Sir William Hamilton's Fragments of PMlosoplnj. 79 



talent in the writers of this scliool are far from being in conformity with 

 tlie gigantic proportions of their undertaking." (Preface, p. Ix.-lxlii.) 



M. Peisse's conclusions regarding the present state of philosophy in 

 France are^ that these different schools appear destined to be mutually 

 tolerant of each other ; they live in peace, or rather in a state of mutual 

 indifference. 



" Thus, as I have stated at the commencement, all these schools and 

 doctrines, the existence of which can be discovered by the researches of 

 the critic and the historian, subsist apart from each other ; they seem re- 

 signed to tolerate and reciprocally admit each other in virtue of the right 

 of legitimate concurrence, just as if a place could be afforded for every 

 one in the region of thought, in the same manner as in the region of space. 

 Each of these schools, retrenched within its own private domains, will- 

 ingly consents to make no inroad on the territory of another, provided 

 tliat other exercise the same forbearance towards it. By this piecemeal 

 proceeding, which likewise affects the higher branches of knowledge and 

 art, philosophy abdicates her highest function, which is a mission at once 

 universal, directive, organizing, and legislative. Reduced by these ad- 

 mitted fractional partitions to the restricted proportions of a subordinate 

 Study, she loses her high and independent position. Instead of being the 

 connecting principle, the kej-, and the common centre of all the sciences, 

 insulated from them, and ruhng over them all, she permits herself to be 

 absorbed by them, and can claim no object, notion, or fact which they do 

 not dispute with her. As a branch of study co-ordinate with all others, 

 she is far from being in a position to maintain herself even in this equi- 

 vocal rank, and to advance along with them on a footing of equality ; 

 rejected on all sides as a superfetation which represents nothing, and 

 knows not even to what she should affix her name, she will gradually 

 disappear from the scene ; for we may truly say of her, reversing the 

 words of the poet, that slie"obeys if she does not command, Paret nisi 

 imperat. 



" This tendency to decline betrays itself even materially in the exte- 

 rior means by which it is intended to be taught and propagated. The 

 few chairs nominally designed for a superior kind of instruction in philo- 

 sophy, are almost silent, for the masters whose voice was formerly heard 

 there, have retired and left them empty. The official programme of phi- 

 losophical instruction is otherwise characteristically insufficient, both in 

 regard to the number as well as the nature of the courses. The Faculty 

 of Letters in Paris has only three chairs of philosophy, and two out of 

 these three are devoted to the history of the science ; and the only dog- 

 matic chair existing In tlie capital has been for many years so neglected, 

 that it may be said to be vacant. In the College of France, that great 

 subsidiary to the University, the focus of all the higher studies, philoso- 

 phy could preserve a place in its extensive programme, which forms a 

 complete encyclopaedia, in no other way than by presenting herself as a 

 branch of aucicut literature aud philology. Finally, there do uot exist 



