Note 45 — Lecture VII. Free Thought: In Germany Subsequently To 1835; And In France During The Present Century.

Concerning this school, see Morell's History of Philosophy, vol. ii. pp. 274-318; Damiron (as in the last note), pp. 105-197; Nettement (second work), vol. i. b. v.

The members of this school all agree in reposing upon the principle of authority; but differ in the source in which they place it. Their philosophy accordingly does not aim at discovering truth, but only the authority on which we may rely as the oracle of truth.

The founder of the movement was De Maistre (1753-1821), the bitter opponent of the Baconian philosophy, whose doctrine, about the time of his death, was absolute submission to the catholic church. See concerning him C. Rémusat in the Revue des Deux Mondes, May 1857; and E. Scherer's Mélanges de la Critique Religieuse. Lamennais belonged to the same movement. In his early manner, as expressed in his Essai sur l'Indifference, 1821, he [pg 448] found the test of truth in primitive revelations transmitted by testimony; in his later, he abandoned this school, and strove to work out philosophy, in part independently of authority. The next writer, De Bonald, sought for truth in the same source, viz. fragments of divinely communicated knowledge, transmitted in the languages of mankind. On Bonald see C. Rémusat (Revue, as quoted above). The Abbé Bautain improved upon this system by placing the ground of certitude in the authority of Revelation, and considered the office of philosophy to end when it has shown the necessity of a revelation. Next to him came D'Eckstein, who sought the test of truth in authority based on researches into the catholic beliefs of mankind. The two latter views, it will be perceived, are far nobler than the former. Maret, whose writings have been before cited, also belongs to this reactionary school.