The “philosophy of action” is intimately bound up with the “philosophy of belief,” formulated by Ollé-Laprune, and the movement in religious thought known generally as Modernism, which is itself due to the influence of modern philosophic thought upon the dogmas of the Christian religion, as these are stated by the Roman Church. Both the Philosophy of Belief and Modernism are characterised by an intense spirituality and a moral earnestness which maintain the primacy of the practical reason over the theoretical reason. Life, insists Ollé-Laprune in his book _Le Prix de la Vie_ (l885),[58] is not contemplation but active creation. He urges us to a creative evolution of the good, to an employment of _idées-forces_. “There are things to be made whose measure is not determined; there are things to be discovered, to be invented, new forms of the good, ideas which have never yet been received—creations, as it were, of the spirit that loves the good.” This dynamism and power of will is essential. We must not lose ourselves in abstractions; action is the supreme thing: it alone constitutes reality.
[58] This has been followed in the new century by _La Raison et le Rationalisme_, 1906. As early as 1880, however, he issued his work _La Certitude morale_, which influenced Blondel, his pupil.
A similar note is sounded by the Modernists or Neo-Catholics, particularly by the brilliant disciple and successor of Bergson, Le Roy, who in _Dogme et Critique_ (1907) has based the reality of religious dogma upon its practical significance. We find Péguy (who fell on the field of battle in 1914) applying Bergsonian ideas to a fervid religious faith. Wilbois unites these ideas to social ethics in his _Devoir et Durée_ (1912). In quite different quarters the new spiritualism and philosophy of action have appeared as inspiring the Syndicalism of Sorel, who endeavours to apply the doctrines of Bergson, Ollé-Laprune and Blondel to the solution of social questions in his _Réflexions sur la Violence_ (1907) and _Illusions du Progrès_ (1911).
It would be erroneous to regard Bergson’s intuitional philosophy as typical of all contemporary French thought. Following Renouvier, Fouillée and Boutroux, there prevail currents of a more intellectualist or rationalist type, to which we are, perhaps, too close to see in true and historical perspective. The _élan vital_ of French thought continues to manifest itself in a manner which combines the work of Boutroux and Bergson with Blondel’s idealism. A keen interest is being taken in the works of Spinoza, Kant and Hegel, and this is obviously influencing the trend of French philosophy at the moment, without giving rise to a mere eclecticism. French thought is too original and too energetic for that. In addition to these classical studies we should note the great and growing influence of the work of Durkheim and of Hamelin, both of whom we have already mentioned. The former gave an immense impetus to sociological studies by his earlier work. Further interest arose with his _Formes élémentaires de la Vie religieuse_ in 1912. Hamelin indicated a turning-point from _neo-criticisme_ through the new spiritualist doctrines to Hegelian methods and ideas. Brunschwicg, who produced a careful study of Spinoza, wrote as early as 1897 on _La Modalité du Jugement_, a truly Kantian topic. This thinker’s later works, _Les Etapes de la Philosophie mathematique_ (1912) and the little volume _La Vie de l’esprit_, illustrate a tendency to carry out the line taken by Boutroux—namely, to arrive at the statement of a valid idealism disciplined by positivism. The papers of Berthelot in his _Evolutionnisme et Platonisme_ are a further contribution to this great end. In the work of Evellin, _La Raison pure et les Antinomies_ (1907), the interest in Kant and Hegel is again seen. Noël, who contributed an excellent monograph on Lachelier to the _Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale_ (that journal which is an excellent witness in itself to the vitality of contemporary French philosophy), produced a careful study of Hegel’s Logik in 1897. Since that date interest has grown along the lines of Boutroux, Bergson and Blondel in an attempt to reach a positive idealism, which would combine the strictly positivist attitude so dear to French minds with the tendency to spiritualism or idealism which they also manifest. This attempt, which in some respects amounts to an effort to restate the principles of Hegel in modern or contemporary terms, was undertaken by Weber in 1903 in his book entitled _Vers le Positivisme absolu par l’Idéalisme_. Philosophy in France realises to-day that the true course of spiritual development will be at once positive and idealistic.