OF THE SPIRIT. 



409 



current systems of moral and religious thought which 

 he combats and rejects are, so far as morality is con- 

 cerned, the sense of obligation and the demand for a 

 higher sanction ; and, so far as religion is concerned, the 

 existence of a special doctrine or of a body of dogma. 

 He aims at a morality " without obligation and sanc- 

 tion," and at a religion without dogma ; the former 

 position is new and original to him ; the latter was not 

 an unknown conception with several German thinkers 

 already in the middle of the century, who talked of 

 the religious spirit without a definite religion or, as they 

 termed it, of " religiosity without religion." In this 

 manner Guyau opposes what the whole of religious 

 philosophy and all practical morals and religion have 

 considered indispensable — viz., a definite and obligatory 

 moral law and a simple or elaborate, but, in any 

 case, a definite system of beliefs. In proportion as 

 the conviction has forced itself upon thinkers from 

 many sides that reality and certitude, so far as the 

 human mind is concerned, can be attained, not by any 

 single assertion, but only by a more or less con- 

 sistent, coherent, and stable system or order of ideas ; 

 further, that the system of ideas and conceptions 

 elaborated by science has no centre and no finality ; 

 it has become increasingly clear to many that, to 

 satisfy the higher needs of the human soul, there 

 must exist another and a higher order, and that 



sout eu partie une deviation de 

 plusieurs des doctrines que Guyau 

 avait deja souteuues ; il importe 

 done au plus haut point de retablir 

 le vrai et le normal sous certaines 



alterations pathologiques qui, grace 

 au genie literaire de Nietzsche, jieu- 

 vent seduire tant de simples ou tant 

 de raffines a la recherche du neuf." 



(p. ii.) 



