170 Science Religion and 'Reality 



indeed be possible to arrive at a universal law from a certain number 

 of cases under observation, unless it were postulated that Nature 

 will remain always coherent in itself — is an undemonstrable 

 principle which has been doubted by certain philosophers, by 

 Hume for example. Yet, generally speaking, all men believe in it, 

 because if that principle is not admitted, practical life is impossible. 

 How could we live, in fact, if we were not sure of the constancy of 

 the properties of such bodies as food-stuffs .? Further, the very 

 affirmation that an objective world exists independently of our 

 own individual experience is an act of faith, because we shall never 

 be able to verify the existence of things beyond the limits of our 

 own senses. If we admit the reality of external things it is solely 

 because in that way we make social and moral life possible, and 

 because we feel the duty of believing. It is not by a necessity 

 which exercises an insuperable force from without, but by a free 

 exercise of our will, which feels itself morally obliged to believe. 

 Scientific truths are admitted by us in that we may recognise that 

 they are necessary means for the attainment of our ethical ideals. 

 From this it follows as a consequence that when we find ourselves 

 faced with two equally possible hypotheses, we shall always have 

 to choose that one which fits in better with our moral needs. 

 Between liberty and absolute determinism, for example, we shall 

 choose the first. Now, according to Olle-Laprune, even religious 

 truths are necessary for the moral life, and we shall therefore have 

 to decide to accept them, just as we accept scientific truths, and the 

 certainty which we shall have will be always of the same order 

 — a moral faith. If we will to be moral, we must also will 

 everything which is a means to it, a necessary presupposition 

 of ethical life ; and therefore we must accept also religious 

 truths. 



Blondel's " Philosophy of Action " takes as the principle of all 

 spiritual development a will which seeks to actuate itself completely, 

 but which never entirely succeeds, and, unsatisfied by the position 

 it has attained, strives always to pass beyond it. There is at the 

 bottom of us all an unconscious tendency to attain full development 

 and to complete our being more and more — a tendency which is 

 never satisfied and which is inexhaustible. This is the voluntas 

 volens (which corresponds to the Infinite Ego of Fichte). There 

 is also the voluntas voluta — that is to say, that part of it which is 

 effected little by little in our consciousness during its development 



