400 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



is either new in principle or expressed with the same 

 lucidity and elegance. We may, in fact, say what has 

 been said of one of the philosophers of the Kestoration, 

 that French thought is prophetic ; giving in rare 

 instances, emphatic and seemingly premature expression 

 to arguments which have taken a long time to become 

 popularly understood. 1 This is eminently the case with 

 two of the points urged by de Lamennais in his cele- 

 77. brated ' Essai sur 1'Indifference en matiere de Eeligion.' 2 

 Disregarding, for our present purpose, the local and tem- 

 poral circumstances which caused its great reputation, 

 we find that the author emphasised two important points 

 which have since occupied religious thinkers every- 

 where. The first point dealt with by de Lamennais in 

 his first volume was the growing spirit, not of unbelief, 

 but of indifference towards religious questions. He 

 foretold that religious thought was tending towards in- 

 difference. The other point with which he dealt in the 

 second volume was the problem of certitude, the question 



1 Paul Janet, in ' La Philosophic 

 de Lamennais' (1890, pp. 2 and 3), 

 sees in de Lamennais (1782-1854) 

 one of the great problems of the 

 century condensed in a single mind 

 and a unique moment. It is the 

 transition from the idea of authority 

 to that of revolution. "D'autres 

 que lui, sans doute, ont passe' aussi 



pourquoi la vie de Lamennais est 

 un drame dans lequel se concentre 

 tout un siecle. . . . De meme que, 

 dans les tragedies, 1'interet, pour 

 etre dramatique, doit se concentrer 

 dans une action unique : de meme 

 le combat du siecle entre le passe 

 et 1'avenir, pour apparaitre dans 

 toute sa grandeur, a du se condenser 



de la cause de 1'autorite a celle de ! dans une seule atne et en un 



la revolution : Lamartine, Victor 

 Hugo, Chateaubriand lui-meme, 

 rnalgre^ sa fidelite d' office a la le"giti- 



moment unique. Tel est le haut et 

 persistant interet que pre'sente la 

 vie de Lamennais, et qui donne a 



mite; mais aucun d'eux n'etait j tous ses ecrits et aux phases diverses 



pretre, apotre, prophete ; aucXin 

 n'avait pris parti avec tant de 

 violence et d'exageYation en faveur 

 des doctrines du passe". C'est 



de sa philosophic un caractere si 

 emouvant." 



2 Vol. i., 1817 ; vol. ii., 1820 

 vols. iii. and iv., 1823. 



