OF THE SPIRIT. 



411 



sideration. Guyau's aim of establishing a religion or a 

 spiritual view of things without recourse to any definite 

 doctrine or dogma, though it naturally sprang up in 

 a country and among surroundings which have witnessed 

 the tyranny of the Church, the frightful deeds of religi- 

 ous persecution, and the abuse of dogma, cannot con- 

 sistently be carried through. For after the destruction 

 of all traditional beliefs, of all rigid dogmas, and of all 

 moral compulsion it will yet leave standing one last 

 and solitary dogma, which consistently it should not 

 hesitate ultimately and finally to destroy. This "last 

 dogma " is morality itself, the sense of Duty, and the 

 distinction of Good and Evil. 



It is interesting to see how, in modern literature, this &s. 



Morality 



conviction that morality itself must fall as a " last the " last 



dogma." 



dogma " before the logical consequences of a purely 

 naturalistic view is gradually gaining ground and finding 

 definite expression. 1 This is considered by one class 

 of thinkers to be a reductio ad absurdum of the natural- 

 istic position ; by another class as an indication that 

 utilitarian systems of morality rest upon an illogical 

 introduction of a principle alien to the purely natural- 

 istic view. Such a principle, which in the end is 

 introduced in order to combat the purely selfish and 

 individualistic view, is found, by Comte, simply in 

 Altruism ; by Guyau, in the expansive principle of Life ; 

 by Fouillee, in the " force of ideas " ; by Lange and others, 

 in Ideals ; and ultimately by all these and other thinkers, 



1 One of the earliest discussions 

 of this subject will be found in 

 three articles by M. Delboeuf in 



the ' Revue Philosophique,' vols. 

 xiii. and xiv. (1882). 



