ELEVENTH EPOCH.

PHILOSOPHY FINALLY RELINQUISHING ITS PLACE IN FAVOR OF POSITIVE SCIENCE.

CHAPTER I.

ECLECTICISM.

"Nous ne croyons pas les choses parce qu'elles sont vraies," says Pascal, "mais nous les croyons vraies parce que nous les aimons." This is one ever-present obstacle to the progress of mankind. We do not love truth because it is true, but because it seems to countenance other opinions which we believe necessary to our well-being. Only a few philosophic minds have strength enough to detach their eyes from consequences, and concentrate all their attention on Truth; and these few can only do so in virtue of their steadfast conviction that Truth can never be really injurious, whatever phantoms apprehensive ignorance may conjure up around it.

The reaction against the Philosophy of the eighteenth century was not a reaction against a doctrine proved to be incompetent, but against a doctrine believed to be the source of frightful immorality. The reaction was vigorous because it was animated by the horror which agitated Europe at the hideous excesses of the French Revolution. Associated in men's minds with the saturnalia of the Terror, the philosophical opinions of Condillac, Diderot, and Cabanis were held responsible for the crimes of the Convention; and what might be true in those opinions was flung aside with what was false, without discrimination, without

analysis, in fierce impetuous disgust. Every opinion which had what was called "a taint of materialism," or seemed to point in that direction, was denounced as an opinion necessarily leading to the destruction of all Religion, Morality, and Government. Every opinion which seemed to point in the direction of spiritualism was eagerly welcomed, promulgated, and lauded; not because it was demonstrably true, but because it was supposed capable of preserving social order. And indeed when, looking back upon those times, we contemplate the misery and anarchy which disgraced what was an inevitable movement, and dimmed what was really noble in the movement, we can understand how generous hearts and minds, fluctuating in perplexity, did instinctively revolt not only against the Revolution, but against all the principles which were ever invoked by the revolutionists. Looking at the matter from this distance, we can see clearly enough that "materialism" had really no more to do with the Revolution than Christianity had to do with the hideous scenes in which the Anabaptists were actors; but we can understand how indelible was the association of Revolution and materialism in the minds of that generation.

So profoundly influential has this association been, that a celebrated surgeon of our own day perilled his position by advocating an opinion, now universally accepted, but then generally shuddered at; namely, that the brain is the "organ" of the mind. He had to retract that opinion, which the pious Hartley and many others had advanced without offence. He had to retract it, not because it was scientifically untenable, but because it was declared to be morally dangerous. It was "materialism," and materialism "led" to the destruction of all morality. Although every man now believes the brain to be veritably the organ of the mind, the word materialism is still used as a bugbear. Instead of being refuted as false, it is by many denounced as dangerous. I believe the philosophy of the eighteenth century to be dangerous because false; the writers to whom I allude declare it false because they believe it dangerous. I believe it

also to be in many respects healthful, because in many respects true; and it would be uncandid in me not to declare that if I oppose the eighteenth century doctrine, I believe the spiritualism which denounces it is even more incomplete as a philosophy, and consequently even more dangerous in its influence.

The history of the reaction in France is very instructive, but it would require more space than can here be given adequately to narrate the story.* Four streams of influence converged into one, all starting from the same source, namely, horror at the revolutionary excesses. The Catholics, with the great Joseph de Maistre and M. de Bonald at their head, appealed to the religious sentiments; the Royalists, with Chateaubriand and Madame de Staël, appealed to the monarchical and literary sentiments; the metaphysicians, with Laromiguière and Maine de Brian, and the moralists with Royer-Collard, one and all attacked the weak points of Sensationalism, and prepared the way for the enthusiastic reception of the Scotch and German philosophies. A glance at almost any of these writers will suffice to convince the student that their main purpose is to defend morality and order, which they believe to be necessarily imperilled by the philosophy they attack. The appeals to the prejudices and sentiments are abiding. Eloquence is made to supply the deficiencies of argument; emotion takes the place of demonstration. The hearer is charmed, roused, dazzled. He learns to associate all the nobler sentiments with spiritualistic doctrines, and all grovelling ideas with materialistic doctrines; till the one school becomes inseparably linked in his mind with emotions of reverence for whatever is lofty, profound, and noble, and the other with emotions of contempt for whatever is shallow and unworthy. The leaders of the reaction were men of splendid talents, and their work was eminently successful. But now that the heats of controversy have cooled, and all these debates have become historical, we

* The reader may consult on this topic Damiron, Essai sur l'Histoire de la Philosophie en France an XIXième Siècle; and Taine, Les Philosophes Français du XIXième Siècle.

who look at them from a distance can find in them no philosophical progress, no new elements added which could assist the evolution of Philosophy and form a broader basis for future monuments. In political and literary History these attempts would claim a conspicuous position; in the History of Philosophy they deserve mention only as having made mankind aware of the limited nature of the eighteenth century philosophy, and its extraordinary lacunæ. Their office was critical, and has been

fulfilled.

One doctrine, and one alone, emerged from these attempts, and held for some time the position of a school. It made a noise in its day, but even the echoes have now become almost inaudible, for a feebler doctrine scarcely ever obtained acquiescence. We must, nevertheless, bestow a few sentences on it to make our history complete. Eclecticism is dead, but it produced some good results, if only by the impetus it gave to historical research, and by the confirmation it gave, in its very weakness, to the conclusion that an à priori solution of transcendental problems is impossible. For Eclecticism was the last product of philosophical speculation, the gathering together of all that philosophers had achieved, and the evolution from these separate achievements of one final doctrine, which final doctrine is itself rejected.

Victor Cousin and Thomas Jouffroy are the chiefs of this school, one a brilliant rhetorician utterly destitute of originality, the other a sincere thinker, whose merits have been thrown into the shade by his brilliant colleague. As a man of letters, M. Cousin deserves the respect which attends his name, if we except the more than questionable use which he has made of the labors of pupils and assistants without acknowledgment. However, our business is not with Cousin, but with Eclecticism. RoyerCollard introduced the principles of the Scotch school, to combat with them the principles of sensationalism. Reid and Stewart were translated by Jouffroy, explained and developed by RoyerCollard, Jouffroy, and Cousin. The talents of these professors,

aided by the tendency towards any reaction, made the Scotch philosophy dominant in France. But Victor Cousin's restless activity led him to the study of Kant :--and the doctrines of the Königsberg sage" were preached by him with the same ardor as that which he had formerly devoted to the Scotch. As soon as the Parisians began to know something of Kant, M. Cousin started off to Alexandria for a doctrine: he found one in Proclus. He edited Proclus; lectured on him; borrowed some of his ideas, and would have set him on the throne of Philosophy, had the public been willing. A trip to Germany in 1824 made him acquainted with the modern Proclus-Hegel. On his return to Paris he presented the public with as much of Hegel's doctrines as he could understand. His celebrated Eclecticism is nothing but a misconception of Hegel's History of Philosophy, fenced round with several plausible arguments.

All error, M. Cousin repeatedly enforces, is nothing but "an incomplete view of the truth." Upon this definition is based the proposition that "All systems are incomplete views of the reality, set up for complete images of the reality." The conclusion is obvious: "All systems containing a mixture of truth and error have only to be brought together, and then the error would be eliminated by the mere juxtaposition of system with system. The truth or portion of the truth which is in one system would be assimilated with the portions of the truth which are in other systems; and thus the work would be easy enough."

Eclecticism, therefore, means the bringing together of all discovered truths eliminated from their accompanying errors; and out of this body of truths a doctrine is to be elaborated. A great task; but is it practicable? The system is based on the definition of error; by that it must stand or fall.

The definition appears to us altogether untenable. Error is sometimes an incomplete view of the truth; but it is not always: it is sometimes no view of the truth at all, but a mere divergence from it. When Newton constructed his theory of the laws of attraction, and interposed an ether as the medium through which