Rauh thus reminds us partly of Guyau in his insistence upon life. He regards the ethical life at its highest, as one sans obligation ni sanction. Rather than the Kantian obligation of duty, of constraint, he favours in his second book, L’Expérience morale, a state of spontaneity, of passion and exaltation of the personal conscience which faces the issue in a disinterested manner. The man who is morally honest himself selects his values, his ideals, his ends, by the light which reason gives him. Ethics becomes thus an independent science, a science of “ends,” which Reason, as reflected in the personal conscience, acclaims a science of the ideal ordering of life.

Such was Rauh’s conception of rational moral experience, one which he endeavoured to apply in his lectures to the two problems which he considered to be supreme in his time, that of patriotism and of social justice.

These problems were further touched upon in 1896, when Léon Bourgeois (since noted for his advocacy of the “League of Nations”) published his little work Solidarité, which was also a further contribution to an independent, positive and lay morality. In the conception of the solidarity of humanity throughout the ages, Bourgeois accepted the teaching of the sociologists, and urges that herein can be found an obligation, for the present generation must repay their debt to their ancestors and be worthy of the social heritage which has made them what they are. Somewhat similar sentiments had Been expressed by Marion in his Solidarité morale (1880). Ethical questions were kept in the forefront by the society known as L’Union pour l’Action morale, founded by Desjardins and supported by Lagneau (1851- 1894). After the excitement of the Dreyfus case (1894- 1899) this society took the name L’Union pour la Verité. In 1902 Lapie made an eloquent plea for a rational morality in his Logique de la Volonté, and in the following year Séailles published his Affirmations de la Conscience moderne. The little Précis of André Lalande, written in the form of a catechism, was a further contribution to the establishment of a rational and independent lay morality, which the teaching of ethics as a subject in the lycées and lay schools rendered in some degree necessary.[[40]] This little work appeared in 1907, the same year in which Paul Bureau wrote his book La Crise morale des Temps nouveaux. Then Parodi (who in 1919 produced a fine study of French thought since 1890[[41]]) followed up the discussion of ethical problems by his work Le Problème morale et la Pensée contemporaine (1909), and in 1912 Wilbois published his contribution entitled Devoir et Durée: Essai de Morale sociale.

[40] The teaching of a lay morality is a vital and practical problem which the Government of the Republic is obliged to face. The urgent need for such lay teaching will be more clearly demonstrated or evident when our next chapter, dealing with the religious problem, has been read.

[41] La Philosophie contemporaine en France.

Thus concludes a period in which the discussion, although not marked by a definite turning round of positions as was manifested in our discussions of science, freedom and progress, bears signs of a general development. This development is shown by the greater insistence upon the social aspects of ethics and by a turning away from the formalism of Kant to a more concrete conception of duty, or an ethic in which the notion of duty itself has disappeared. This is the general tendency from Renan with his insistence upon the aesthetic element, Renouvier with his claim for justice in terms of personality, to Fouillée, Guyau, Ollé-Laprune and Rauh with their insistence upon action, upon love and life.

Yet, although the departure from an intense individualism in ethics is desirable, we must beware of the danger which threatens from the other extreme. We cannot close this chapter without insisting upon this point. Good must be personally realised in the inner life of individuals, even if they form a community. The collective life is indeed necessary, but it is not collectively that the good is experienced. It is personal. In the neglect of this important aspect lies the error of much Communistic philosophy and of that social science which looks on society as purely an organism. This analogy is false, for however largely a community exhibits a general likeness to an organism, it is a superficial resemblance. There is not a centre of consciousness, but a multitude of such centres each living an inner life of personal experience which is peculiarly its own; and these personalities, we must remember, are not simply a homogeneous mass of social matter, they are capable of realising the good each in his or her own manner. This is the only realisation of the good.

In this chapter we have traced the attempt to reconcile science et conscience, after the way had been opened up by the maintenance of freedom. It was recognised that reason is not entirely pure speculation: it is also practical. Human nature seeks for goodness as well as for truth. It is noticeable that while the insistence upon the primacy of the practical reason developed, on the one hand, into a philosophy of action (anti-intellectual action in its extreme development as shown in Syndicalism), the same tendency, operating in a different manner and upon different data, essayed to find in action, and in the belief which arises from action, that Absolute or Ideal to which the pure reason feels it cannot alone attain—namely, the realisation of God. To this problem of religion we devote our next chapter.

CHAPTER VII
RELIGION

INTRODUCTION: The religious situation in France in the nineteenth century—The intellectual and political forces against the Roman Catholic Church—Its claims, its orthodoxy and tyranny—The humanitarians—The power of Rome—Church and State—The educational problem—Clericalism—The cult of Jeanne d’Arc—The lack of a via media between Roman orthodoxy and libre pensée—Protestantism negligible.