EULOGY ON AMPEKE. 129 



This error, lor I am very imicU iuclined to believe this was au error, 

 will be somewhat lessened iu the eyes of those who will take iuto con- 

 sideration that in metaphysics every thing is connected, linked and 

 bound together like the meshes of the most delicate tissue, in such a 

 manner that a principal cannot be detached from the whole number of 

 definitions, observations, and hypotheses from which it emanates, with- 

 out losing most of its apparent importance and perspicuity. When 

 Ampere, still warmly excited by the conferences he had just held with 

 the i)sychologists, strove madly, I mean without preparation, to hurl 

 P^mesthcse, for example, into the midst of a reunion of geometers, phy- 

 sicists, and naturalists, when still under the influence of his enthusiasm, 

 he maintained that an obscure word, or at least one not understood, con- 

 tained the most beautiful discovery of the century, was it not natural 

 he should encounter skeptics? This would have been of no couse- 

 <iueuce if the extreme amiability of our associate had not allowed the 

 skeptics whose role is to ridicule, to usurp the place of those whose 

 doubts were serious, 



I find in the manuscript correspondence, to which I have access 

 through M. Bredin, that Ampere had contemplated while in Paris the 

 publication of a book which he intended to call " Inti-oduction to Phil- 

 osophijy 



The famous anathema of Napoleon against ideology did not discour- 

 age him; it seemed to him rather to contribute to the propagation of 

 this kind of studies than to its suppression. Our associate continued 

 to elaborate his Theory of Eelations, his Theory of Uxlstcnec, of Snljec- 

 tive and Objective Knowledge^ and of Absolute Morality. 



Be considered himself incapable of throwing suflicient light on sub- 

 jects so difficult to treat without submitting them to animated v( rbal 

 discussions. Unfortunately the so ardently desired opportunities were 

 not to be found in Pai^s at that time. Mauie de Birou had returned to 

 Berjerac, and among the remaining inhabitants of that immense capital, 

 not one seemed to feel any interest, from a metaphysical point of view, 

 in subjective, objective, and absolute morality. Ampere then turned 

 his eyes in the direction of the friends of his youth, and resolvi d to re- 

 turn for a short time to Lyons. The terms of the visit were strictly 

 arranged; a certainty of at least four ajternoons a iceeTc devoted to dis- 

 cussions on ideology , a formal promise that each day should be read 

 and examined with a view to correction in composition and perspi( uify, 

 the subjects of each day's study. Although 1 have not at hand the text 

 of the replies received by Amperel haveevery reason to believe they were 

 far from giving him satisfaction. " How wonderful is the science of psy- 

 chology !" he wrote to M. Bredin, "and most unhappily for me, yon no 

 lo]iger feel an interest in it, is it necessary, besides to de[)rive me <;f all 

 earthly consolation, he said, to know we no longer sympathise on inera- 

 physical subjects. * * * About the only thing which intciests me, 

 9 s' 



