OF THE SOUL. 231 



* 

 of our sensations has its origin in the reaction from /& 



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



De Tracy 



significantly added that the principle of our action is the and the idea 



* of activity. 



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. Ravaisson 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,' 

 1868, p. 13, &c. 



" Sous la passivite des sensations, 

 qui, depuis Hume, semblait tout ex- 

 pliquer, retrouver 1'activite", c'e'tait, 



lowing). "Les philosophes e"cossais 

 croient que, si les sciences morales 

 sont moins avancees que les sciences 

 physiques, cela tient a ce qu'elles ne 

 suivent pas la methode de ces der- 



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



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



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



degager de la physique, sous la- , iques consiste a observer les pheuo- 



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 homines surtout y aiderent : | sans se pre'occuper ni de leurs causes 



Maine de Biran et Ampere." I 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 j leur cote, se borner a observer les 



French Philosophy in the Nine- ' faits psychologiques et h, en induire 



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



