ON THE PHILOSOPHY
OF THE
FIRST PAPER PREPARED
FOR THE
Acadenmy  f Sciences,
OF
NEW ORIJLEAN-S,
April 13th, "18741.
BY
SARAH A. DORSEY..a... —..,~.,.._
(GEORGE ELI,IIS & BROT''Ht].
PUBLISHERS,No. 82 Camplll Street.
NEIW ORLEANS, LA..
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ON THE PHILOSOPHY
OF THE
FIRST PAPER PREPARED
FOR THE
Academy of Sciences,
OF
NT1EW ORI  l:EANX S,
April 13th, 1874.
BY
SARAH At DORSEY.
(GEORGE ELLIS & BROTHER,
PUBLISHER,
No. 82 Camp Street,
NEW ORLEANS, LA.








PREFACE.
This Paper was read before the ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF
NEW ORLEANS, in order to call their attention to this eminent
school of philosophy. I have used freely, not only the ideas, but the
words of great Thinkers, of Mr. Janet and others, preferring them to
my own cruder expressions. I have translated into English, the work
of M. Lachelier, "Upon the Basis of Induction," which will probably soon be printed; and I am also translating the work of Mr. Fouillee
upon " Free Will and Necessity, and I may add also those of Messrs.
Janet and Ravaisson if I have health and leisure for this delightful
labor of Love. My object is to call the attention of Thinkers to the
works of these philosophers, not to gain fame for myself or credit for
any originality of thought. I desire simply to serve my own people
as I can best.
SARAH A. DORSEY.
Beauvoir, April 22d, 1874.








LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.
It is with considerable alarm that I survey the audience before me! I had
expected simply to read a purely metaphysical Lecture before a few scientific men,
whose skill in research, and habits of logical thought, would kindly receive my imperfect suggestions, and supply all the deficiences of argument, or of interest in a
subject outside, of popular reading and conversation! I shall have to solicit your
forbearance in my behalf, as I am unaccustomed to appear befbre audiences like this.
I shall therefore cast myself unreservedly upon your mercy, and beg you to pardon
me if I address myself chiefly to the gentlemen by whose flattering invitation I come
here to-night.
MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTL,EMIEN OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.
It is a great pleasure to be permitted to appear before you this evening! Recognising as I do the fact, that therle is sex in all high organisms, for however true it is, that
as the source of Life is one, so the source of all intellect is one; yet as life eventuates
differently in different organizations, so intellect nmust be affected by peculiarity of
the organism-at least in its manifestation and exhibition to the external world. The
intellect must exhibit itself as either masculine or feminine, according to the organization through which it acts. There must be a difference, and that difference ought
to be valuable and interesting to philosophers. Therefore, it is important that thinking men should know something of the thoughts of Women. I do not recognise any
antagonism or any inequality in value, of the intellect of the sexes; the one is simply
the complement of the other, of the Two, the intellect of Woman is probably more
composed of the results of reflex action of the race, thought and habit than that of
man. She seems to be in some sort, the granary of humanity! She has more of the
treasures of race posited in her than man has. She has more and quicker intuition,
and of what is called instinct, than he has; and philosophers teach that intuition is
the ultimate product of voluntary race, thought and habit. The celebrated Dr.
Meigs, of Philadelphia, in one of his Lectures to his pupils, says: " Woman is not a
part of the race. She is the race! " He was speaking of her physically, but it seems
to me the, definition might be extended also to mental and spiritual, as well as to
physical conditions. Woman is the depository of the germs of human thought and
spirit as well as those of vital reproduction; man by his superior physical strength
and will, conquers new domains of spirit and thought, wresting them fmim out the
infinite Unknown, painfully. They, the conquered activities and impulses pass into
reflex habits, and are garnered up finally as intuitions, chiefly in the daughters of his
race. It is from noble mothers that noble men usually proceed. So the- duties, work
and education of the sexes should be, and will be different; but one is as valuable as
the other; therefore I am glad to be permitted to read before you to-night, as a
Woman of my people appearing before the bar of the thinking men of' my own race!
It is an evidence of liberal feeling upon your part, towards my sex, and so I have
accepted it, not that I would desire to see Woman grow less feminine, but more so,
and to see them accept frankly, not their rights, but all their RESPONSIBILITIES!




All of you must have observed, as I have done the changes in philosophy during
the past twenty years. Formerly in the Schools of the United States, the Scotch
metaphysics were taught. Reid and Stuart and Brown and later Hamilton. In
the University of Virginia, which has a wider curriculum than any of the other
colleges, they united to these, the French School of Cousin and Jouffroy. Now, nothing
is read or talked of but the Insular School of Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Herbert
Spencer, and all the rest of the English Savans, who are nearly all materialistic in
their teachings, though from this, we should-except partially, Herbert Spencer, who
on one side, at least may be called spiritualistic, that is he acknowledges "The
pprobability of a First Principle of things." Though he goes no farther than this, yet
this separates him positively from Comte, and the French and English materialists,
who acknowledge only the one Law of Efficient Causes, ignoring the higher and
wider Law of Final Causes. If I should say in painting a picture that it was
caused by the concurrence of the factors or Efficient Causes of pencils, canvass,
paints, &c., it would be quite as reasonable as this, for I should then ignore in my
little work, the real and final cause, my thought which willed to create the picture
from the Efficient causes of paint, canvass, &c. There is springing up recently a
strong school in England, in sympathy with the philosophy of the University of
France. I am watching its progress with interest. Herbert Spencer, as I said
belongs to this school in a vague way. Among the finest thinkers of this recent school,
is the Hon. Roden Noel, whose last article in the Contemporary Review of Feb, 1874,
on Causality in will and motion, is a very magnificent piece of philosophic reasoning.
Under these circumstances, I have thought it good to call your attention to the
works of the present schoolmen of France, who are exerting to-day an influence as
valuable as the schoolmen of France ever did! Since the third Christian Century
all down the passing Centuries, we see what Mr. Carlyle calls so grandly " The Torchbearers of Intellect " passing down from hand to hand across the Ages the fiery
beacon-lights of Spiritual life and thought. You recall them! The great Doctors of
Lyons, of Paris, of Avignon, of Bordeaux, of Poitiers. You remember Abelard and
the Struggle for Liberty of thought in his day. They have been grand wrestlers
for Truth and freedom of Debate. Those noble French Philosophers they have ever
been, and they are so to-day.
I have thought it best in speaking of these Teachings to use so far as I could
with some modifications, a transcription from the French of M. Paul Janet, a member
of the Institute of France, who calls himself " a Demi-Spiritualist. "
Allow me to say here, that in the use of these words " Spiritual and Spiritualism."
I do so in the pure philosophic meaning of the terms, not in their ordinary acceptation. I use them as contra-distinguished from matter and materialism. I have no
knowledge whatever of the ordinary phenomena of what is commonly called Spiritualism. I accept fully the belief of Faraday and others in regard to the occult
physical Laws which govern and produce these phenomena. M. Janet then calls
himself a " Demi-Spiritualist, " not going to the extreme of the school, and therefore,
perhaps is better fitted to present fairly the teachings of this school, both critically
and analytically, and without partisanship, which last, though natural and valuable
as a working power in practical life, is eminently unphilosophical. A true philosopher
does not seek to establish dogmatically any Theory. He suggests Theories and 8eeks
Truth.
This subject was discussed partially here not very long ago, when an honored
member of this Academy and a life-long, dear personal Friend of my own pro



3
pounded here a Theory of Two Entities. A Theory controverted by some of you
It is in Essence, if not in form, an ancient and respectable Theory, coming down
through venerable tradition from the East, through Zoroaster and his philosophic
descendants ill Asia, Europe and now in America. The most famous ancient Teacher
of a similar doctrine, which has reached our time, is Lucretius in his poem De Natura,
where he unfolds the secret doctrines of the Epicurean philosophy. Epicurus taught
the eternity of matter in an infinite number of Entities perpetually metamorphosing,
just as clearly as the materialistic philosophers of our day.
The celebrated micrographs of France, Bichat and Charles Robin, who have done
so much for the science of general anatony, teach also a somewhat similar doctrine
to that of Lucretius, (1) that of the spontaneity of the action of matter and of its
Eternal metamorphoses, declaring any further knowledge of it outside of Human
Cognisance.
Mr. Claude Bernard, however, equally famous in the same line of science, adheres
pertinaciously to the doctrine of Final Causes, and is therefore Spiritualistic in his
philosophy denying the Spontaneity of matter. (See Introduction a la medicine experimentale, in 1867.)
Mr. Martineau, in England, maintains that God had matter co-eternal with him,
and yet, that Force, (or matter in motion) is will, with the element of thought left
out by us, but really present. Which is contradictory, for how can Force be Divine
will, if it hlas existed( always over against Divinity? Either there are Two Divinities
or there is but one.
How can there be Two Eternals, unless they are equally Infinite? How can
there be two Infinites? They would lbe destructive one of the other-one Entity
must be circumscribed and limited by the other, in order to continue to exist!
However we must confine, ourselves to the question of the hour. Can the Existence
of Spirit be proved by positive laws without going outside of the senses? I will
read you, what great Thinkers, not religious, or perhaps better to say, who are not
Christian men have to say about that. Science which is unjustly charged  with
Irreligion is really its humble handmaiden. It is much to add to positive Science
the certainty of the Existence of Spirit! C'est le premier pas qui coute!
The Philosophers of whom I am about to speak write only in foreign languages,
so that their works are sealed up treasures to many who have not the two keys
necessary to unlock their portals, viz: Leisure for study and some knowledge of
those Languages, as well as love for Learning. I regard myself as an humble housekeeper into whose hands these precious keys have been entrusted and, most gladly
I hasten to unclose the Storehouses into which I have access, at the bidding of those
of my own household, for my own people, to whom I owe myself, my existence, Imy
education, my thought, and all that I am! My object is simply to unfold the teachings of those philosophers, not to discuss or establish what they teach. That must
be a separate task for each Individual to do for him (,r herself.'We have to examine
to-night a new Phase of Spiritualistic Philosophy as exhibited in the works of the
present master of the University of France. We will take the three following works.
(1) See Richat's works " Sur Les Tissus."
(1) See Des Elemens Anatomigues, par Charles Robin.' Des Tissus."
" Programme du cour d'Histologies."
" Traite du microscope. "
De ]'appropriation des parties organique a l'acomplisement d'actions Determinees." All by
Charles Robin.




1. Report upon the Philosophy in France in the 18th Century. (Rapport sur la
philosophie en France an Dixhuitieme Siecle,) by Felix Ravaissou.
2. Of the Basis of Induction (Du Fondement de l'Induction,) by I. Lachelier.
3. Free will and necessity, (La Liberte et le Determinisme,) by Alfred Foullee.
A few years since, Spiritualistic Philosophy entered upon new paths. Some
youthful talents made their appearance in the daylight, some interesting attempts
of speculative syntheses have been essayed, a great ardour has manifested itself in
the French Normal School; all of which leads us to believe that the Philosophy of
the University eclipsed for the moment by the reactionary measures of 1852, will
soon recover all its strength and all its splendour. We wish to make this movement
of ideas better known, which as it is shut up in the interior of the School, is not
generally known and is not the less worthy of attention especially as it is probably
destined to exert some influence upon the future direction of thought in France and
in the world. We hope that, in spite of the dryness of the problems, our hearers
will follow us willingly into these regions of lofty abstraction and forgetting for one
instant the sorrowful debates of politics, that they will lift themselves up' with us
upon the summits of the cold, but vivifying and Eternal mountains of pure thought.
Is Spiritualism a philosophy which is able to lend itself to the changes, to the
mliovement of Progress, and is it susceptible of taking different forms, without contradicting and without destroying itself?
A great many excellent Thinkers do not believe this to be possible.
Spiritualism they say is truth, and there is but one truth. If you admit the
existence of God, the Soul, Freedom of will and a future life, you are Spiritualist; if
vou don't admit these, you are not. There is no medium. There is no choice
possible, between yes, or no, the True and the False; one can only vary in this by
deceiving oneself. Nevertheless, if instead of simply abandoning ourselves to this
clear, cutting'decision, we study the history of philosophy, we would readily see
that in all time and in every period, spiritualism has presented itself under the freest
and most varied forms. We might even postulate the contrary, and declare that it is
materilism which is immobile, and which has never clothed itself with a new form,
which remains always the same. All the grand ideas, all the original views of the
nature of things, belong to philosophers of the Spiritualistic School, largely understood. Without going back to antiquity where from Socrates to Plotinus all the
greatest schools were inspired with this spirit we find in the seventeenth Century
specially, a brilliant demonstration of this free fecundity in the bosom of Universal
thought. Descartes, Leibnitz and Malebranche, all three belong without doubt to the
type of spiritualistic philosophy; God, the soul, the future life, are for them certain
verities. We have here, however nevertheless, three systems of philosophy not only
different but even opposed one to the others. The Dualism  of Descartes, the
dynamism of Leibnitz, the occasionalism of Malebranche, are three separate hypotheses
differing in the most characteristic features, but which all expand freely in the broad
field of a common faith.
How can suich a liberty be refused to philosophy, when it is accorded to Theology
itself: without going outside of Catholicism  and beyond the 17th century, what
differences were there between the Christianity of Bossuet, that of Fenelon, or that
of Pascal, between the solid eclecticism of the one, the quietism of the other, the
jansenism of the third! One only may be called orthodox, and that one was Bossuet
(and to what degree, we may ask of.him even.) But in theology you have an
authority which fixes dogma; who shall decide in philosophy between the Spirit



5
ualists those which are regular, and those which are not so! We are not surprised
then to find, in contemporary Spiritualistic Philosophy, that there is manifesting
itself a tendency to movement, to novelties in thought, to liberty in speculation
more strongly marked than in any preceeding period of time. The field of doctrine
has enlarged itself and grown wide, at the risk sometimes of confounding itself
with doctrines neighboring to it, bat still different, this transformed and rejuvenated,
lbut sometimes too refined, and bold thought which seems to push freedom even to
audacity, has very legitimately awakened many scruples and provoked some wise
reserves. But in whatever manner we may look at it, we can only rejoice to see the
philosophy of the University of France enter again into the grand paths of free
metaphysics, attesting its vitality by such noble and strong writings, and teaching
once llore with such magnificent power.
Is it of any advantage that we have a philosophy of the University, a
philosophy of Schoolmen? That is precisely what we wish to examine here. The
fact is that slch a philosophy exists everywhere with more or less freedom, and that
everywhere also, it has difficulty with an orthodoxy too jealous, which suspects her,
and a revolutionary philosophy which insults her. (1) Taking the facts as they are,
we will attempt to explain the different phases and degrees through which the
philosophy of the University has passed, since its earliest representatives' until the
present actual epoch, and to show also the links which attach our new philosophers
to their ancestors, and where they separate themselves from them.
It would be a grave error to believe that the doctrines of the University have
always presented the characters of Unity, of fixity, of severe orthodoxy that we are
accustomed to impute to it. The expression even of Spiritualistic School was not
used in the beginning; the School at its debut called itself the Eclectic School, a
more comprehensive expression than the preceeding. From the first origin of this
school, we discover two different tendencies: the one more speculative, inclined towards Germany, the other more modest and altogether experimental inclined towards
Scotland. From 1820, to 1830, M. Cousin has evidently inclined towards the side of
Alexandriiism  and Hegelianism. Jouffroy on the contrary, pushed metaphysical
circumspection to a point which in another period would have made him accused
of positivism. When he said for instance that the problem of the Soul was "a premature problem," when he distinguished between the questions of fact and ulterior
questions, he had not very far to travel before declarin:, that these ulterior and
premature questions were in reality insoluble questions. A very great freedom thenl
marks the origin of contemporary spiritualism.
It was only at the end of 1830, that the new school took decided direction of the
Teachings of the University. It was between 1830 to 1874 that she was constituted
and took the title of the "official philosophy". Since then reacting partially against
the too negative philosophy of Scotland, which culminated by leaning at the salme
time towards Hamilton, and also on the other side against the speculative Pantheisin
of the School of Germany, more and more exaggerated by the Hegelian left side,
she circumscribed herself within the limits of a wise and correct spiritualism, putting
herself in accord as much as possible with common sense and with the beliefs of
natural Religion. It -was at this time that she let fall into disuse the primitive
name of the Eclectic School, to take the name and caxry the banner of the SApiritualistic
School of philosophy.
(1) See for instance in Germany, the fierce pamphlet of Schopenhaner upon the philosophy of
the University (Utter die'Universitats-philosophis.)




6
Nevertheless a new and important fact came now to give to this school a more
severely philosophical character and to furnish her with a more solid basis, than the
rather vague principles of Eclecticism  could give her. This was the discovery and
the publication of the writings of Maine de Biran. The fundamental idea of this
great thinker is that the soul has not only conciousness of the phenomena which
1pass within it, but also that it has a conciousness of itself considered as force, that
is to say that it feels in itself a power superior to all these phenomena, a power
capable of producing them, a power which subsists singly and identically the same
to itself, during all the variability of effects.
In this idea, tle spiritualistic school believes it has found a principle which
permits it to escape at the same time fi'om  Empiricism  and Pantheism, from
Empiricism  because Conciousness attains to something outside of and beyond
phenomena, from Pantheism  since the Conciousness of au individual and personal
force does not appear reconcileable with unity of substance. Such was the idea of
M. Felix Ravaisson expressed in an article upon M. Hamilton in the Revue des dleux
Mondes, (1) and which M. Vacher t developed in a memorable article of the DiCtionary
of philosophic sciences. Such was the idea which made the foundation of the
philosophical Teaching of the Normal School from 1840 until our day.
It is an error of M. Sainte Beuve who is ordinarily so very well informed, to
have believed that the influence of Biran was altogether recent in the University.
Nothing is less exact than to say this. The Leibnitzien and Biranian Dynamism has
been I repeat it, all the philosophy of the University since 1840. The teachings of
Emile Saisset, at the Normal School was essentially Biranian, and under his influence
the philosophy of Leibnitz prevailed over that of Descartes. (2)
In the eyes of a badly informed public Saisset was nothing more than a most
faithful Disciple of M. Cousin. In reality with a too carefully studied circumspection,
which was at once the characteristic and the defect of his work, he represented a
different and say personal tendency. M. Cousin in fact, while greatly admiring
Maine de Biran whom he called "the grandest metaphyscian of the Century" has
given but a feeble support to his ideas. He has never admitted for instance, that
which was the doctrine of Emile Saisset and later of all his disciples in the University
that all our metaphysical ideas cause, substance, unity, identity, duration, (excepting
the idea of the absolute) owed their origin to conciousness and not to pure reason.
As to the Leibnitzian dynamism, M. Cousin distrusts it exceedingly and prefers to it
the dualism  of Descartes, because although, always faithful to Eclecticism, he
endeavours to marry the one to the other. Upon this point also the teaching of
Emile Saisset wa-sbolder than that of his master and he was much inclined to confound matter with force. In fine, he held equally as Leibnitz, doctrine of Time and
Space, and that of an Eternal and Infinite Creation, a grave, and weighty Doctrine
which led him later into an interesting  controversy, with M. Henry Martin (of
Rennes.)
If I have insisted somewhat upon the philosophic role of Emile Saisset, at the
Normal School, it is because this role has been too soon forgotten; but I ought not
(1) See Revue 1st November 1840.
(2) In this order of ideas we should notice the remarkable work, Science, and Nature, in which
the Author Mr. /[agy one of the pupils of Emile Saisset has developed with a rare originality
the point of view of dynamism. This work merits special examination. We have not comnprised it
in this study because ift does not belong by any side, or any link to the group which we desire to
observe here.




7
to forget in the same time, and under a freer, mere lively, and more facile form, that
M. Jules Simon professed analogons doctrin(es, but with a certain shading of
Alexandrinism. Thus he taught for instance, the, dogma of the Divine Incomprehensibility; a dogma which might have dragged him very far, if the time had been as
favorable to hardy criticism as it has been during some years later.
We can speak only from slight knowledge of the teachings of the different
masters who preceeded M. Jules Simon and Emile Saisset, in the Normal School
that is to say M. M. Damiron, Ad Garnier and Vacherot; but we know them enough
in their writings, to say that M. Damiron introduced into his teachings a shade of
religiosity, and a very touching moral sentiment, that Mr. Ad. Garnier gave an
example of the finest psychological analysis, that M. Vacherot, not yet disengaged
completely from the orthodoxy of tle School, then nevertheless beyond it, threw bold
glances upon the ideal anud speculative world, which attracted him so very powerfully.
We arrive now at the moment when the philosophy of the University was to
receive at one time a double assault, and when struck both from the right and the left,
it seemed to be stunned during several years, as too often happens in France to reasonable and temperate Causes.
An internal opposition was growing up, which began to undermine little by little
the Edifice so skillfully constructed by the wise organizer of the official Philosophy.
In the very bosom of the Normal School, until then so pacific, and so docile, new
generations borne along by another Wind of doctrine came to astonish and disquiet
the Spiritualistic Teachings. M. Taine scarcely issued from the benches of the
College showed himself already as the Chief of a school and embarrassed the severe
orthodoxy of his masters by the objections of his sharp and biting criticisms. MAbout displayed his Voltairean Irony. M. Prevost Paradol, his noble but cold
Spinozism. Each obeyed the impulses of his own inclination; but all, or at least
the most distinguished of them declared themselves rebellious to the philosophy
of Cousin, of Joufroy, of Maine de Biran, finding the one too theatrical, the other
too modest, the last too abstracted, and too subtle. At the same moment the blind wisdom of great politicians, who according to Plato, "do not always know what they are
doing," seconded with all their might this revolutionary movement by striking at the
free thougl4 in M. Vacherot, in Amedeus Jacqui s, and in giving thus to philosophical
audacity, the valuable prestige of persecution; -ery soon after the events of 1852, one
of the chairs of the Normal School was supprc;sed, "the aggregation of philosophy
was abolished, and, the teachings reduced to that of Logic only. All efforts to
struggle against the current of criticism, again, t positivism, and pantheism, which
now became the dominating philosophy of the:'mpire, were disarmed, and stilled in
advance of it. Whoever had any freedom of sE: rit, was precipitated into negation
and into scepticism, so many, and such efforts ] ad been made to give to truth the
aspect of constraint. All enlightened medi; m  between faith and doubt was
discredited, and discouraged, and Atheism waA; sown broad-cast in the interest of
religion. A grand lesson forgotten now, doubtl is, as so many of the lessons are, of
experience and of history, and which we shal be probably called ourselves, in the
interest of social order, which is said to be;low so perfectly understood, to see
renewed for ourselves in deplorable experience.
During this period of intellectual misery i-h the teaching of the Normal School,
philosophy lost all its importance. The section of philosophy existed no longer, or
was nothing more than an annexation generally neglected. Nevertheless this epoch




8
was not wholly sterile since it fi rn shed to the University M. Lachelier one of the
new Masters, who is a subject fo  o ir study tc-day.
In France the reactions are io'ent but they do not last long, there is so much
of impulse in the race, and they are incapable of resting long in slumber or silence.
Before the reforms of M. I ur,y, and those of 1857, Philosophy was suddenly
re-awakened in the Normal Sch ol by the youKthful brilliant, and amiable and exciting
teachings of M. Caro, moderate ~I -s he was himself by the more severe, and more
didactic teachings of M. Albert Lm osine. Under these two guides diversely remarkable, and of whom the qualities wvere so happily united, the traditions of Cousin and
Joufroy were renewed, and rejuvenated; a new generation of distinguished Masters
were acquired by the University and it is from it that its best Professors come to-day.
In this period, this was still the spiritualism of Joufroy and of Biran which inspired
the Masters and the Disciples, associated in some of them with Christian sentiments
with a tender and refined morality which was represented among them by the regretted'
Father Gratey.
It was in 1863, the epoch when M. Duery re-established the aggregation of philosophy (a service which the friends of Bfee thought should never forget) it was then, I
say, appeared the beginning of the philosophical movement which we have to study.
It was in this aggregation that the new talents manifested themselves which to-day
direct the teachings of the philosophy of the Normal School, and which are called to
exert an immense influence upon the future of the philosophy of the University; but
to understand this new movement, we shall have to go back and mount a little higher.
Amongst the philosophic writers, which had been fed by the ardent initiations of
M. Cousin, there was one of the most eminent, whom public opinion placed in his
school, but who held himself really aloof at some distance, and did not count himself
as one of the Disciples of the Eclectic Sohool. This was the wise and profound Author
of "the Essay upon the metaphysics of Aristotle" (M. Ravaisson) this work altogether
historical, did not appear to ir -licate a Chief of Schoolmen; some pages of a grand
character, but very obscure ai  cdapid, which formed the conclusion of the work,
scarcely allowed one to perceive across them glimpses of the philosophic direction of
the Author. Nevertheless the S )irlt blows where it listeth. These few pages sufficed
to inflame the soul and imagin. ticn of a young philosopher, M. Lachelir who was
soon to be united to the master.y a most intimate philosophical commerce.
Later M. Ravaisson gave a h: rgor and richer development to his ideas in his "report
upon the philosophy of the 18th Ce3ntury," a very original and powerful work which
excited a lively admiration in t' e youthful University. At last becoming President
of the aggregation of philosop] y as M. Cousin haid been, he exerted naturally and
without effort a great influence.ver the youing intellects which of course united and
impregnated themselves with 11 his colors. This influence also was of entirely
different nature from that whic] M. Cousin had so long exercised.
This latter was an exciting spirit, but still donlinering, he inflamed but he controlled. M. Ravaisson has an a(;io:a less direct and less lively, but on the other hand,
it is never to be apprehended in him, that influence may degenerate into domination.
He acts if we are allowed to sa- it, like the God of Aristotle, who moves all, while
resting tranquil himself. Such X:?hilosophi( government, if this expression can be
used in regard to an action al ogether intellectual, may be reconciled with perfect
freedom. His pupil M. Lachel er has only gathered up his thoughts in order to
transform, and to subtilise rele Jeing them at once more precise, and more bold.




9
Another Thinker M. Albert Fouillee has entered upon similar paths, and encounters,
in their paths, the preceeding philosophers, rath( r than he follows their footsteps.
All this to speak the truth, is much more * onfused than we represent it here.
There can scarcely be said to exists a school proy -rly so called, there is either a common tendency with great differences rather a g( neral spirit, than definite doctrines,
more of a speculative breath, more of a metaph, sical liberalism, more of poetry in
the expression, more of subtility and of obscurity in the thought.
Each one of these philosophers has his own taoughts, which it would be difficult
perhaps to reduce to one single system, but which are nevertheless dominated by one
common and fundamental maxim. This maxim is that the supreme explanation
ought to looked for in that which is most elevated ard not in that which is inferior;
it is that the basis of things is mind, thought, freedom of will, and not matter, which in
spite of the evidence of the blind senses is only the shadow, and appearance of reality.
II.
The philosophy of M. Ravaisson has already been the subject of a profound study
due to the pen of M. Vacherot in the pages of the Revue des deux mondes. (1) He
only returns to it in order to mark the point of departure of the philosophical movement, younger, and more recent, which we desire to study. This philosophy to tell the
truth, is composed rather of brilliant and profound views, thrown into short and
abrupt phrases, in a manner at once proud and indifferent, than of doctrines rigorously
defined, severely linked, abundantly developed.
Discussion, analyisis exposition of consequences, the precise determination of
ideas! in a word, all that is called in the sc(hool, the discursive processes, are subordinated, even sacrificed here to a synthetic anl i ltuitive method. The Author sees
all himself and affirms it is for you to see as he e oes; but in lack of dialectics, the
brilliancy, and force of thought, the beauty of expression, the noble grandeur of
philosophic emotion subjugates, us, and carrier us away captive. The thought is
generally obscure, and lends itself, with difficult y to analysis, one finds oneself upon
the borders of all the philosophies, without kno ving precisely with which, one has
any business. If it was not for the severe langue ge, sometimes even laboured of the
Author one would be tempted to say that such v philosophy belonged rather to the
regions of Poesy than to that of science. What - e cannot refuse is complete possession of the imagination. Clear and exact spiritt find it difficult to enter into this
mode of thinking and saying, but they are precih 3ly the very first to submit to its
magic power.
Condensing as well as we are able floating and slightly nebulous thought, we
believe we may say that all the philosophy o' M. Ravaisson is dominated by the
fundamental distinction borrowed from Aristotle of matter, and Form. Matter corresponding nearly to what is called in modern scl ools substance and form, to what is
called the attributes; but whilst in modern phil )sophy the substance or subtratum
seems to be the basis of the reality, and of true 1 eing, for Aristotle, and M. Ravaisson
on the contrary, it is in the form, in the essence, t Lat is to say in the attributes of the
being that is the reality properly so called. Wh. t does it matter that the Olympian
Jove was carved out of marble. It is not that fa't which constitutes its beauty? Its
beauty consists in the form with which it is clotl ed, and that form is the figure of the
(1) Revue de Juin 15, 1868.




10
God! Matter then is only the c, ndition of the reality, it is not the basis of it. The
more reality there is in things, -the less matter there is in them, and in the Absolute
reality, all matter that is to say all substance ought to vanish away. According to
these truly Aristotelian views M. Ravaissonl tends to suppress in philosophy all
motion of substance, that is to say of dead naked Substratum to which comes to be
added as accessories, the attributes of things.
We can readily understand the value of sulch views, if they are capable of being
explained, defended and developed. All the force of Materialism for example, resides
in the importance even perhaps exaggerated which the notion of Substance has taken
in philosophy. Suppress that notion, and materialism has no more foundation nor
reason for continued existence; but just because this negation of the idea of substance
is fundamental, we wish to see it established by precise reasons, strongly demonstrated
Now the fact is that it is only in passing by, with some bold and decisive parenthesis
that our philosopher throws aside contemptuously the idea of substance; do not
demand of him any discussion upon this point. Is this even one of the essential
points of his philosophic doctrine, or is it one of those conjectural views which
philosophers sometimes hazard without dreaming or caring what may become of them?
This is what we cannot decide. The masters of philosophy are not contented to cast
abroad their ideas in this negligent way. They prove them by proper reasonings,
they defend them against objections, by precise arguments, they develop all the
consequences to be deduced from them by a fruitful analysis. To prove, to discuss,
to develop, these are the three essential conditions of a method rigorously philosophical.
I acknowledge that before making use of these processes, one must be capable of
thinking, and that the philosophy of M. Ravaisson is nourished with powerfill thoughts
but nevertheless these are after all, simply materials, very precious materials that he
does not choose to cut, and polish himself, and which he abandons with admirable indifference to their uncertain destiny.
I will say the same of another idea which M. Ravaisson borrows from Aristotle,
and which he drops carelessly in passing onward. With Aristotle he distinguishes
the efficient cause from the final cause, like him also he accords to this latter a very
high importance in philosophy. He goes so far even as to affirm that at bottom
efficient Causes reduce themselves to, and are contained in final Causes, and that the
latter are the only true Caus, s. You can readily see the gravity of this doctrine.
Whilst the other contemporary schools, resting, or pretending to rest upon the positive
sciences, tend to destroy the idea of final Causes out of science, and out of metaphysics, as a superanuated prejudice, it is certainly gcod strategy to take the offensive,
and mining deeper than ever into the very thoughts of the adversaries, than they
have done for themselves, to pi,ve to them that what they call the efficient cause, is
in reality only the final cause it elf, as also what they call matter is in reality only
force and intelligence.
Nothing is more important  han that here instead of an assertion, we should have
a demonstration, and it is alw: ys just here that the omission occurs. These are
views rather than Theorems. 2 ny one may think of things in this manner if they
like to; but one is not obliged to t:hink them so. Still we declare again for the second
time, that-Dialectics are not a l of philosophy, and even that the Thinker is the
Superior of the Dialectician, 1-at a great master should be both. Philosophy is
composed of thoughts and of ail,-unents. Arguments without thoughts as in scholasticism  are "empty" but thoughZ s without arguments are "blind" if we may borrow




11
from  Kant the celebrated Distinction which he applies to the necessary union of
Conceptions and of Sensations.
Although we see that the basis of the ideas of M. Ravaisson are borrowed from
peripatetsm we may say that it is a peripatelism modified, and transformed by the
influence of Descartes, of Biran and of Schelling. It is the philosophy of Aristotle
Spiritualised in some degree by its contact with modern philosophy. The general
character of this philosophy, since Descartes, is to place itself at the subjective point
of view, in the very centre of Conciousness, in the perception of the self or the Me
M. Ravaisson admits this fundamental thought withinstance. It is in the conciousness of the intelligence itself, that it has of itself, that he finds the type of all reality.
He insists positively upon this thought of Biran, that the soul sees in itself not
only its phenomena, but its existence, its causality, and if one must admit the notion
of substance, its substantiality. He goes even farther than Maine de Biran, and
and whilst the latter limits the domains of conciousness to our personal activity, and
puts us only in communication with the Divine and the Absolute through a sort of
mystical illumination, M. Ravaisson ventures this bold, perhaps audacious, but still
very profound thought that the soul in taking Conciousness of herself, takes also
cognisance of the Absolute. It is God himself we feel within us, according to the doctrine of theApostle "in Deo vivimus," and nature like us is full of God.
Afs M. Vacherot has already sagely remarked, the spiritualism of M. Ravaisson
and of his disciples, takes the problem just as the Materialists pose it; but in an
adverse sense, whilst the latter explain all by the ultimate matter, the former explain
all by the ultimate form.
For the one school the superior forms are only combinations of inferiors; for the
other the inferiors are only degrees of the superiors. Nature in either bypothesis is
only a scale of graduated forms, passing on from  one to the other in a continual
progress; but this progress is for the one only a complication of happy accidents, for
the other a perpetual ascension towards the better. The physical forces as well as the
chemical, life, instinct, activity, love, even liberty of will, are only successive apparitions of that Universal Spontaneity of which the source is in God. The material is
already Spiritual, the spiritual is already divine, God and the Soul are the objects of
interior experience; THEY ARE FACTS.
It is for this that M. Ravaisson calls his doctrine a positive spiritualism andl he
opposes this doctrine to what he calls the demi-spiritualism of the Eclectic School
declaring in a very sarcastic, and somewhat haughty manner, his separation from this
School, and appearing to have it specially at heart, not to be confounded with it.
Certain timorous spirits might reproach the preceeding views with coasting
very near to Pantheism, so near that sometimes one believes it really to be the same;
but we advise, that we should not abuse ourselves with this spectre of Pantheism,
which ends by paralysing all philosophy. For fear of seeing pitfalls everywhere
around us, we are afraid either to speak, or think, or budge.
If one expreses a few doubts as Socrates did, you are declared to be a sceptic.
If you accord something to the science of matter, you are a materialist.'If you
essay to conciliate determinism and liberty, you are a fatalist. If you see God in everything, you are a Pantheist.
In truth this perpetual invocation of bad doctrines has something irritating
in it, and ends generally by giving one a taste for them, as in Politics one becomes




12
revolutionary simply from  hearing the Revolution perpetually denounced by an
absurd fanaticism.
We are permitted here to state the solid and profound distinction of a German
philosopher named Krause between Panlltlleisl, and this that he calls PI'llenlteisim.
It is one thing to say to say, that everything is God, and anoitler to say that all is in God.
M. Ravaisson is then a Panentheist; but nothing authorizes us to say that he is a
Pantheist, and for ourselves, we follow him willingly over this slippery ground. " "
If there is to-day a Thinker in the University of France to whom belongs legitimately the Leadership of spiritualistic thought, that thinker is the Author of the
"Report upon the philosophy of the 19th Century", M. Felix Ravaisson.
III
M. Lachelier is a disciple of M. Ravaisson; but he is an emancipated disciple,
b:older than his master, and of a different stamp. His method, his turn of intellect,
even his doctrine is different. There is nothing in common between them but a
certain general direction of thought, the utse of certain formularies, and an analogous
final tendency. The Author proceeds from the first in an entirely different manner.
Instead of those jets of lights (electric) interrupted by obscurity, which characterise
the intuitive and bold method of M. Ravaisson, here on the contrary we find a systematic and persistent thought, which follows without any break, from the first to the last
line of that remarkable work " Upon t7e Basis of Indluction! " This Chain is so close,
that it forms in some sort, one single knot, or rather a series of knots tied one upon the
other, which it is necessary to untie with one singlle effort from the beginning to the
end of it. Not an instant of repose for the intellect, nothing for solace, nothing for
liglt is granted. Those who have leretofore accused the philosophy of tle'University
of being a literary, and superficial philosophy, have no longer room  for complaint,
here philosophic severity is pushed to sterness ahnost forbidding.
Although remarkably written, in a strong fine style, sometimes even highly
colored, the work of M. Lachelier is about as easy to read as an Algebraic treatise,
with this difference that the Algtebraic langulage, being of an absolute precision, only
requires, to be understood, attention and patience, whilst the indeterminate signs of
the language of philosophy obscure and fatigue the thoughllt, unless the Author
comes to you and perpetually, with his explanations, in order to fix their mneaninwg,
which M. Lachelier never condescends to do, and for this reason his book so interesting in its subject, imposes an excessive fatigue upon the mlid, which the Author
could have prevented by a little complaisance.
This laborious method has its source in an intelligence, naturally searching and
profound, which ploughls so deep that one is disquieted and asks whether lie really
has solid earth beneath his feet, one is borne along from  bed to bed of nlderlyinlg
strata of thoulght without knowing whether there is any solid last one beneath.
When we believe w e have gotten possession of truth, we find it is only a phantonm
and that beneath this shadow there is another truth still more true, which is yet
nevertheless as much a phantom, as the first so that even when the philosopller stops
and says or seems to say to us: "Here it is, we have reached it"-We mllistrust lilll
and say involuntarily, that it only depends upon the will of the Ellchanter, to make
this last form of Truth vanish like all the preceeding ones, and to abandon it as to a
night, without any bottom to its darkness. Thus although the Author in this work
searches above all, to discover a solid and immoveable basis, the impression we receive




13
is one of a transcendent scepticism  with mysticism  in perspective as its ultimate
goal. And yet the charm is so powerful of an active and living thought, that one
likes better the risk of "this infinite course" across things, as Plato says, than the
ordinary routine of dogmatism.
As to M. Lachelier's doctrine, it seems to travel far from that of his early masters.
He has long since passed out of the peripatetic dynamism, with its tinge of Alexandrinism, which seemed to be the teachings of M. Ravaisson. This dynamism  even
when enlarged is still one of the appearances or phantoms, which veil truth beyond
themselves, in the Kantian idealism.
If we are able to condense the philosophy of M. Ravaisson in the words  "Spirit
is everything" we can condense that of M. Lachelier in these. "Thought is every
thing", at least for all that is possibly the object of human science, for perhaps, there
is something beyond which, there is neither thought nor the object of thought. This
domain left untouched, the hypothesis adopted by M. Lachelier is that which explains
the possibility of human Science, not by the objective laws of nature in so much as
they are capable of being known to us, but by the subjective laws of our thought, in
so much as it is capable of knowing. We know that the supreme originality of Kant,
was in bringing what was without, to the within, of the conditions of existence, and
instead of subordinating thought to objects to have subordinated objects to thought.
In a word according to Idealism, I do not think nature because she exists, she exists
because I think her. (Swendenborg adopted this philosophy.)
The Laws of nature in their supreme expression, and their essential verity, are
only the Laws of our own personal thought. Now these Laws branch out according
to M. Lachelier into two fundamental ones; the Law  of Efficient Causes, aihd the
Law of Final Causes. The first governs the inflexible determinism of Nature. It is
in virtue of this Law that all phenomena is comprised in a series where the existence
of each term or factor, determines that of the term or product which follows it.
According to the second Law, of final Causes, all phenomena is comprised in a
Systeim where the idea of all, determines in advance, the e xistence of the parts.
These two Laws, according to Leibnitz and Kant, are reciprccal, one to the other:
they are two series in an inverse sense, the one descending the other ascending, that
which is. cause in the one, is effect in the other and vice-versa.
What is the basis of the Law of efficient Causes?  It is tlat, without this Law
thought would be impossible. The fundamental condition of thought is unity. I
cannot think without linking one idea upon another idea. Upon what then does this
Unity of thought rest? Upon the Unity of the Universe doubtless, "for the question
of, to know how our sensations unite to form a single thought is the same as that of
to know how all phenomena can form one Universe. (1)"
"*ow the unity of the Universe is itself only possible on condition of forming a
necessary chain, as every phenomena given, links itself always, rigorously to a preceeding phenomenon. Without such a chain there is no unity in the Universe, no
unity in thought, in consequence, no thought at all. Such a chain is nothing lmore
than the laws of causality. In fine, whence conies this inflexible chain of phenomena,
(1) It seems that the Author here enters into a flafrant vicious circle, for after having said that
we must explain the object by the subject, it is here the contrary, for in nature that is to say in the
object, he seeks the explanation of the thought. But this vicious circle is only apparent, for it is
evident that there is question here'of only an ideal universe, only as it is thought of. One sees in this
example the cause of obscurities in our Author. lie makes no effort to foresee the confusion which
he might produce in the mind of his readers. It is your business to follow him if you are able to
do it.




14
and why are we not able to think of one of them, except upon condition of having previously thought the other preceeding it. Is it not, that these two existences are only
properly speaking, but two distinct momeuts of a single existence, which continues
by transforming itself from the first into the second. "All phenomena, are they not
one single and the same phenomenon at once one, and diverse, and of which the
continuity conciliates itself perpetually with change? This phenomenon is motion."
All phenomena then are movements of force or rather a single movement which goes
on as much as possible in the saine direction, and with equal rapidity whatever may
be the restraining laws according to which it transforms itself.
The Author admits in all its extent, the Cartesian mechanism, and he follows this
principle throughout all the degrees, not only in the inorganic world, but also in
organised and living nature. Ilie recognises that such a conception, if it should b)e
exclusive, would be a sort of "Idealistic materialism," (but we must not forget that it
eorresponds only with one of the laws of our intelligence that of efficient Causes.
We have yet to explain the law of final Causes.)
What is the reason of this second law?
The Author serves himself still with the preceeding principle, that is "the necessity
of Unity in the thouglit: but here it is (of Unity) of a different species that he speaks.
The first is only in reality a superficial and external Unity. What in truth is motion?  It is nothing more than the possibility of passing without interruption from
one place to another in Space and Time. It is an empty unity and without intrinsic
value. A thought which reposes only upon mechanical Unity glides over the surface
of things without penetrating into the things themselves. Stranger to reality, she
lacks reality herself, and remains only the empty husk of a thought. We must then
find a means of rendering at once, reality to thought and intelligibility to that reality,
in substituting to Unity purely external of universal mechanism, the internal, and
organic unity of a systematic harmony. "Without this principle, thought-may exist,
but this purely abstract existence would be for it a state of exhaustion and of death."
Thejaw of final Causes gives life to thought in giving it also to nature.
Once in possession of this principle, our Idealist philosopher pretends to re-discover
one after the other all the truths of which he had made abstractions in the first
phase of his researches. Thus he seizes, or thinks, he seizes hold of the objectivity of
nature, the principle of force, of activity, of spontaneity, of liberty, which elevates
the human soul of which le always maintains the spirituality from his point of view.
In Sword as he expresses it himself, if the principle of Efficient Causes conducts to a
sort of "idealistic materialism," the principle of final Causes leads us up to a "spiritualistic realism." Still even this is not the last word of the philosophy; this is only
a second stage which of itself necessitates a third.
"This second philosophy", says the Author in concluding, "in subordinating
mechanism to finality, prepares us to subordinate finality itself to a superior principle, as if to leap across the limits of thought by an act of moral faith, as well as across
the limits of Nature."  It is upon the threshold of this third world, announced in such
a mysterious manner that the Author pauses. He only wishes to explain scientific possibilities; but he lets us see that above science, there is something else, that is to say
there is morality and religion. Shall it be then, according to him, that philosophy
cannot reach any further, and that all its duty is to prepare the thought, for its own
annihilation, in such a manner, that she is only, all at first; to become nothing afterward? We are not able to say, the Author having refused us any further explanation
of this new world of which he opens a glimpse for us without wishing to enter it




15
himself. Without entering it any farther than he does, and confining ourselves
within the limits he has fixed, let us essay to tell how far we believe we call follow
him in these seducing Speculations, and where the limits are, where severe reasoning
compels us to stop in spite of him.
Doubtless it is impossible to-day to a reflecting mind, not to take count of the
powerful revolution made by Kant in philosophy. Either philosophy is only an
illusion, a vain science or all the grand phases of its development correspond to
journeyings towards truth, to degrees of Truth. Every grand philosophic system is
a particle of Truth Eternal. In this maxim was laid the solid basis of Eclecticism, and
we energetically hold on to it. The idealism of Kant had then its truth; but it was
neither probable, nor necessary that it should be all the trath. Things, at least
external things, are only known to us by the effects they produce in us, that is to say
by our affections, by our sensations which by a common accord, are eminently inevitably subjective, because a sensation can only be the mode of a[ subject which feels.
We know otherwise that the sensations are only affections produced upon each species
of sense by a common cause, viz: motion.
Let us admit, if it is desired, that motion is nothing more itself, than an ideal
and subjective phenomenon, let us admit that Space and Time despite their absolute
character are only forms of sensibility; let us go still further, the understanding
itself, being always mixed with sensibility, impregnated with sensibility to a depth
which no one can determine, let us suppose that primordial law3 of the understanding
are themselves modified by that influence. Let us push idealism as far as any one
wants it to go; there will always remain something outside of it, which cannot be
reduced into the Ego which thinks. This is really, and solely. The reality of the
sensaticn, it is its very existence, because no law of our mind,' no condition of human
thought can compel a sensation to surge up within us, simply because our understanding has need of it. It is also in the second place the order of our sensations, I
mean the necessary relations which exist among them, and of which the relations of
time are perhaps only symbolic expressions, but which ought to have rn intrinsic and
objective reason, for how, I demand, and why does our sensibility obey our understanding? Why is the order of our sensations, the faithful reproduction of a logical
plan, predetermined by the Intellect? We should not forget, that our sensations are
passive, are involuntary; they have their origin in Causes that escape us, and of
which the direction is beyond our power. What then is the mysterious power which
creates in us sensations, after its own law, at the moment and in the measure that our
intelligence demands them? To give a precise form to this findamental difficulty, the
rational laws of our intellect, exact, that such a Star should be in the heavens at such
a place at such a moment of time; well! by what mystery does sensibility, fatal and
blind faculty as it is, outside of our own power, make to rise up within us the sensation of a Star precisely as fixed a Priori by the understanding? Our sensations
in truth could very well form only a chaos, andthe need of our intellects for order and
unity would not suffice to subdue to this order an undisciplined matter, if she herself, in the depths of her essence did not contain something which responds to this
law of unity. In a word we accord that the world in which we live may truly be a
phenomenal world of which the essential basis is unknown to us; but we feel at the
same time that this world attaches itself to this Essential basis in a rigorous manner,
just as the phenomenal or apparent heaven which falls under our senses is rigorously
the astronomical Heavens which science conceives and demonstrates, and which
nevertheless is different from it: thus subjectivism and objectivism are conciliated




16
for us. The deeper we go into these matters the closer we approach to the
essential reality without ever attaining to it.
But it will be asked, why this unknown cause of our sensations which we call
the object, is not the Ego itself, the mind itself, the subject which thinks? Why is not
Imagination the productive faculty of the Universe? We pass here from the Hypothesis of Kant to that of Fichte, and although M. Lachelier does not explain himself
clearly upon this point, we have reason to think that he attaches himself rather to the
second than to the first hypothesis. But we see here only a question of words and not
a new light upon things.'If the Ego posits the Universe, or creates it, it is evidently
without knowing it, because none of us has ever had the consciousness of being the
creator of the Universe. Now an Ego of which I have no consciousness, I call a nonEgo. Everything* which passes out of consciousness, passes out of the domain, of the
subject, and vigorously speaking, should be called an object. That which philosophy
calls Existence in opposition to thought, is precisely that unconscious something, if not
unknown to itself, at least for us unknown, which is the cause of the order and
the Existence of the Universe. Whatever mnay be the essential and objective identity
that may exist between the subject and the object, between the infinite and the finite,
the opposition remains unless we confuse all ideas by an arbitrary language.
We must carefully distinguish also, otherwise, the degrees in Idealism, and should
understand clearly what is meant by intelligence, by thought! Are we speaking of
human or absolute thought, of thought in itself? For Kant it is the first, viz: human
thought. For Fichte, the Ego was at first only the Human Ego; later in his -second
philosophy it became the divine Ego, the absolute Ego. For Schelling and for Hegel
it is the absolute thought, the absolute idea which was the only reality. Ik such a
system it is evident that human spirit, inasmuch -as it is circumscribed and limited
by consciousness has a perfect right to oppose it itself. The Universe as a non-Egoas an object, the idea or the absolute, being precisely this, is the objective basis which
we conceive immediately for our sensations. According to this hypothesis, not only is
the object affirmed as really existing, but may perhaps be known in itself, and in its
essence by an absolute method.. The objective reality of the Universe is not only
not put in question, but it seems to be even better guaranteed than in any other system, since the rational Laws to which science refers, as all cosmical phenomena, are
not only pure connections between the Causes and unknown Substances, but these
Causes and these Substances themselves. It remains to inquire now, why one should
call by the name of thought, objective laws which have no consciousness of themselves,
and if the essential character of thought is not consciousness. If we are told that
in thought, we must distinguish the basis and the form, the thought and the thinking, (cogitatum et cogitans) it is a distinction which is precisely the same thing as the
classical distinction of the intelligible, and the Intelligence. To say that thought is
everything or everything is thought, then, is to say that everthing is intelligible, and
the intelligible is the basis of everything. Is it worth while to emnploy such arbitrary
formularies, such strange ones in order to say simply what has never been an object
of doubt to any metaphysician?
We cannot accord then to the subtle Author of the Basis of Induction (Fondement de l'Induction) that "all is Thougllt," at least without taking the word in a sense
so large and so vague, that it will signify exactly the opposite of all that we are in
the habit of ascribing to it. At least we must distinguish the objective thought
*Swedenborgianism.




17
from the subjective thought, and call this objective thought however it exhibits itself
under the form of Extension, matter, and subjective thought when it exhibits itself
by consciousness to itself, we call Spirit-and we also distinguish the one from the
other in the fact, that the first appears to us always in a condition of dispersion and
plurality, and that it finds unity only outside of itself in the Spirit, which thinks of
it, whilst the Spirit characterized by self consciousness appears to us in a permanent
state of concentration and finds unity in itself. To be Spirit, is to be One; to be
matter is to be several. Thus the distinction between matter and spirit should still
continue no matter how far we push the system of identity. It is the same with the
individual, and the whole individual personality cannot comprehend itself without
a principle of distinction which limits it, and circumscribes it within the Universal
Unity. The plurality of substances cannot explain the Unity of the Ego. The Unity
of substance cannot explain the plurality of the Egos.* Thus the primitive Unity
called God, Substance, Force, Thought, Idea, Will, what you please, has let come
from itself, secondary entities called souls, which distinguish themselves from the
supreme cause in one way by the consciousness of their individuality, and in another
from the coexistent Pluralites called bodies, by a consciousness of unity. *    * *   *
IV.
M. Alfred Fouillee, colleague of M. Lachelier at the Superior Normal School, and
who divides with him the present direction of our Philosophical teaching, is a young
writer who has put himself in the very first rank by two works diversely though
equally remarkable. The one historic, the other theoretic, one upon the Philosophy
of Plato, the second upon Freewill and Determinism. The talent of M. Fonillee is of
another species than that of M. Lachelier, and his philosophic doctrine does not
present the same characteristic. The one as we have seen is rigorously what is called
an Idealist. The other a Spiritualist properly understood, M. de Lachelier has more
strength, M. Fouillee more breadth. *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
We have condensed the philosophy of M. Lachelier by the formula "all is thought',
we may do the same' with M. Fouillee by which "all is freewill," at least this seems
to be the tendency of his last work for in the first upon the philosophy of Plato he
seems to have taken intelligence as the principle instead of volition. The supreme
principle, according to this, is the principle of sufficient reason.
"There is reason for everything" he says with Leibuitz, "there is idea for everything" he says with Plato.
In fine the principle of causality is for him only a particular case of the principle
of reason. But in his recent work, it seems that volition takes the place of intelligence.
The Law of Causality which was formerly only a consequence is become a
principle, idea is subordinated to Liberty.
This seems to be the doctrine of several of our philosophers, among others of M.
Lecretan of Lausanne, which begins to exert much influence over our youthful
*I beg pardon for this word I could find no other?




philosophers. In his Philosophy of Liberty, M. Lecretan teaches that the essence of
Deity is absolute Liberty, and that all his attributes are only different names for that
Liberty. Although very bold, the philosophy of M. Lecretan is attached to Christian
tradition, and it has a profoundly religious character. Another philosophy entirely
different rests also upon this principle, that is the pessimist philosophy so misanthropic of Schopenhauer. He also subordinates intelligence to will, which is the only
reality in itself, intelligence being only its mode of apparition. To this doctrine of
the will Schelling also is attached by his second philosophy, which is according to
him the positive portion of his system, the first forming only a negative, and abstract
portion, M. Ravaisson in his Report seems also to incline towards this principle. M.
Fouillee makes intelligence come from will, considering the last as an absolute act,
not determined, but determining: which consequently commands motives, instead
of being guided by them. If we consider for instance not human but Divine Liberty,
we must recognise that the philosophy of the School gives a feeble part to this Liberty
in the act of creation. It is repeated continually that God created the woild not out
of nothing, as if that was a great miracle? What does it matter what the world is
made of? It is the idea of the world that is the wonder; it is not the stuff of which
it is composed. He who made the marble, is he greater than he who made the Statue?
This is always the error of the materialists who believe matter to be nmore important
than form;-we inscribe then as false this maxim of the schools. That God created
existences and not Essences, a imit with Plato that the essence of Created things
existed eternally, and that God only produced externally this pro-conceived world,
this anticipated photography;-associate with him even under the title of Ideal, such
a world or even worlds to infinity, which he inhabits without having willed them,
this is as Spinoza objected to Leibnitz, and Fenelon to Malbranche, this is, only to
reduce God to submission to a Fatum. It is a sort of Pantheism which subordinates
God to the world since the image of the world is necessary to his existence. It is
only necessary to give us kno-;ledge of this existence as human. Doubtless truth
cannot be the object of a free act of God, nor, of any power in the world. Doubtless a
triangle being given, it is nece.;sary of all necessities that its three angles should be
equal to two right angles. Prut is it necessary that a triangle should be given?
That's the question. A triangle is the synthesis of three lines distributed in a certain manner; now is this synthesis necessary, eternal and ab30olnte, existing of
itself? Does it not necessitate a foregoing activity, a productive power, in order to
approach these three lines in such a mode, that they cut one another! We distinguish
among human genius, those who copy, and those who create. Cannot the Divine
activity create without copying? To create is to invent; invention is an act of will
and of power, and not intelligence solely. The Divine model himself-The Paradigm
of Plato, that which he calls, the Autozoon the animal in itself, is then himself the.
work of the divine will. He is, if you choose to say it, engendered, begotten but not
created. It is the first born of God. Prototoxos protogenes, and it is perhaps this
that is signified by the profound mystery of Christian Theology, namely that the Father
begot the Son. There are two problems in philosophy, to distinguish, and to unite or
combine. Ancient Spiritualism distinguishes too much, and neglected the links
between things. Modern Spiritualism  confounds all too much perhaps, and lets
escape differences and oppositions.
M. Janet whose analysis of these three great philosophies we have concientiously
followed is regarded himself, M. Saint Rene Taillandier, declares, as "one of the
most sincere Thinkers, one of the most subtle, and penetrating Dialecticians of the




19
present day." He says. "M. Paul Janet is one of those Thinkers, whose wealth and
splendour become multiplied in proportion as their liberty increases." That he is
"a true model of a philosophic Tactician." That "M. Paul Janet is no Partisan.
He searches into the laws which govern our actions, he lifts himself up to the law
which includes all others, he examines that law, he sounds its profoundest depths,
and engaged in this study, he is resolute to follow whereser it may lead him."
M. Janet's recent great work upon "The Moral, and Free Thought" has made a
profound impression upon the world of philosophers. He is not a Christian, although
his conclusions after the most vigorous logic, land us somewhere very near to
Christianity. He indeed speaks rather scornfully of the present phase of Christian
Theology, but he reaches the ultimate facts which are the foundation of our religion
and which seem to necessitate the Christian faith. They are the fundamental truths
of the Christ-Spirit, and Teachings of the Divine master.
In this most remarkable book, which goes a step farther than Ravaisson,
Lachelier or Fouillee, have gone as yet, M. Janet begins by declaring his repudiation
of the meaning given to the noble words "Free Thinker, and Free Thought" by ordinary and vulgar acceptation. According to the ordinary use, the Free Thinker is
the one who believes in nothing, and the fewer the beliefs the more claim one has
to this Title. The sum of belief being greater in the Catholic than in the Lutheran,
less great in the Deist than in the Lutheran, less great in the Atheist than in the
Deist, it follows that the Atheist is supposed to think more freely than the Deist, the
Deist than the Protestant, and the Protestant than the Romanist, and on this scale
there is still another degree. The absolute sceptic would be considered the freest of
all Thinkers. He believes in nothing, and even above the absolute sceptic modern
philosophy reveals spirit still more disenthralled from all principle, and all law, for
example, the Pessemist like Schopenhauer who discovers that Creation is the work of
a will without intelligence. The Pessemint who despises and scorns the Universe,
who scorns himself, who scorns even the scorn of which he is himself the object, and
who aspires only to re-enter into nothingness. When one has arrived at this point:
Spernere mundum, Spernere se ipsum, Spernere Sperni, taking it in Schopenhauer's
sense, he has reached the last term of philosophic, and moral negations. Is this free
Thinking? M. Janet draws with his usual precision the necessary consequences of
this style of definition, and resumes the discussion by saying:
"There are incredulous men, who far from thinking freely, do not think at all, but
accept objections as servilely as other men do dogmas; There are believers on the
other hand who have a custom of the boldest, freest thinking: It is not the thing
thought which constitutes freedom, it is the manner in which the thing is thought out:"
"Free thought, so far as it concerns humanity," says Saint Rene Taillandier, is
that which is the most liberated from the servitudes attached to human conditions.
These numerous servitudes may be reduced to two Categories, servitudes of ignorance,
and servitudes of passions, those which oppress intelligence, those which mislead
sensibility. Imagine a soul strong enough to silence all its passions, except the love
of Truth,- sufficiently endowed, to augment without ceasing its treasure of knowledge,
that is to say, to diminish ceaselessly its fetters, would not that be a free thought 
and would it be a soul necessarily of smallest faith and fewest beliefs t Quite the
reverse! It would be a soul which possessed more richly than any other, positive
and exact affirmations where narrower spirits less disenthralled from their chains, feel
obliged to deny and to doubt. This grander and wiser soul will seize the marvelous




20
relations in the great Universal harmony. He will be a believer, in so far as He is a
Seer (ce sera un croyant parceque ce sera un voyant.)
"The Free Thinker then is He who has liberated himself from the fetters of
doubt, from the chains of negation and possesses most number of his beliefs through his
reason as well as through his heart."
After the ordinary definition the Thinker is freer as he becomes poorer, but after
that of M. Janet and Mr. Taillandier, he is only a true free Thinker, who sees his
riches multiply in proportion to the growth of his liberty. No one applies the rule
of Descartes more rigidly than M. Janet in this great work. Upon "The moral," M.
Janet abandons without hesitation the ordinary substratum laid down by Kant and
Fichte, and other writers, of an independent morality.
What idea have they he declares, of the cosmos and of the harmony of things?
Has science discovered anything whatever in the universe, wholly independent and
isolated? Nothing is isolated, nothing is independent, and in the moral as in the physical world, every effort of the genius of man discovers relations unsuspected until
the instant, which force us to suspect others, and aid us to conceive a distant idea of a
prodigious chain of moral forces. Emanual Kant and Fichte derive the idea of moral
law from the idea we have of our liberty. The liberty of man They say, "supposes
a law necessarily: he must obey that law, duty exacts it, orders it, and it is this
obedience which is precisely man's happiness." In other terms good does not exist
in itself, it is the result of the accomplishment of duty, in another word it is not good
which is the principle of duty, it is duty which is the principle of good. This
sombre and austere moral, a philosophic jansenism  which holds man under the yoke
without making him comprehend or love the Law, is rejected by M. Janet. "Kant is
right, he says when he establishes so powerfully the obligatory character of the moral
Law: but he is wrong, a thousand times wrong when he makes of this Law a sort of
abstract Tyrant, an imperative idea, which we find in ourselves, but which does not
represent to us anything living, nothing substantial, no reality superior to ourselves. It is because the rigorous Thinker of Konigsberg was always possessed by the
thought that we were not able to go outside of ourselves. A profounder psychology,
proves on the contrary that we cannot, regard ourselves without going above and
beyond ourselves.
"The internal master," says Fenelon, "is at the same time the Universal master."
The voice which speaks to our consciousness is the voice which governs the world.
We must break loose the fetters of Kant then, and substitute to the idea of an abstract
law, the idea of a living law, put in the place of "Sic volo sic jatbeo" the sublime and
beneficent end which we are commanded to grow towards.
But what is this reality, this living reality which we ouglht to pursue? What is
this superior end, which we ought to try to attain to?
What are, in one word, the benefits, in which are born for us both duty and virtue?
M. Janet comprises all in one word. "Perfection."
It is towards the perfection of our faculties, of our nature in its greatest excellence that we are obliged to tend in all of our efforts! and in what consists this
Perfection?
Where is the sign of this excellence? In a certain sense this has been declared
by all philosophers from Aristotle to Leibnitz. But M. Janet makes it his own in fully
expressing the joy which this view of the moral law causes to enter the heart of man.
One should no longer speak of joy or of pleasure in the sense of the Utilitarian or of




21
abstract legislation as imposed by Kant. We have here a living Law, an august
ideal which attracts and charms us. The fine joy of growth towards good, beauty
and harmony! The joy of God!
Some teachers lower the destiny of man, others over cloud it and make it gloomy;
but for those to whom it unfolds itself, from progress to progress, from perfection to
perfection, who believe they can acquire a personality even higher, richer, more
radiant, and thus become participants in the immortal good, happiness and virtue
are one, and the same thing.
But says M. Janet, this must not be a morality of pride and exclusiveness.
Egotism under any form remains egotism. "The true human perfection," says M.
Janet, the ideal excellence of human nature, consists in forgetfulness of self in others."
As a type of this moral sublimity he instances maternal love, and the first characteristic of this ideal grandeur, is at once to attain to, and to ignore the very perfection
that it realises:-a mother who suffers the agonies of death for her child, the Mater
dolorosa does not know that her sorrows are sublime, and are her maternal glories.
She suffers divinely, and this suffering for another in another which forgets itself
wholly, is the seal of a nature which belongs not only to the world of sense, but to
the region of the soul, and of the intelligence, so also for the Hero who suffers for his
country, and the friend for his friend. If they know and are conscious that they
are heroes, something is lacking to the divine self abnegation, and they have not
entered into the plane of perfection, and the accomplishment of duty. Even in
devoting themselves they regard humanity, not as an end, but as a means. Their
sacrifice is not wholly disinterested, and therefore not conformed to the superior
law of morality, which is recognised by the true philosopher in which true joy is to
be found. Thus the principle of excellence reconciles itself to the community of
essence which finds in it, its perfection and necessary complement.
M. Janet examines one by one all the Schools in England and Germany which
oppose themselves to his views, analysing and refuting them as he progresses. He
pauses especially in presence of Mr. Bain, who says, "it is useful, it is wise to act
according to the approval of opinion and not to do what she blames." Yes, says M.
Janet: "From that fact that there are amongst human actions some that I approve
and others that I disapprove, it must be concluded that I have a certain rule according to which I approve or disapprove. There is therefore a rule superior to the things
which judges of them by opinion, and superior also to the opinion which judges it.
But this is only the first step of M. Janet. This rule which directs us in our appreciation of ourselves and others, what is it? Each of us possesses it in ourselves,
spontaneously and instinctively we compare our own or the actions of others with an
ideal we have within us of those actions, which ideal we require to be filled entirely.
I have an ideal of a witness who will not lie, of a soldier who will not fly from his
post, of a magistrate who will not bend before violence or corruption; and according
to this ideal I judge of the real witness, soldier, magistrate, hero, and I approve or
I disapprove of him.
"And if one believes," adds M. Janet that no particular man has possibly realised
this ideal, we come to the conclusion that we have an ideal of a man in himself distinct from all individual men, and from or towards which, every man may go or approach.
M. Janet recognises that the qualities which compose the conception of this man
in-self, are drawn from the exhibition we have had of these several qualities as they




22
have been exhibited in man. We see men more truthful, more courageous, more
noble than others, and it is the origin of our type of man.
"In each particular case" says M. Janet, "I conceive a man still nobler, this coming
to me, I conceive another higher still and so on, I conceive that every man may be
inferior to man as I idealise him. At the end of this processus I conceive a man whose
excellence cannot be surpassed. It is this double necessity of having a type or a. model
superior to every particular man and, which nevertheless should not be an empty
abstraction which has given birth to the grand Christian conception of a man-God.
On the one hand God only can be perfect, on the other it is only man who can serve
as a model for other men." One almost hears in these beautiful utterances of this
rigid philosopher the cry of the Evangel. Ecce Homo!! M. Janet goes no further, it
is probable he rejects the history of our Christ. He only shows the philosophic
necessity of such an ideal and type for man. He goes no further. He limits himself
in proving that religion is not a brilliant and poetic phenomenon belonging to the
Youth of humanity as the Positivists say. He declares the last word of his researches
to be-religion-"religion in self"-he says is-"Love of God." Humanity is weak,
it requires and, it groans after the good and the perfect, it cries libera nos, it invokes
"the beneficent Being who drags it up out of sorrow and of sin." We can only say that
the essence of religion is here in this philosophy, and the phase of it which responds
best to these human needs will live so long as humanity remains in its present conditions. M. Janet devotes some time to a discussion of the casualistic doctrine of Probabilisn but we have not space to refer to his arguments on this subject nor to those
upon the "Immortality of the soul" nor of "the future life;" His chief works are these,
"Upon the moral," the Family, the Philosophy of Happiness and "the History of
Political science in its relations with morality" and upon the Problems of the 19th
Century, all of which are worthy of careful study, all of which I would earnestly
commend to you.
In the words of Fouillee, "we have seen a gradual and progressive conciliation
during our day between the three great schools which represent the traditions of
Kant in Germany, of Maine de Biran in France and of Hume in England. This accord
has taken place, not by the destruction of these systems but by their superposition
in one vast edifice, in which these diverse foundations sustain the bnilding instead of
severally demolishing one the other. The first foundation is made of all, that materialism contained of positive trnth upon the necessary conditions, which Socrates and
Plato called mechanai, aitiai anagoaiai, that is to say upon that mechanical liaison of
phenomena from whence results the stability of the Universe.
The second foundation added by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, responds to the
harmonic liaison of creatures in their finality, from whence results the progress of
the good,.and the beautiful in the Universe. Antiquity knew only these two first
regions in a philosophic (consciousness, domains of Science and Art. She never
assigned to morality a sphere absolutely her own, although mor.ality was courageously
practised by the Ancients. True Liberty and with it true morality was only divined
by Plato and the Alexandrians. It was better understood in India in Persia, and in
Judea but it was elevated only with Christianity into the rank of a new and renovating
principle. This principle, obscured and mutilated by Roman Theology, re-established
in France in Social order, and proposed as a Law to the World under the names of
Liberty Equality and Fraternity, has not yet attained to a full conscience of itself
in the order of philosophy.
In France to the sensual school entirely absorbed in the mechanism of sensations




23
there succeeded Main de Biran who re-established in man and Nature the dynamism
of Life. Victor Cousin and Descartes preserved. and developed these ideas. The
directing idea of the philosophy of France being'that of Liberty and therefore of
fraternity, is the present directing idea of Humanity itself. It has brought the tidal
wave of Republicanism! In England the order of philosophy has only so far followed
the material mechanism of sensations, or of phenomena; but its more recent philosophers have re-established under the external envelope of things, an internal dynamism of which the principle force is muscular energy, and this doctrine recalls the
teachings of Maine de Biran:-at the same time some of the English Thinkers who are
less strange to systematic views upon the whole of things, represent the universal
liaison of movements as an Evolution and a Progress. This introduces into the world
the idea of finality and of harmony: In the social sphere the English have a lively
sense of political liberty, but moral liberty is still absent from their philosophy.
It results that Liberty is for men only a means not an End: it is only valuable as it
is more useful as an instrument of individual or collective well-being. Therefore the
directing Idea of the English philosophy is UTILITY. For France Liberty is not a
means in view of Universal Life as the Germans conceive to-day; it is not a means
in view of individual Utility as the English conce4ve it; it is not simply a means in
view of the life to come and the interests of salvation as many Christian conceive it;
it is by itself and in itself and for itself a good anl Etnd, a Law; it is by itself holy and
amiable; in the present life, it begins the Kingdom of God, by the realisation of
Law and human solidarity; Liberty is justice, is charity, is Religion, it nnites God
to man, and man to God. If freewill is an illusion, law and fraternity lose their
absolute value; Law would be only a stronger force, or a minor interest; disinterestedness and Love would be only an egoistic satisfaction of an irresistible nature and
of a fatal desire. Truth and Beauty in the Universe would be purchased at the expense of goodness. Antiquity seeking to explain mind by nature figured it only as
a chance or Destiny, that is to say as Necessity. After thus being Chained to Nature,
intelligence has delivered itself in conceiving a free morality as the only force capable
of realising a Universal Love.
In Fouillee's splendidwords. "Prometheus seemed forever fixed upon the hard
rock of matter: the bonds of Necessity - enveloped him  on every side; He looked
about him, and saw nothing which could compel his chains to fall; his first thought
is a thought of discouragement, his first words are lamentations; "Immense ether,
winds of rapid wings, sources of Rivers, inrlulmerable undulations ot seawaves, behold
how the Gods treat a God."
It seemed as if the day would never come which was to terminate his tortures. —
Nevertheless in this captive body a thought was dwelling which knew  no limits,
which subdued all things even the future to its own Laws, which penetrated into
the secrets of necessity itself, which dominated over Time, Space and numbers, the
dwelling places of servitude, and which looked into the Infinite, the sphere of Liberty.
This idea of Liberty is the inextinguishable spark stolen from the fire of the Gods;
To this idea responds a desire which nothing limited can satisfy; but this insatiable
desire, which made the agony of Prometheus, prepared also for his deliverance; the
God though enslaved bore already Liberty in his thought and in his heart. Necessity,
begun to be vanquished the day when she was fully understood; knowing how the
bonds were tied, was knowing how to untie them, one after another Prometheus
unloosed them; by science, by arts, he rendered his Chains more and more flexible
and regained little by little the libertiy of movement. Nevertheless though atten



24
uated and nearly invisible, he still felt them,-he felt them always,-at the same time
that he saw himself thus enveloped, he beheld all other men likewise chained: He
saw them strive vainly: Ie saw those suffering who had received the fire from
heaven: He heard all around him not only the groanings of Nature but those of all
Humanity, an ocean whose plaintive lamentations replied to his own sad cries: He
forgot himself in listening to the voices of his brothers; in perceiving their chains he
lost sight of his own fetters; his thought, and his heart fled towards them; he wished
to help them. But a last and an inflexible bond restrained him still; an invulnerable
obstacle separated him from those he wished to save at the cost of self-sacrifice. All
at once the miracle which thought and desire attempted in vain, was accomplished
by a supreme ray of LOVE. In wishing to unloose the chains from his brothers,
Prometheus felt that his own had fallen. He was near to them, He was one with
them; He was FREE."
We have followed carefilly thus far the analysis of M. Paul Janet and others
adding what seemed needful for its intelligibility for American hearers, but we may
say of ourselves, acknowledging frankly all the defects and omissions of this modern
Spiritualistic philosophy that it is a great gain to have fixed so much, to have restored
to the world, the thoughts of God, the soul, immortality, not though supernatural
Revelation, but though inflexible laws of Logic and strict philosophy as these Philosophers have done. After following with critical eyes, their close, pure and inexorable Logic, their cold, calm discussion of the Laws of thought and of Life, one realises
the immense obligation under which the Philosophers of France have placed all
thoughtful earnest and DOUBTING minds, by giving back to the world in clearly
illuminated Text the grand words uttered by the unconscious lips of the Earth
from her infancy, proclaimed alike by the sages of India, the Priests of Egypt, the
Philosophers of Greece, the singers and Prophets of Israel. In a word this fundamental Truth given as the Key to all Existences.
"I God am," and there is none else and nothing else besides me."
This task is accomplished by the present philosophy of the University of France
and this is the word of order in their Battalions, "all is filled with God, is full of
Spirit."
We live not in the midst of Death, but of eternally metamorphosing Life! Not
in a dead but a living Universe, and if in the midst of our small, busy, fretful restless
existences, we would pause for a second to listen however carelessly to the seeming
silence of the Infinite around about us, a silence caused not by the lack of the tones
of Life; but by their infinite interceptions, interruptions, and interferences, their
ceaseless rush of vital activities crossing, mingling, interchanging eternally. We
would hear the deep, intense pulsations of living force which are the heart-beats of
the Life of God. And the words which come echoing across the Ocean to us, from the
lips of the Philosophers of the University of France, a clarion cry which our souls
respond to fully.
S. A. DoasEr.