524 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



nervous system : but it has also conscious ideas or ideals 

 such as those of right and justice, or of nationality, 

 upon which social life and political life are founded. 

 The biological view of society is, in fact, with Fouillee 

 only one side of the truth ; for his social philosophy is 

 essentially an outcome and application of a psycho- 

 logical doctrine developed originally under the influence 

 of the Platonic ideology,^ between which and the modern 

 theory of evolution Fouillee desires to effect a reconcilia- 

 tion. He does so by introducing his conception of the 

 icUes-forces, the doctrine that ideas, when once generated 

 in the human mind, become active or propelling forces, 

 desires requiring realisation. Through ideas a new 

 agency is introduced into the development and progress 

 of life. 



Applied to the social problem which deals with the 

 origin, the nature, and the aims of society, the recon- 

 ciliation is effected by bringing the contractual (idealistic) 

 theory of Eousseau " into relation with the biological 



^ See supra, vol. iii. p. 286. 



^ Jn his most important work on 

 the subject ('La Science Sociale 

 Coutemporaine,' 5th ed., 1910), the 

 author deals exhaustively with the 

 criticisms of French sociologj', and 

 especially of Rousseau's theory of 

 the contrat social, which have come 

 from German (Hegel, Strauss, 

 Biuntschli), English (Mill, Spencer, 

 Maine), and French (Comte, Taine, 

 Renan) thinkers, maintaining at 

 the outset that social science must 

 study human society from a two- 

 fold point of view, in its ideal and 

 in its reality. It is especially the 

 idealist school of Rousseau which 

 took up the former point of view : 

 it preceded the naturalistic school 

 of recent times (p. 3). He ex- 



presses surprise that in ridiculing 

 Rousseau's theorj- critics like 

 Biuntschli, Maine, Littre, Taine, 

 and Renan should have been guilty 

 of a misunderstanding of the real 

 meaning of that theory. "Autre 

 est I'origine historique, autre est 

 le fondement rationnel de I'Etat. 

 La theorie du contrat social, bien 

 interpretee, ne considere pas I'Etat 

 tel qu'il a ete, mais tel qu'il peut et 

 doit devenir. J'etudie, disait lui- 

 meme Rousseau, les hommes tels 

 qu'ils sont et les lois telles qu'elles 

 pcvvent Hre. Sans doute Rousseau, 

 cedant a Tillusion commune du 

 xviii'* siecle sur les beautes de 

 Vital de nature et sur les moeurs 

 des temps primitifs, a pu raconter 

 I'histoire de I'aveuir comme si elle 



