210 PHILOSOPHY 



was far from being productive of great thinkers or great thoughts in 

 the sphere of philosophy. De Biran (1766-1824), in several important 

 respects the forerunner of modern psychology, after revolting from 

 his earlier complacent acceptance of the vagaries of Condillac and 

 Cabanis, made the discovery that the "immediate consciousness of 

 self-activity is the primitive and fundamental principle of human 

 cognition." Meantime it was only a little group of Academicians who 

 were being introduced, in a somewhat superficial way, to the thoughts 

 of the Scottish and the German idealistic Schools by Royer-Collard, 

 Jouffroy, Cousin, and others. A more independent and characteristic 

 movement was that inaugurated by Auguste Comte (1798-1857), 

 who, having felt the marked influence of Saint-Simon when he was 

 only a boy of twenty, in a letter to his friend Valat, in the year 1824, 

 declares: "I shall devote my whole life and all my powers to the 

 founding of positive philosophy." In spite of the impossibility of 

 harmonizing with this point of view the vague and mystical elements 

 which characterize the later thought of Comte, or with its carrying 

 into effect the not altogether intelligent recognition of the synthetic 

 activity of the mind (tout se reduit toujours a Her) and certain hints as 

 to "first principles;" and in spite of the small positive contribution 

 to philosophy which Comtism could claim to have made; it has in 

 a way represented the value of two ideas. These are (1) the necessity 

 for philosophy of studying the actual historical forces which have 

 been at work and which are displayed in the facts of history; and 

 (2) the determination not to go by mere unsupported speculation 

 beyond experience in order to discover knowable Reality. There is, 

 however, a kind of subtle irony in the fact that the word " Positivism " 

 should have come to stand so largely for negative conclusions, in the 

 very spheres of philosophy, morals, and religion where affirmative 

 conclusions are so much desired and sought. 



That philosophy in Great Britain was in a nearly complete con- 

 dition of decadence during the first half or three quarters of the 

 nineteenth century was the combined testimony of writers from such 

 different points of view as Carlyle, Sir William Hamilton, and John 

 Stuart Mill. And yet these very names are also witnesses to the fact 

 that this decadence was not quite complete. In the first quarter of 

 the century Coleridge, although he had failed, on account of weakness 

 both of mind and of character, in his attempt to reconcile religion to 

 the thought of his own age, on the basis of the Kantian distinction be- 

 tween reason and the intellect, had sowed certain seed-thoughts which 

 became fertile in the soil of minds more vigorous, logical, and practi- 

 cal than his own. This was, perhaps, especially true in America, where 

 inquirers after truth were seeking for something more satisfactory 

 than the French skepticism of the revolutionary and following period. 

 Carlyle 's mocking sarcasm was also not without wholesome effect. 



