No thinker discussed the problem of progress with greater energy or penetration than Renouvier. The new spiritualist group, however, developed certain views arising from the question of contingency, or the relation of freedom to progress. These thinkers were concerned more with psychological and metaphysical work, and with the exception of Fouillée and Guyau, they wrote little which bore directly upon the problem of progress. Many of their ideas, however, have an indirect bearing upon important points at issue. In Ravaisson, Lachelier and Boutroux, we find the question of teleology presented, and also that of the opposition of spirit and matter. From the outset the new spiritualism had to wrestle with two difficulties inherent in the thought of Ravaisson. These were, firstly, the reconciliation of the freedom and spontaneity of the spirit with the operations of a Divine Providence or teleology of some kind; and, secondly, the dualism assumed in the warfare of spirit and matter, although spirit was held to be superior and anterior to matter. This last involved a complication for any doctrine of progress, as it required a primitive “fall” to account for matter, even a fall of the Deity himself. This Ravaisson himself admits, and he thinks that in creating the world God had to sacrifice some of his own being. In this case “progress” is set over against a transcendental existence, and is but the reawakening of what once existed in God, and in a sense now and eternally exists. Progress there is, claims Ravaisson, towards truth and beauty and goodness. This is the operation of a Divine Providence acting by attracting men freely to these ideals, and as these are symbols of God himself, progress is the return of the spirit through self-conscious personalities to the fuller realisation of harmony, beauty and love—that is, to the glory of God, who has ever been, now is, and ever shall be, perfect beauty, goodness and love.