ANTITHESIS OF IDEALISM AND INDIVIDUALISM 519 



Here, indeed, we have the fertile source of all those errors 

 into which idealism, dissociated from the organisation which is 

 its natural expression, may lead us. The individual is taught 

 that liberty of speculation as to the sources of his idealist 

 tendencies is desirable ; and, as a consequence of this, liberty of 

 speculation as to the form and direction which those tendencies 

 ought to take is not only allowed, but strongly urged. The result 

 is that the individual, free to choose his path, and compelled to 

 rely solely on his own judgment, becomes lost in a maze of 

 speculations ; he becomes more and more desocialised ; and his 

 very ideahsm does but serve to accentuate his individuaHsm, to 

 aggravate his lack of solidarity with the rest of society. Idealism 

 is no longer associated with aU-powerful and venerable tradi- 

 tions ; it is no longer the link which unites the individual, not 

 only to the rest of society in the present, but to the past and to 

 the future ; it no longer envelops every moment of the indi- 

 vidual's hfe, or gives to it that value which it gives when it 

 means a continuance of great traditions, and when it is a per- 

 petual symbol of the responsibility of the individual to society 

 in the past, present, and future. Idealism, imder such condi- 

 tions, passes from the concrete to the abstract ; and in so doing, 

 it passes also from the coherent to the incoherent. The indi- 

 vidual is no longer incorporated, through its agency, in a living 

 whole which confers a value on him, and in the presence of which 

 he feels himself inspired by a sense of responsibiUty. It 

 becomes, on the contrary, a living reminder of his isolation ; he 

 finds himself confronted by contradictory principles ; and the 

 principle to which he adheres has no sanction beyond that of 

 his own judgment. Thus the ideaHstic principle, once we embark 

 on the path of individual speculation as to its origin and direction, 

 becomes essentially rationalistic— that is to say, we deprive it 

 of its very ideahsm by depriving it of its supra-rational sanction. 



But if ideahsm have a supra-rational sanction, then it must 

 not be individualist ; it must be a social principle ; and to be a 



