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

502 MORALITY AND FREE THOUGHT. [Julyr
which opinion judges, and superior to opinion itself. These
are the higher spheres which come into view; here, as else.
where, we find the visible governed by the invisible, and the
real dependent on the ideal.
This is, however, but the first glimmering; we must follow
it and penetrate further. How does this rule, which guides us in
the appreciation of our own conduct or that of others, express
itself, and who furnishes it to us? Each of us possesses it,
because each of us, even those who care least about it, spontaneously and instinctively compares his act or that of others
to an ideal act which should be accomplished. If the ideal
act has been accomplished, I say that the act is good; if not
I say that it is bad. For example, I have the idea of a witness
who has not lied, of a soldier who has not fled in battle, of a
magistrate who has not flinched before violence, whether from
above or below; according as the witness, the soldier, the
magistrate, has conformed his conduct to ~his ideal action, or
has turned aside from it, I approve or disapprove. And if one
thinks, adds M. Janet, that no individual man is ever absolutely comparable to the ideal man (which caused the Stoics
to say that there had never been a single sage, not even Zeno,
not even Socrates,) he will grant that we form to ourselves the
idea of a man in himself, distinct from every individual man,
and whom every one approaches or recedes from.
At these last words, it will be easily understood, the controversial positivist exclaims, You believe in man in himself?
You admit the reality of this conception? Do you not see
that it is a pure abstraction, of which sensible experience has
furnished to you the elements? You know such a man more
truthful, courageou4, upright than another; this is your point
of departure, this is the origin of that type of which you speak,
but this type has in it no reality, and the man in himself does
not exist. M. Janet replies that the elements of this conception are furnished to us by experience; he affirms, nevertheless, that no experience has furnished it to us entirely, and he
writes this beautiful page, inspired both by the Platonic philosophy and Christian theology. In each particular instance, seeing a man who acts after a certain manner, I picture to myself
another who would do better. He being before my mind, I
conceive of a third who would do better, and soon familiarizing