206 



F. F. EOGET^ ON EENEST KATILLE's LIFE. 



of existence. The result is, or in his intention would be, a 

 symphony of the moral cravings, philosophic tendencies and 

 scientific pursuits of man. In Naville, the most complete 

 harmony did subsist between Christian, philosopher and scientist. 

 He felt that his calling lay in formulating for the acceptance of 

 others the harmony which he perceived, in which he found 

 moral strength, philosophic repose and intellectual vigour. His 

 lifetime was spent in thinking the matter out, simultaneously, and 

 in turns, as a Christian, for the philosopher and the scientific man, 

 as a philosopher, for the Christian and the student of nature, as 

 a scientific man, for Christian and philosopher alike. He pro- 

 claimed before them what might guide all three to his harbour. 



This brings us to consider more closely I^aville's philosophic 

 method. His way was to seek out, in every question, that 

 which reason, fairly consulted, admits of itself or cannot decline 

 to admit, provided it be an ordinary, healthily constituted 

 reasoning faculty. For this, he begins by simplifying every 

 question. Why ? because anything that raises a doubt must be 

 of a confusing character, else there would be no question about 

 it. A first simplification imposes itself : it consists in extricat- 

 ing the object of the question from alien complications. It is 

 thus disentangled from what is foreign to itself. But, reduced 

 to itself, the object of the question still appears complex. 

 Investigation of the complexities shows that some are the 

 result of inattention, others are dictated by prejudice, by 

 scholastic subtleties, by intrusions of ill-digested learning from 

 another province or by rash anticipatory philosophisings. The 

 issue is thus at last reduced to simple terms, terms simple in 

 the actual sense of the word. There are now placed before our 

 eyes, notions which are free from that which an imperfect vision 

 had mixed up with them, notions in short which an attentive 

 mind, a healthy faculty, a firm reason may grasp at once, by 

 means of that spontaneously obvious reflecting power without 

 which reason has no function, for the function of reason does 

 not presuppose some initiation, before it can be exercised. 



Naville is a master in the art of bringing out in full relief 

 those notions which are beneath and before every system, every 

 discussion, every imaginable study. Those notions are a common 

 suhstratiim. A thinker who would limit himself to them could 

 not grow into a philosopher, but should he decline to stand 

 upon them, his philosophy would be sand-built. A thinker may 

 neither shut himself up in those fundamentals, nor dare he 

 dispense with them. They are the minimum of philosophic 

 substance, the element of every thought. 



