OF THE SOUL. 231 



of our sensations has its origin in the reaction from 

 outside against our own activity, and De Tracy had 27. 



J De Tracy 



significantly added that the principle of our action is the * 

 will and that the latter is our personality. " Within the 

 torrent of our sensations there is nothing but appearance, 

 there is neither a self nor a not-self ; surfaces as it were 

 without an inside or an outside ; through the conscious- 

 ness of our own willing we learn at once ourselves and 

 something other than ourselves : that there are on this 

 side and on that side of sensations an inner world and 

 an outer world : two realities opposed to each other and 

 which, in the act of concurrence, touch and penetrate 

 each other." l As M. Eavaisson says, it was tantamount 

 to finding again the soul itself below the passivity of 

 sensations, which since Hume seemed to explain every- 

 thing. 



By referring to this principle of activity, the point 

 was defined at which psychology would separate itself 

 as a mental science from the physical sciences that 

 threatened to absorb it. 2 Both positions, that of re- 



1 Quoted by Ravaisson, ' La Phil- isme et Liberalisme,' p. 55 and fol- 

 osophie en France au XIX e Siecle,' lowing). " Les philosophes e"cossais 

 1868, p. 13, &c. croient que, si les sciences morales 



" Sous la passivite des sensations, ' sont moins avancees que les sciences 



qui, depuis Hume, semblait tout ex- physiques, cela tient ce qu'elles ne 

 pliquer, retrouver 1'activite", c'e"tait, ' suivent pas la methode de ces der- 



sous le materiel, retrouver 1'esprit nieres ; qu'elles la suivent done et 



meme. Forte de cette decouverte, elles ne tarderont pas h, les atteindre. 



la philosophic devait bientot se Or, la methode des sciences phys- 



degager de la physique, sous la- iques consiste a observer les phe'uo- 



quelle Locke, et Hume, et Condillac menes materiels et a determiner par 



lui-meme 1'avaient comme accable"e. induction les lois qui les regissent, 



Deux hommes surtout y aiderent : sans se preoccupernideleurs causes 



Maine de Biran et Ampere." ni de 1'essence de la matiere. Les 



2 This point is well brought out sciences morales devront done, de 

 by M. Ferraz in his ' History of leur cote, se bonier & observer les 

 French Philosophy in the Nine- faits psychologiques et a en induire 

 teenth Century* (vol. iii., 'Spiritual- les lois, sans s'inquieter ni de leurs 



