240 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



derailing them, which does not know in mathematics 

 propitious or fatal numbers, in astronomy, friendly or 

 unfriendly stars, in meteorology, clement or inclement 

 skies ; lastly, to steep our active power in the calm of 

 contemplation, which is not indifference, and remember 

 that, if the wise man observes, compares, experiments, 

 this is not only in order to know but also to act, this 

 is the attitude which, according to French positivists 

 as well as English evolutionists, man has to preserve 

 in the face of nature and in the face also of humanity, 

 if he wishes to know and put to profit reality, instead 

 of following phantoms of abstract metaphysic or of blind 

 mysticism." l 



In order to get beyond this purely contemplative, dis- 

 passionate, utilitarian or prudential point of view which 

 reduces everything to necessity and leaves no room 

 for free action, naturalism according to M. Fouillee 

 requires a complement both psychological and cosmo- 

 logical. It has to recognise that this necessary process 

 of evolution itself produces a new beginning, new centres 

 of action, as soon as out of the chaos of inanimate and 

 unconscious existence there emerges the world of ideas, 

 of new moving forces. The ethical problem thus de- 

 mands a psychological and metaphysical inquiry. M. 

 Fouillee supplies this in his Psychology and Metaphysics 

 of the Idees-forces. 2 These prepare the ground for the 



1 ' Critique des Systemes de 

 Morale Contemporains ' (5th ed. , 

 1906, p. 39). 



2 " L'ideal moral n'est pas une 

 pure chimere si je parviens a lui 

 dormer une existence, d'abord dans 

 ma pensee, puis dans mes actions, 

 qui ne sont que ma pense'e con- 



tinuee a travers mes organes et se 

 propageant dans le monde exte'rieur. 

 L'ide'e, etant 1'action commence"e, 

 est efScace et productrice ; la pensee 

 humaine peut devenir par elle, au 

 sein du de"terminisme meme, cre"a- 

 trice d'un monde nouveau. Un 

 disciple de Descartes et de Platon 



