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

1875.] MORALITY AND FREE THOUGHT. 501
beyond all intermediate degrees. Thus, concludes M. Janet,
the principle of excellence not only reconciles itself with that
of the community of being, but perfects itself in it, and finds
therein its necessary complement.
One sees that such high doctrines must excite much contradiction from contemporary schools. M. Janet, thoroughly
familiar with all the systems of our day, is not ignorant of his
adversaries in England and Germany, as well as in France.
He meets them - honestly cites their objections, examines
them, discusses them with respect for intentions and persons,
but with the determination to sift things-for he does not consider himself sure of the truth until he has mastered it after a
conscientious debate. His book is not only an exposition of
principles; it is a series of dialectic battles. He is stopped at
this point by an English positivist, M. Bain, who uses very
nearly this language: What do you say of superior laws?
What mean their degrees, progressions, perfections? Where
do you find this ideal set forth as an end to human morality?
They are abstractions, imaginations; you are returning to the
entities of the scholastic school. True science condemns these
processes. There is in morality but one primitive and universal fact, that of approbation and disapprobation. Men, at
such a time, and in such a country, approve or disapprove
such or such acts; it is a fact which can be verified, and which
once verified, belongs to science, like the observations of
physics, like the phenomena of nature. Here is something
taught, not to be contested. It is useful, it is wise, to do what
opinion approves, not to do what it blames. It is the only
foundation of morality; all else is vain. Armed with his
principles, M. Janet has no difficulty in meeting the attack;
he answers unhesitatingly: From this very fact, that in human
actions there are some of which I approve, others of which I
disapprove, must it not be concluded that I have a certain
rule, according to which I approve or disapprove? This blow
is sufficient; the barriers are broken. The adversary pretended
to shut us up within a fact, as within a vault; but the world
of facts, if we examine it with attentive eye, opens to us immediately the world of ideas. There is, then, a law, which determines approbation and blame; a law superior to the things
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