EULOGY OX AMPEKE. 129 



This error, for I am very much iuclined to helieve this was au error, 

 will be somewhat lessened in the eyes of those who will take into 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 i^erspicuity. When 

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

 the psychologists, strove madly, I mean without preparation, to hurl 

 Vemcsthese, 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 au 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 'I This would have been of no conse- 

 quence if the extreme amiability of our associate had not allowed the 

 skeptics whose role is to ridicule, to usuri^ the place of those whose 

 doubts were serious, 



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

 thi'ough M. Brediu, that Ampere had contemplated while in Paris the 

 publication of a book which he intended to call " Tntroduction to PJiil- 

 osopliyP 



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 supx)ression. Our associate continued 

 to elaborate his Theory of Relations, his Theory of Uxistencc, of Suhjec- 

 tivc and Ohjeetive Knoicledge, and of Absolute Morality. 



He considered himself incapable of throwing sufficient light on sub- 

 jects so diflicult to treat without submitting them to animated verbal 

 discussions. Unfortunately the so ardently desired opportunities were 

 not to be found in Paris at that time. Maiiie de Biron 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 resolved to re- 

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

 arranged; a certainty of «/: least four afternoons a iceelc 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 perspicuity, 

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

 of the replies received by Ampere I have every 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, you no 

 longer feel an interest in it, is it necessary, besides to deprive me of ail 

 earthly consolation, he said, to know we no longer sympathize on meta- 

 physical subjects. * * * About the onlv thin 5- which interests Lie, 

 9s 



