[20] In the early numbers, political articles, as was natural in the years following 1871, were prominent. Among these early articles we may cite the one, “Is France morally obliged to carry out the terms of the Treaty imposed upon her by Prussia?”
[21] On this relationship see James’s _Will to Believe_, p. 143, 1897, and the dedications in his _Some Problems of Philosophy_ (to Renouvier), and his _Principles of Psychology_ (to Pillon), also _Letters of William James_, September i8th, 1892.
Renouvier’s enthusiasm for his periodical did not, however, abate his energy or ardour for more lasting work. He undertook the task of revising and augmenting his great work, the _Essais de Critique générale_, and added to the series another (fifth) Essay, in four volumes. He also issued in 1876 the curious work _Uchronie_, a history of “what might have been” (in his view) the development of European civilisation. Together with Pillon he translated _Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature_.
Meanwhile the _Critique philosophique_ continued to combat any symptoms of a further _coup d’état_, and “to uphold strictly republican principles and to fight all that savoured of Caesar or imperialism.” In 1878 a quarterly supplement _La Critique religieuse_ was added to attack the Roman Catholic Church and to diminish its power in France.[22]
[22] The significance of this effort is more fully dealt with in our last chapter.
Articles which had appeared in this quarterly were published as _Esquisse d’une Classification systématique des Doctrines philosophiques_ in 1885 in two volumes, the second of which contained the important Confession of Faith of Renouvier, entitled, _How I arrived at this Conclusion_.
His thought assumed a slightly new form towards the close of the century, at the end of which he published, in conjunction with his disciple Prat, a remarkable volume, which took a prize at the _Académie des Sciences morales et politiques_, to which rather late in the day he was admitted as a member at the age of eighty-five. In its title _La Nouvelle Monadologie_, and method it reveals the influence of Leibnitz.
The close of the century shows us Renouvier as an old man, still an enormous worker, celebrating his eighty-sixth birthday by planning and writing further volumes (_Les Dilemmes de la Métaphysique pure_ and its sequel, _Histoire et Solution des Problèmes métaphysiques_). This “grand old man” of modern French philosophy lived on into the early years of the twentieth century, still publishing, still writing to the last. His final volume, _Le Personnalisme_, was a restatement of his philosophy, issued when he was in his eighty-ninth year. He died “in harness” in 1903, dictating to his friend Prat a _résumé_ of his thought on important points and leaving an unpublished work on the philosophy of Kant.[23]