The paradigm in which De Tracy and other French liberals operated diverged significantly from the British Classical School, (1) springing from the contributions of French physiocrats and having been "nourished by a long and glorious tradition which reached back through
Condillac, Turgot, Quesnay and Cantillon to the Scholastics" (Salerno, 1978, p.
The interest went as far as trying to imagine how the representations of the world would change, should de number of human senses increase or decrease (de
Condillac, 1754).
About two millennia later origin was a major topic, with works on the subject by Burke,
Condillac, Herder and Rousseau.
Featuring detailed readings of Etienne Bonnot de
Condillac's Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge and Adam Ferguson's Essay on the History of Civil Society, the opening chapter demonstrates the frequency with which the primitive period of human history was compared to the early stages of an individual's life.
(15) Etienne Bonnet de
Condillac, Traite des sensations [1754] (Paris: Fayard, 1984), 30.
In his twenty-page essay on psychology, for example, Gary Hatfield refers to Lotze, Fechner, Helmholtz, Wundt, Spencer, Darwin, Aristotle, Descartes, Moleschott, Berkeley, Hume, Spinoza, Reid,
Condillac, Hartley, Bonnet, Priestley, Herbart, and many more.