He upheld a spiritual activity, manifesting itself
most clearly in love and art, while he allowed to matter, to mathematics
and logic only an imperfect reality. He extolled synthetic views of
reality rather than analytic ones. We are prevented, he said, from
realizing our true selves because of our slavery to habit. To the
ultimate reality, or God, we can attain because of our kinship with that
reality, and by an effort of loving sympathy enter into union with it by
an intuition which lies beyond and above the power of intellectual
searching. As Maine de Biran foretold the coming of a metaphysical
Columbus, so Ravaisson, in his famous Rapport sur la philosophic en
France au xix siecle, published in 1867, prophesied as follows: "Many
signs permit us to foresee in the near future a philosophical epoch of
which the general character will be the predominance of what may be
called spiritualistic realism or positivism, having as generating
principle the consciousness which the mind has of itself of an existence
recognized as being the source and support of every other existence,
being none other than its action."
Lachelier, a disciple of Ravaisson, brought out--as has been already
remarked [Footnote: Page 3.]--the significance of the operations of
vital forces and of liberty. Guyau, whose brief life ended in 1888 and
whose posthumous work La Genese de I'Idee de Temps was reviewed by
Bergson two years after the publication of his own Time and Free Will,
laid great stress on the intensification and expansion of life.
Pages:
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189