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

i875.~ MORALITY AND FREE THOUGHT. 499
tablishes, with so much force, the obligatory character of the
moral law; he is wrong, a thousand times wrong, when he
makes of this law a sort of abstract tyrant, an imperative idea
which we find in us, but which represents to us nothing vivid,
nothing substantial, no superior reality, which we may pursue.
The vigorous thinker of Koenigsberg is ever beset with this
idea, that we cannot go out of ourselves. A more profound
psychology proves, on the contrary, that it is impossible to
look within ourselves without looking beyond and above ourselves. The inner master, as F6nelon said, is at the same time
the universal master. The voice which speaks to our consciences is the voice which rules the spheres. We must therefore
break the fetters of Kant, substitute for the idea of an abstract
law that of a living law, put in place of the sic volo, sic ~ubeo,
the sublime and gracious end to which it is ordained we should
attain. It is thus that, from the outset, M. Janet unhesitatingly abandons not only the low4ands of independent morality,
but the somewhat sombre summits of Kantism, and conducts
us towards luminous heights.
What is this living reality that we ~us1 pursue? What is
this superior end that we ~ust strive to attain? In a word,
what are those benefits whence duty and virtue have their
origin? M. Janet comprises them all in a single word-perfection. It is towards the perfection of our faculties, the excellence of our nature, that we are obliged to strive with all
our strength. And in what does this perfection consist? What
is the mark of this excellence? Excellence, perfection, for
every free and intelligent creature, is the enlargement of his
powers-that is, of that which constitutes his personality; the
enlargement of intelligence, goodness, courage, liberty, and enlargement of being. The greatest thinkers, from Aristotle to
Leibnitz, have spoken of this end set before man, the perfection of his nature. Spinoza himself said, perfection is being;
good and evil are only the enlargement or diminution of it
Leibnitz expresses a precisely similar idea, although to the
term enlargement he prefers elevation (Erhcv/tung des Wesens),
and to the idea of force he adds that of harmony. Among so
many masters who have indicated or developed this doctrine
with more or less precision, M. Janet has understood how to
render it his own by the pains he has taken to fix the meaning