Condillac

Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de Mably de, philosopher, was born in 1715 at Grenoble. He was instructor to the Duke of Parma, Louis XIV.'s grandson, and for him many of his treatises were written. In his Essai sur l'Origine des Connaissances Humaines he contends against the doctrine of innate ideas, and in the Traite des Systemes he supports the theory that knowledge is based on experience. Other of his works are Traite des Sensations, Traite des Animaux, and Le Commerce et le Gouvernement, which appeared in 1776, the same year as Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Condillac, too, was a free trader, and he treats political economy as the science of exchanges. In 1768 he was elected to the Academy, and in 1780 he died on his estate at Flux, near Beaugency.