What M. Damiron eight years ago felt would occur, has been accomplished rapidly. Sensualism, in its true nature as Materialism, has resumed its activity and returned to the stage; now tacitly admitted by sober, studious men, now loudly professed and loudly proclaimed by the "enfants terribles" of the school; professed and proclaimed not only with all its principles, but with all its consequences. {334} A profound sentiment of hesitation and embarrassment clings, nevertheless, to the doctrine of Materialism. The most distinguished of its adepts struggle to give explanations that look like disavowals, and many repudiate the charge of being Materialists as if it were an insult. "I have never," says M. de Remusat, "observed without astonishment the testy sensibility of philosophers upon this point. Who is there that has not witnessed the indignation manifested by the followers of the philosophy of sensation when they hear retraced to them the positive consequences of this doctrine? It seems just as if their rightful claims were being disavowed, or as if they were being denounced; as if the Inquisition were still at hand, with its tortures and its auto-da-fès; or as if their refuters were sending them to martyrdom. A general timidity reigns throughout their school; they seem to think freedom of opinions never sufficiently assured, and society never tolerant enough, for their philosophy to declare and avow itself for such as it is. {335} Whether from shame or from fear, Materialism asks to be tenderly handled, suspects that every one who defines her has the designs of a persecutor, makes protestations of her good intentions, and is alarmed at her very faith. She defends herself from the imputation of believing only in the senses, even while making sensation the one universal fact. It might be said that she blushes at matter just as persons infirm of faith blush at the name of Jesus. Perhaps this may be an indirect proof of the distrust which their cause inspires in Materialists, and an involuntary avowal that the human mind belongs not to them." [Footnote 72] [Footnote 72: Essais de philosophie, by Charles de Remusat: vol. ii, p. 179.] Whence arise, what signify, these two contradictory facts: on the one side, the perseverance and the facility with which, in our days, Materialism reproduces and propagates itself; on the other side, the uneasiness and the timidity which it inspires in many of those even who admit it? {336} Materialism is the doctrine of appearances. "Specious doctrine," says M. Vacherot, "to those whose conception of things depends solely upon their ability to picture them to themselves." [Footnote 73] [Footnote 73: La métaphysique et la science, vol. i, p. 171.]