.)—"Those long chains of reasoning, all simple and easy, which geometers use to arrive at their most difficult demonstrations, suggested to me that all things which come within human knowledge must follow each other in a similar chain." (Descartes, "Discours de la Methode," I. 142).—In the seventeenth century In the 17th century constructions a priori were based on ideas, in the 18th century on sensations, but always following the same mathematical method fully displayed in the "Ethics" of Spinoza.]
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[ See especially his memoir: "De l'influence du climat sur les habitudes morales," vague, and wholly barren of illustrations excepting one citation from Hippocrates.]
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[ These are Sieyès own words.—He adds elsewhere, "There is no more reality in assumed historical truths than in assumed religious truths." ("Papiers de Sieyès," the year 1772, according to Sainte-Beuve, "Causeries du lundi," V. 194).—Descartes and Malebranche already expressed this contempt for history.]
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[ Today, in 1998, we know that Taine was right. The research on animal and human behavior, on animal and human brain circuitry, and the behavior of the cruel human animal during the 20th century, confirmed his views. Still mankind persists in preferring simple solutions and ideas to complex ones. This is the way our brains and our nature as gregarious animals make us think and feel. This our basic human nature make ambitious men able to appeal to and dominate the crowd. (SR.)]