However much Fouillée is concerned with establishing; a case for progress in knowledge, it is clear that his main stress is on the progress in self-consciousness or that self- determination which is freedom. This freedom can only grow as man consciously realises it himself. It is an _idée-force_, and has against it all the forces of fatalism and of egoism. For Fouillée quite explicitly connects his doctrine of freedom with that of altruism. The real freedom and the real progress are one, he claims, since they both are to be realised only in the increasing power of disinterestedness and love. He believes in the possibility of a free progress. Fatality is really egoism, or produces it.
Fouillée has a rather clear optimism, for he finds in the development of real freedom a movement which will involve a moral and social union of mankind. The good- will is more truly human nature than egoism and selfishness. These vices, he maintains in his _Idée moderne du Droit_,[17] are largely a product of unsatisfied physical wants. The ideal of the good-will is not a contradiction of human nature, because, he asserts, that nature desires and wills its good. More strikingly, he states that the human will tends ultimately not to conflict but to co-operation as it becomes enlightened and universalised. He disagrees with the pessimists and upholds a comparatively cheerful view of human nature. Egoism is much less deeply rooted than sympathy, and therefore, he says, war and strife are transitory features of human development. One contrasts the views of Taine and Renouvier with this, and feels that man’s history has been, as far as we know it, entirely of this “transitory” nature, and is long likely to be so.
[17] _L’Idée moderne du Droit_, Livre IV.
Fouillée’s optimism seems to be overdrawn mainly because of his doctrine of the _idée-force_. He exaggerates the response which human nature is likely to make to the ideal good. Even if it be lifted up, it is not likely to draw _all_ men to it. Yet Fouillée’s social and ethical doctrines stand entirely upon this foundation. They are valuable views, and Fouillée is never better than when he is exhorting his fellows to act upon the ideas of freedom, of justice, of love and brotherhood. He is right in his insistence upon humanity’s power to create good- will, to develop a new order. For the good man, he says, fatality and egoism are obstacles to be overcome Believing in freedom and in sympathy, he acts to others in a spirit of freedom and love. By his very belief in universal good-will among men, he assists largely in creating it and realising it in the world.[18]