[2] In his Preface to _Souvenirs d’Enfance et de Jeunesse._
The disheartening end of the Empire in moral degeneracy and military defeat only added to the gloominess, against which the Red Flag and the red fires of the Commune cast a lurid and pathetic glow, upon which the Prussians could look down with a grim smile from the heights of Paris. Only with the establishment of the Third Republic in 1871, and its ratification a few years later, does a feeling of cheerfulness make itself felt in the thought of the time. The years from 1880 onwards have been remarkable for their fruitfulness in the philosophic field—to such an extent do political and social events react upon the most philosophical minds. This is a healthy sign; it shows that those minds have not detached themselves from contact with the world, that the spirit of philosophy is a living spirit and not merely an academic or professional product divorced from the fierce realities of history.
We have already indicated, in the treatment of the “Antecedents” of our period, the dominance of Eclecticism, supported by the powers of officialdom, and have remarked how Positivism arose as a reaction against Cousin’s vague spiritualism. In approaching the second half of the century we may in general characterise its thought as a reaction against both eclecticism and positivism. A transitional current can be distinguished where positivism turns, as it were, against itself in the work of Vacherot, Taine and Renan. The works of Cournot and the indefatigable Renouvier with his neo-criticism mark another main current. Ultimately there came to triumph towards the close of the century a new spiritualism, owing much inspiration to De Biran, but which, unlike Cousin’s doctrines, had suffered the discipline of the positivist spirit. The main contributors to this current are Ravaisson, Lachelier, Fouillée and Guyau, Boutroux, Bergson, Blondel and Weber. Our study deals with the significance of these three currents, and having made this clear we shall then discuss the development of thought in connection with the various problems and ideas in which the philosophy of the period found its expression.
In his _Critique of Pure Reason_ Kant endeavoured, at a time when speculation of a dogmatic and uncritical kind was current, to call attention to the necessity for examining the instrument of knowledge itself, and thereby discovering its fitness or inadequacy, as the case might be, for dealing with the problems which philosophy proposes to investigate. This was a word spoken in due season and, however much subsequent philosophy has deviated from the conclusions of Kant, it has at least remembered the significance of his advice. The result has been that the attitude adopted by philosophers to the problems before them has been determined largely by the kind of answer which they offer to the problems of knowledge itself. Obviously a mind which asserts that we can never be sure of knowing anything (or as in some cases, that this assertion is itself uncertain) will see all questions through the green-glasses of scepticism. On the other hand, a thinker who believes that we do have knowledge of certain things and can be certain of thiss, whether by objective proof or a subjective intuition, is sure to have, not only a different conclusion about problems, but, what is probably more important for the philosophic spirit, a different means of approaching them.