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The great moralist of our period was Renouvier. Not only, as we have already seen, did ethical considerations mark and colour his whole thought, but he set forth those considerations themselves with a remarkable power. His treatise in two volumes on The Science of Ethics is one of the most noteworthy contributions to ethical thought which has been made in modern times. Although half a century has elapsed since its publication on the eve of the Franco-Prussian War, its intense pre-occupation with the problems which beset our modern industrial civilisation, its profound judgments and discussions concerning subjects so vital to the world of to-day (such as the relations of the sexes, marriage, sex-ethics, civil liberty, property, communism, state intervention, socialist ideals, nationalism, war, the modern idea of the State, and international law), give to it a value, which very few works upon the subject possess. Long as the work is, it has the merit of thoroughness, and difficulties are not slurred over, but stated frankly, and some endeavours are made to overcome them. Consequently, it is a work which amply repays careful study. It is almost presumption to attempt in a few pages to summarise Renouvier's important treatise. Some estimate of its significance is, however, vital to our history.
The title itself is noteworthy and must at that date have appeared more striking than it does to us now by its claim that there is a science of ethics.* We are accustomed to regard physics, mathematics and even logic as entitled to the name Sciences. Can we legitimately speak of a Science of Ethics?
[Footnote: It is interesting for comparative study to note that Leslie Stephen's Science of Ethics was a much later production than Renouvier's treatise, appearing thirteen years later.]
Renouvier insists that we can. Morality deals with facts, although they are not embraced by the categories of number, extension, duration or becoming (as mathematical and physical data), but rather by those of causality, finality and consciousness. The facts "are not the natural being of things, but the devoir-être of the human will, the devoir-faire of persons, and the devoir-être of things in so far as they depend upon persons."* Personal effort, initiative and responsibility lie at the basis of all ethics. Morality is a construction, like every science, partly individual and partly collective; it must lay down postulates, and if it is to justify the claim to be a science, these postulates must be such as to command a consensus gentium. Further, if ethics is to be scientifically based it must be independent. In the past this has unfortunately not been the case, for history shows us ethics bound up with some system of religion or metaphysics. If ethics is to be established as a science, Renouvier points out that it must be free from all hypothesis of an irrelevant character, such as cosmological speculations and theological dogmas. Renouvier's insistence upon the independence of ethics was followed up in an even clearer and more trenchant manner by Guyau in his famous Esquisse d'une Morale sans Obligation ni Sanction.
[Footnote * : Science de la Morale, vol. I, p. 10.]
Although, generally, ethics has suffered by reason of its alliance to theological and metaphysical systems, Renouvier affirms that, in this connection, there is one philosophy which is not open to objection—namely, the Critical Philosophy of Kant. This is because it subordinates all the unknown to phenomena, all phenomena to consciousness, and, within the sphere of consciousness itself, subordinates the speculative reason (reinen Vernunft) to the practical reason (praktischen Vernunft). Its chief value, according to Renouvier, lies precisely in this maintenance of the primacy of moral considerations.
Two standpoints or lines of thought which are characteristic of Renouvier, and whose presence we have already noted in our first chapter, operate also in his ethics and govern his whole treatment of the nature of morality and the problems of the moral life. Briefly stated these are, firstly, his regard for the Critical Philosophy of Kant; secondly, his view of man as "an order, a harmony of functions reciprocally conditioned, and, by this fact, inseparable."* As in his treatment of Certitude, Renouvier showed this to be a psychological complex into which entered elements not only of cognition, but of feeling and will, the same insistence upon this unity of human nature meets us again in his ethics. "Any ethical doctrine which definitely splits up the elements of human nature is erroneous."† Abstraction is necessary and useful for any science, even the science of ethics, but however far we may carry our scientific analysis, we must never lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with abstractions. To lose sight of the relationship of the data under observation or discussion is, indeed, working away from the goal of scientific knowledge.
[Footnote * : Science de la Morale (first edition, 1869), vol. I, p. 189.]
[Footnote † : Ibid.]
"Nothing," remarks Renouvier in this connection, "has done more to hinder the spread of Kant's doctrines in the world than his assertion that the morally good act must be performed absolutely without feeling." In view of man as he is, and in so far as we understand human nature at all, it seems a vain and foolish statement. For Kant, Duty was supreme, and the sole criterion of a good act was, for him, its being done from a consciousness of Duty. He himself had to confess that he did not know of any act which quite fulfilled this ideal of moral action. With this view of morality Renouvier so heartily disagrees that he is inclined to think that, so far from a purely rational act (if we suppose such an act possible) being praiseworthy, he would almost give greater moral worth to an act purely emotional, whose "motive" lay, not in the idea of cold and stern Duty, but in the warm impulses of the human heart, springing from emotion or feeling alone. Emotion is a part of our nature—it has its role to play; the rational element enters as a guide or controlling power. It is desirable that all acts should be so guided, but that is far from stating, as does Kant, that they should proceed solely from rational considerations. Ultimately reason and sentiment unite in furthering the same ends. No adequate conception of justice can be arrived at which is not accompanied by, and determined by, correlatively, love of humanity. Kant rigorously excluded from operation even the most noble feelings, whose intrusion should dim the worth and glory of his moral act, devoid of feeling. But "without good-will and mutual sympathy of persons, no society could ever have established itself beyond the family, and scarcely the family itself."*
[Footnote * : Science de la Morale, vol. I, p. 184.]
Renouvier confesses that in most of this treatment of the problem of ethics he follows Kant,† and although his admiration for Kant's work is not concealed, nevertheless he is not altogether satisfied with it, and does not refrain from criticism. Indeed this reconstruction of the Critical Philosophy in a revised version is the main effort of the neo-critical philosopher, and it is constantly manifest.
[Footnote † : On p. 108 (vol. I) he refers to "le philosophie que je suis, et que j'aimerais de pouvoir suivre toujours."]
He complains that Kant did not adhere rigorously to his own principles, but vainly strove to give an objectivity to the laws of the practical reason by connecting them to metaphysics. But, he says, "on the other hand I maintain that the errors of Kant can be corrected in accordance with the actual principles of his own philosophy. I continue my serious attachment to this great reformer in spite of the very serious modifications I am endeavouring to make in his work."‡
[Footnote ‡ : Science de la Morale, vol. I, p. no. 110]
In the opinion of Renouvier, Kant's work, the Metaphysic of Morals, is marred by its neglect of history in its relation to ethics, by a disfigured picture of right which does not make it any more applicable to existing human conditions, also by the rather artificial and complicated nature of its doctrines. He further reproaches Kant for excessive rigorism and formalism, accompanied by a vagueness which prevents the application of much of his teaching. This, it seems to us, is a reproach which can be hurled easily at most of the ethical teachers whom the world has seen. The incessant vagueness of paradoxical elements in the utterances of such teachers has inevitably compelled their disciples to find refuge in insisting upon a "right spirit" of action, being devoid of any clear teaching as to what might constitute right action in any particular case.
The rudiments of morality, according to Renouvier, are found in the general notion of "obligation," the sense of ought (devoir-faire) which the human consciousness cannot escape. Any end of action is conceived as a good for the agent himself; and because of liberty of choice between actions or ends, or between both, certain of these are deemed morally preferable. There are certain obligations which are purely personal, elementary virtues demanded from any rational being. It is his interest to preserve his body by abstaining from excesses; it is his interest also to conserve and develop the faculties of his nature. This is the point upon which Guyau makes such insistence in common with Nietzsche—the development, expansion and intensification of life. There are, Renouvier points out, duties towards oneself, involving constant watchfulness and intelligence, so that the agent may be truly self-possessed under all circumstances, maintaining an empire over himself and not falling a constant victim to passion. "Greater is he that ruleth himself than he that taketh a city," are not vain words. This is the rudimentary but essential virtue which Renouvier calls "virtue militant"—moral courage. Intellectually it issues in Prudence or Wisdom; on the side of sense and passion it is represented by Temperance. These duties are present to conscience, which itself arises from a doubling of consciousness. "We have the empirical person with his experience of the past, and we have the ideal person—that is to say, that which we wish to be,"* our ideal character. In so far as we are conscientious we endeavour to bring "what we are" into line with "what we conceive we should be." The moral agent thus has duties towards himself, obligations apart from any relation to or with others of his kind.
[Footnote * : Science de la Morale, vol. I, p. 25.]
This elementary morality is "essentially subjective,"* but this only shows us that the most thorough-going individualism does not by its neglect of others, its denial of altruism, thereby escape entirely from moral obligations. There are always duties to one's higher self, even for a Robinson Crusoe. Frequently it is stated that duties and rights are co-relative; but Renouvier regards Duty as more fundamental than Right, which he uses only of man in association with his fellows. Between persons, right and duty are in a synthesis, but the person himself has no rights as distinct from duties to himself; he has no right not to do what it is his duty to perform. From this it follows that if his personal notion of obligation changes, he has no right whatever to carry out actions in accordance with his judgments made prior to his change of conscience, merely for the sake of consistency. He is in this respect a law to him- self, for no man can act as a conscience for another. The notion of rights only arises when others are in question, and only too often the word has been abused by being employed where simply power is meant, as, for example, in many views of "natural right." This procedure both sullies the usage of the term Right and lowers the status of personality. It is always, Renouvier claims, to "the inherent worth and force of personality, with its powers of reflection, deliberation, liberty, self-possession and self-direction, that one must return in order to understand each and every virtue."
[Footnote: Science de la Morale, vol. I, p. 81.]
Renouvier's insistence upon the inherent worth, the dignity and moral value of personality becomes clearer as he proceeds from his treatment of the lonely individual (who, it may be objected, is to such an extent an abstraction, as to resemble a fiction) to associated persons. The reciprocal relation of two persons brings out the essential meaning of Justice. Two personalities co-operating for a common end find themselves each possessed of duties and, inversely therefore, of rights which are simply duties regarded from the point of view not of the agent, but of the other party. The neo-critical ethic here brings itself definitely into line with the principle of practical reason of the Critical Philosophy. This, says Renouvier,* is the profound meaning of Justice, which consists in the fact that the moral agent, instead of subordinating the ends of other people to his own, considers the personalities† of others as similar to his own and possessing their own ends which he must respect. This principle is that which Kant formulated under the name of "practical obligation" or "supreme principle."‡ "Recognise the personality of others as equal in nature and dignity, as being an end in itself, and consequently refrain from employing the personality of others merely as a means to achieve your own ends."
[Footnote * : Science de la Morale, vol. I, pp. 82-83.]
[Footnote † : Personality is a better translation, as it avoids the rather legal and technical meaning of "person" in English.]
[Footnote ‡ : In a footnote to this passage, Renouvier states his own preference for "moral obligation" rather than "imperative of conscience."]
This doctrine of Personalism is an assertion not only of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité as necessary and fundamental principles, but also of the value of personality in general and the relativity of "things." It constitutes an ethical challenge to the existing state of society which is not only inclined, in its headlong pursuit of wealth, its fanatical worship of Mammon, to treat its workers as purely "means" to the attainment of its end, but further minimises personality by its legal codes and social conventions, which both operate far more readily and efficiently in the defence of property than in the defence or protection of personality. From the ethical standpoint the world is a realm of ends or persons and all other values must be adjusted in relation to these.
We have been told by religious ethical teachers that we must love our neighbour as ourself, and have been reminded by moralists continually of the conflict between Egoism and Altruism. Renouvier points out that ultimately obligation towards others is reducible to a duty to oneself. He does not do this from the point of view of Hobbes, who regarded all actions, however altruistic they appeared to be, as founded purely upon self-interest, but rather from the opposite standpoint. "We should make our duty to others rank foremost among our duties to ourselves."* This is the transcendent duty through the performance of which we achieve a realisation of the solidarity of persons, demonstrate an objective value for our own existence, and gain a fuller and richer life.
[Footnote * : Science de la Morale, vol. I, p. 85.]
The idea of personal and moral reciprocity was formulated by the Chinese and the Greeks; at a later date it reappeared in the teaching of Jesus. This ancient and almost universal maxim has been stated both positively and negatively: "Do not to others what you would not have them do unto you," "Do as you would be done by." The maxim itself, however, beyond a statement of the principle of reciprocity rather vaguely put, has no great value for the science of ethics. Renouvier regards it not as a principle of morality but a rule-of-thumb, and he considers the negative statement of it to be more in harmony with what was intended by the early ethical teachers—namely, to give a practical warning against the committing of evil actions rather than to establish a scientific principle of right action.
Renouvier has shown the origin of the notion of Justice as arising primarily from an association of two persons. "Reason established a kind of community and moral solidarity in this reciprocity."† This right and duty unite to constitute Justice. It is truly said that it is just to fulfil one's duty, just to demand one's right, and Justice is formed by a union of these two in such a manner that they always complement one another. Bearing in mind the doctrine of personality as an end, we get a general law of action which may be stated in these terms: "Always act in such a way that the maxim applicable to your act can be erected by your conscience into a law common to you and your associate." Now to apply this to an association of any number of persons— e g., human society as a whole—we need only generalise it and state it in these terms: "Act always in such a way that the maxim of your conduct can be erected by your conscience into a universal law or formulated in an article of legislation which you can look upon as expressing the will of every rational being." This "categorical obligation" is the basis of ethics. It stands clear of hypothetical cases as a general law of action, and "there is no such thing really as practical morality," remarks Renouvier, "except by voluntary obedience to a law."*
[Footnote † : Ibid., pp. 79-80.]
[Footnote * : Science de la Morale, vol. I, p. 100.]
The fulfilment of our duties to ourselves generally tends to fit us for fulfilling our duties to others, and the neglect of the former will lead inevitably to inability to perform these latter. Our duty to others thus involves our duty to ourselves.†
[Footnote † : The notion of self-sacrifice itself involves also, to a degree, the maintenance of self, without which there could be no self to sacrifice. History has frequently given examples of men of all types refusing to sacrifice their lives for a certain cause because they wished to preserve them for some other (and possibly better—in their minds at any rate, better) form of self-sacrifice.]
Personality which lies at the root of the moral problem demands Truth and Liberty, and it has a right to these two, for without them it is injured. They are essential to a society of persons. Another vital element in society is Work, the neglect of which is a grave immoral act, for as there is in any society a certain amount of necessary work to be performed, a "slacker" dumps his share upon his fellows to perform in addition to their own share. With industrial or general laziness, and the parasitism of those whose riches enable them to live without working, is to be condemned also the shirking of intellectual work by all. Quite apart from those who are "intellectuals" as such, a solemn duty of work, of thought, reflection and reasoning lies on each person in a society. Apathy among citizens is really a form of culpable negligence. The duty of work and thought is so vital and of such ethical, political and social importance that Renouvier suggests that the two words, work and duty, be regarded as synonyms. It might, he thinks, make clearer to many the obligation involved.
Justice has been made clear in the foregoing remarks, but in view of Kant's distinction of "large" and "strict" duties, Renouvier raises the question of the relation of Justice and Goodness. He concludes that acts proceeding from the latter are to be distinguished from Justice. They proceed not from considerations of persons as such, but from their "nature" or common humanity, and are near to being "duties to oneself." They are of the heart rather than of the head, proceeding from sentiments of humanity, and sentiment is not, strictly speaking, the foundation of justice, which is based on the notions of duties and rights. There can be, therefore, an opposition of Justice and of Goodness (Kindness or Love), and the sphere of the latter is often limited by considering the former. Renouvier recognises the fact that Justice in the moral sense of recognition and respect for personality is itself often "constitutionally and legally" violated in societies by custom, laws and institutions as well as by members of society in their actions, and he notes that this "legal" injustice makes the problem of the relation of Justice and Charity excessively difficult.
The science of ethics is faced with a double task owing to the nature of man's evolution and history. Human societies have been built upon a basis which is not that of justice and right, but upon the basis of force and tyranny—in short, upon war. There is, therefore, for the moralist the twin duty of constructing laws and principles for the true society founded upon an ethical basis, that is to say on conceptions of Justice, while at the same time he must give practical advice to his fellows living and striving in present society, where a continual state of war exists owing to the operation of force and tyranny in place of justice, and he must so apply his principles that they may be capable of moving this unjust existing society progressively towards the ideal society.
In our account of Renouvier's "Philosophy of History" we brought out his insistence upon war as the essential feature of man's life on this planet, as the basis of our present "civilisation." Here he proclaims it again in his ethics.* War reigns everywhere: it is around us and within us—individuals, families, tribes, classes, nations and races. He includes in the term much more than open fighting with guns. The distribution of wealth, of property (especially of land), wages, custom duties, diplomacy, fraud, violence, bigotry, orthodoxy, and persecution, lies themselves, are all, to him, forms of war. Its most ludicrous stronghold is among men who pride themselves on being at peace with all men, while they force their idea of God upon other men's consciences. Religious intolerance is one, and a very absurd kind of warfare.†
[Footnote * : Science de la Morale, vol. I, p. 332.]
[Footnote † : Renouvier sums up its spirit in the words: "Crois ce que je crois moi, où je te tue" (La Nouvelle Monadologie).]
The principle of justice confers upon the person a certain "right of defence" in the midst of all this existing varied warfare of mankind. It involves, according to Renouvier, resistance. The just man cannot stand by and see the unjust man oppress his fellow so that the victim is "obliged to give up his waistcoat after having had his coat torn from him." Otherwise we must confuse the just with the saintly man who only admits one law—namely, that of sacrifice. But Renouvier will have us be clear as to the price involved in all this violent resistance. It means calling up powers of evil, emissaries of injustice. He does not found his "right of defence" on rational right; it is to misconceive it so to found it. We must recognise the use of violence and force, even in self-defence, as in itself evil, an evil necessitated by facts which do not conform to the rules of peace and justice themselves. It is to a large degree necessary, unfortunately, but is none the less evil and to be frankly regarded as evil, and likely to multiply evil in the world, owing to the tremendous solidarity of wickedness of which Renouvier has already spoken in history. It is the absence of the reign of justice which necessitates these conflicts, and we have to content ourselves with a conception of actual "right," a conception already based on war, not with one of "rational right" or justice.
Right in the true sense, Renouvier insists, belongs to a state of peace; in a state of war, such as our civilisation is perpetually in, it cannot be realised. The objection may be made that Renouvier is then justifying the means by the end. He emphatically denies this. By no means is this the case, for "the evil," he remarks, "which corrects another evil does not therefore become good; it may be useful, but it is none the less evil, immoral, or unjust, and what is not just is not justifiable. Wars, rebellions, revolutions may lessen certain evils, but they do not thereby cease to be any the less evils themselves. Morally we are obliged to avoid all violence; a revolution is only justified if its success gives an indication of its absolute necessity. We must lament, from the standpoint of ethics or justice, the evil state of affairs which gives rise to it.*
[Footnote * : On this point, it is interesting to compare with the above the views of Spinoza in his Tractatus Theologico-politicus and Tractatus-politicus, and those of T. H. Green in his Lectures on Political Obligation.]
Renouvier devotes a considerable portion of his treatise to problems of domestic morals, economic questions and problems of a political and international character. In all these discussions, however, he maintains as central his thesis of the supremacy of personality.
Under droit domestique he defends very warmly the right of the woman and the wife to treatment as a personality. He laments particularly the injustice which usually rules in marriage, where, under a cloak of legality, the married man denies to his wife a personal control of her own body and the freedom of self-determination in matters of sexual intercourse. So unjust and loathsome in its violation of the personality of woman is the modern view of marriage that Renouvier considers it little better than polygamy (which is often a better state for women than monogamy) or prostitution. It is less just than either, owing to its degradation of the personality of the wife. He remarked too in his Nouvelle Monadologie that love (in the popular sense), being so largely an affair of passion and physical attraction, is usually unjust, and that friendship is a better basis for the relationship of marriage, which should be, while it lasts among mankind, one of justice.* Consequently, it should involve neither the idea of possession nor of obedience, but of mutual comradeship.
[Footnote * : See particularly the notes in La Nouvelle Monadologie appended to the fourth part, "Passion," pp. 216-222.]
In the economic sphere Renouvier endeavours to uphold freedom, and for this reason he is an enemy of communism. Hostile to the communistic doctrine of property, he is a definite defender of property which he considers to be a necessity of personality. He considers each person in the community entitled to property as a guarantee of his own liberty and development. While disagreeing with communism, Renouvier is sympathetic to the socialist view that property might be, and should be, more justly distributed, and he advocates means to limit excessive possession by private persons and to "generalise" the distribution of the goods of the community among its members. Progressive taxation, a guarantee of the "right to work" and a complete system of insurance are among his suggestions. He is careful, however, to avoid giving to the state too much power.
Renouvier was no lover of the state. While regarding it as necessary under present conditions, he agrees with the anarchist idealists, to whom government is an evil. He admits its use, however, as a guarantor of personal liberty, but is against any semblance of state- worship. The state is not a person, nor is it, as it exists at present, a moral institution. One of the needs of modern times is, he points out, the moralising of the conception of the state, and of the state itself. Although, therefore, he has no a priori objection to state interference in the economic sphere, and would not advocate a mere laissez-faire policy, with its vicious consequences, yet he does not look with approval upon such interference unless it be "the collective expression of the personalities forming the community."
The fact of living in a society, highly organised although it be, does not diminish at all the moral significance of personality. Rights and duties belong essentially to persons and to them only. We must beware of the political philosophy which regards the citizens as existing only for the state. Rather the state exists, or should exist, for the welfare of the citizens. In the past this was a grave defect of military despotisms, and was well illustrated by the view of the state taken, or rather inculcated, by German political philosophy. In the future the danger of the violation of personality may lie, Renouvier thinks, in another direction—namely, in the establishment of Communistic states. The basic principle of his ethic is the person as an end in himself, and the treatment of persons as ends. If this be so, a Communistic Republic which has as its motto "Each for all," without also "All for each," may gravely violate personality and the moral law if, by constraint, it treats all its citizens and their efforts not as ends in themselves, but merely means to the collective ends of all.
The moral ideal demands that personality must not be obliterated. Personality bound up with "autonomy of reason" is the fundamental ethical fact.* In the last resort, responsibility rests upon the individuals of the society for the evils of the system of social organisation under which they live. The state itself cannot be regarded as a moral person. Renouvier opposes strongly any doctrine which tends to the personalisation or the deification of the state.
[Footnote * : Note that Renouvier prefers this term to Kant's "autonomy of will," which he thinks confuses moral obligation and free-will.]
He combats also the modern doctrines of "nationality," and claims that even the idea of the state is a higher one, for it at any rate involves co-operating personalities, while a nation is a fiction, of which no satisfactory definition can be given. He laughs at the "unity of language, race, culture and religion," and asks where we can find a nation?† War and death have long since destroyed such united and harmonious groups as were found in ancient times.
[Footnote † : Science de la Morale, vol. 2, chap. xcvi, "Idées de la Nationalité et d'Etat," pp. 416-427.]
In approaching the questions of international morality Renouvier makes clear that there is only one morality, one code of justice. Morality cannot be divided against itself, and there cannot be an admission that things which are immoral in the individual are justifiable, or permissible, between different states. Morality has not been applied to these relationships, which are governed by aggressive militarism and diplomacy, the negation of all conceptions of justice. Ethical obligation has only a meaning and significance for personalities, and our states do but reflect the morality of those who constitute them; our world reflects the relationships and immorality of the states. War characterises our whole civilisation, domestic, economic and international. To have inter- national peace, internal peace is essential, and this pre- supposes the reign of justice within states. War we shall have with us, Renouvier reminds us, in all its forms, in our institutions, our laws and customs, until it has disappeared from our hearts. Treaties of "peace" and federations or leagues of nations are themselves based on injustice and on force, and in this he sees but another instance of the "terrible solidarity of evil."* Better it is to recognise this, thinks Renouvier, than to consider ourselves in, or even near, a Utopia, whence human greed and passion have fled.
[Footnote * : Science de la Morale, vol. 2, p. 474.]
We find in Renouvier's ethics a notable reversion to the individualism which characterised the previous century. Much of the individualistic tone of his work is, however, due to his finding himself in opposition to the doctrines preached by communists, positivists, sociologists, pessimistic and fatalistic historians, and supporters of the deified state. Renouvier acclaims the freedom of the individual, but his individualism is "personalism." In proclaiming that the basis of justice and of all morality is respect for personality, as such, he has no desire to set up a standard of selfish individualism; he wishes only to combat those heretical doctrines which would minimise and crush personality. For him the moral "person" is not an isolated individual—he is a social human being, free and responsible, who lives with his fellows in society. Only upon a recognition of personality as a supreme value can justice or peace ever be attained in human society; and it is to this end that all moral education, Renouvier advocates, should tend. The moral ideal should be, in practice, the constant effort to free man from the terrible solidarity of evil which characterises the civilisation into which he is born, and to establish a community or association of personalities. Such an ideal does not lie necessarily at the end of a determined evolution; Renouvier's views on history and progress have shown us that. Consequently it depends upon us; it is our duty to believe in its pos-* sibility and to work, each according to his or her power, for its realisation. The ideal or the idea, will, in so far as it is set before self-conscious personalities as an end, become a force. Renouvier agrees on this point with Fouillée, to whose ethic, founded on the conception of idées-forces, we now turn.