M.Picavet's laborious researches into the activities of this school of thinkers has helped us to understand the transition from the age of Condorcet to the age of Comte.

The two central figures are Cabanis, the friend of Condorcet, [Footnote: He has already claimed our notice, above, p.

215.] and Destutt de Tracy.

M.Picavet has grouped around them, along with many obscurer names, the great scientific men of the time, like Laplace, Bichat, Lamarck, as all in the direct line of eighteenth century thought.

"Ideologists" he calls them.