Modern French Philosophy | Page 3

cordiale between any two
peoples. An understanding of their deepest thoughts is also necessary
and desirable. Such an understanding is, after all, but a step towards
that iternationalisation of thought, that common fund of human culture
and knowledge, which sets itself as an ideal before the nations of the
world. _La philosophie n'a pas de patrie! Les idées sont actuellement
les forces internationales._
_J. A. G._
THE UNIVERSITY, LIVERPOOL, December, 1921

CONTENTS
FOREWORD BY M. HENRI BERGSON
CHAPTER I.
ANTECEDENTS II. MAIN CURRENTS SINCE 1851 III. SCIENCE
IV. FREEDOM V. PROGRESS VI. ETHICS VII. RELIGION
CONCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY COMPARATIVE TABLE INDEX
PROJECT GUTENBERG SMALL PRINT NOTES TO THE E_BOOK
EDITION

CHAPTER I
ANTECEDENTS
THIS work deals with the great French thinkers since the time of
Auguste Comte, and treats, under various aspects, the development of
thought in relation to the main problems which confronted these men.
In the commencement of such an undertaking we are obliged to
acknowledge the continuity of human thought, to recognise that it tends
to approximate to an organic whole, and that, consequently, methods
resembling those of surgical amputation are to be avoided. We cannot
absolutely isolate one period of thought. For this reason a brief survey
of the earlier years is necessary in order to orient the approach to the
period specially placed in the limelight, namely 1851-1921.
In the world of speculative thought and in the realm of practical politics
we find reflected, at the opening of the century, the work of the French
Revolutionaries on the one hand, and that of Immanuel Kant on the
other. Coupled with these great factors was the pervading influence of
the Encyclopædists and of the thinkers of the Enlightenment. These
two groups of influences, the one sudden and in the nature of a shock to
political and metaphysical thought, the other quieter but no less
effective, combined to produce a feeling of instability and of
dissatisfaction at the close of the eighteenth century. A sense of change,
indeed of resurrection, filled the minds and hearts of those who saw the
opening of the nineteenth century. The old aristocracy and the
monarchy in France had gone, and in philosophy the old metaphysic
had received a blow at the hands of the author of the Three Critiques.
No better expression was given to the psychological state of France at
this time than that of Alfred de Musset in his _Confession d'un Enfant
du Siècle_. _Toute la maladie du siècle présent_ (he wrote) _vient de
deux causes; le peuple qui a passé par '93 et par 1814 porte au cur deux
blessures. Tout ce qui était n'est plus; tout ce qui sera n'est pas encore.
Ne cherchez ailleurs le secret de nos maux.__*_ De Musset was right,
the whole course of the century was marked by conflict between two
forces--on the one hand a tendency to reaction and conservatism, on the

other an impulse to radicalism and revolution.
[Footnote _*_ : The extract is taken from _Première partie_, ch. 2. The
book was published in 1836. Somewhat similar sentiments are uttered
with reference to this time by Michelet. (See his _Histoire du XIXe
Siècle_, vol. i., p. 9).]
It is true that one group of thinkers endeavoured, by a perfectly natural
reaction, to recall their fellow-countrymen, at this time of unrest, back
to the doctrines and traditions of the past, and tried to find in the faith
of the Christian Church and the practice of the Catholic religion a
rallying-point. The monarchy and the Church were eulogised by
Chateaubriand, while on the more philosophical side efforts on behalf
of traditionalism were made very nobly by De Bonald and Joseph de
Maistre. While they represented the old aristocracy and recalled the
theocracy and ecclesiasticism of the past by advocating reaction and
Ultramontanism, Lamennais attempted to adapt Catholicism to the new
conditions, only to find, as did Renan later, that "one cannot argue with
a bar of iron." Not the brilliant appeals of a Lacordaire, who thundered
from Notre Dame, nor the modernism of a Lamennais, nor the efforts in
religious philosophy made by De Maistre, were, however, sufficient to
meet the needs of the time.
The old traditions and the old dogmas did not offer the salvation they
professed to do. Consequently various groups of thinkers worked out
solutions satisfactory to themselves and which they offered to others.
We can distinguish clearly four main currents, the method of
introspection and investigation of the inner life of the soul, the adoption
of a spiritualist philosophy upon an eclectic basis, the search for a new
society after the manner of the socialists and, lastly, a positive
philosophy and religion of humanity. These four currents form the
historical antecedents of our period and to a brief survey of them we
now turn.
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