Morality and Free Thought (translated from the Revue des duex Mondes) [pp. 494-513]

498 MORALITy AND FREE THOUGflT. [July,
Much has been said of late concerning independent morality; much zeal, much passion has been expended in order to
establish systems of morality which should have no connection with religious thought. M. Janet has no such prejudice.
He seeks to find what are the rules of our actions, rises to the
law which embraces them all, examines this law, sounds the
depth of it, and, once engaged in this study, is resolved to follow wherever it shall lead him. Such is, from the outset, the
interest and curiosity awakened by this book. In a subject so
often treated, the author-thanks to the sincerity of his spirit
and rigor of his method-holds our interest in suspense, for
however little one may care for ideas, he will assist in a voyage
of discovery.
I wonder, indeed, at those innovators who think themselves
courageous in proclaiming morality independ~nt, as if there
were courage in boasting of shortness of vision. What idea
have they of the cosmos and the harmony of things? In the
immensity of the universe, has science found a single object
independent and isolated? In the moral as well as in the
physical world, does not every effort of the genius of man discover relations hitherto unknown, which cause others to be
suspected, and aid us to form a dim idea of a mighty chain?
Nothing is isolated, nothing is independent; directly or indirectly, all things are connected. With the first glance at the
moral law, one is immediately carried into the domain of metaphysics arid ontology. What, indeed, is the moral law, and how
is it revealed to us? The latest great thinkers who have elaborated these questions, Emanuel Kant and Jean Gottlieh
Fichte, derive the idea of the moral law from the very idea we
have of our liberty. The liberty of man, they say, necessarily
supposes a law; it is needful to obey this law, duty demands
it, and it is just this obedience which is virtue. In other words,
virtue does not exist by itself, it is but the result of the performance of duty; finally, in another form it is not virtue
which is the principle of duty-it is duty which is the principle
of virtue. This austere and sombre morality, this species of
philosophical Jansenism, which holds man under a stately yoke,
allowing him neither to comprehend the law, nor to love it,
revolts the liberal spirit of M. Janet. Kant is right, he says,
and it will be the perpetual honor of his doctrine, when he es