OF THE GOOD. 243 



establish a morality without obligation and sanction, and 

 to preserve the religious spirit without a positive religion ; 

 he proclaims, not the absence of religion or anti-religion, 

 but Irreligion, the absence of a dogmatic or mystical 

 religion, as the faith of the future. 



The conception which Guyau places in the centre of 

 his speculation is, . as I have had occasion to state in 

 the last chapter, the idea of Life. It is with him a 

 moving and expanding principle. Ethics becomes with 

 him the doctrine of the ways and means adopted of 

 necessity by nature herself, in order to secure the 

 growth, the greatest development of life. Moral con- 

 duct becomes with him identical with that kind of 

 activity which furthers the expansion of life to its 

 fullest extent. It is thus opposed to every narrowing 

 conception, such as Egoism, and culminates in a highest 

 virtue which is generosity. But in the same way as 

 with Eouillee, for whom the active principle is inherent 

 in the world of ideas, itself a product of natural 

 development, so with Guyau, the active or propelling 

 force is the principle of life, which rises out of the 

 unconscious into the region of consciousness. Both 

 thinkers thus reduce the process of evolution to the 

 existence of a moving principle, inherent in the in- 

 animate as well as the animated world, in the un- 

 conscious as well as the conscious regions of exist- 

 ence. While they emphasise the active side of the 

 mind in opposition to the purely intellectual or con- 

 templative, they are unable to offer an explanation 

 of the difference of value which the human mind 

 attaches to certain developments, such as the Beautiful 



