We find Comte, at the opening of our period, restating his doctrines in his _Système de Politique positive_ (1851-54), to which his first work was meant to serve as an Introduction. In 1856 he began his _Synthèse subjective_, but he died in 1857. Comte is a singularly desolate figure; the powers of officialdom were against him, and he existed mainly by what he could gain from teaching mathematics and by a pension raised by his admirers in England and his own land. The influence of his philosophy has been great and far- reaching, but it is the _spirit_ of positivism which has survived, not its content. Subsequent developments in science have rendered much of his work obsolete, while his Religion has never made a great appeal. Comte’s most noted disciple, Littré (1801-1881), regarded this latter as a retrograde step and confined himself to the early part of his master’s work. Most important for us in the present work is Comte’s influence upon subsequent thinkers in France, notably Taine, and we may add, Renan, Cournot, and even Renouvier, although these last two promoted a vigorous reaction against his philosophy in general. He influenced his adversaries, a notable testimony. Actually, however, the positivist philosophy found a greater welcome on the English side of the Channel from John Stuart Mill, Spencer and Lewes. The empiricism of the English school proved a more fruitful soil for positivism than the vague spiritualism of Cousin to which it offered strong opposition. Positivism, or rather the positivist standpoint in philosophy, turned at a later date to reseek its fatherland and after a sojourn in England reappears as an influence in the work of French thinkers near the end of the century—e.g., Fouillée, Guyau, Lachelier, Boutroux and Bergson express elements of positivism. We have now passed in review the four main currents of the first half of the century, in a manner intended to orient the approach to our period, 1851-1921. Without such an orientation much of the subsequent thought would lose its correct colouring and perspective. There is a continuity, even if it be partly a continuity marked by reactions, and this will be seen when we now examine the three general currents into which the thought of the subsequent period is divided. CHAPTER II MAIN CURRENTS SINCE 1851 Introductory: Influence of events of 1848-1851—Reactionary character of Second Empire—Disgust of many thinkers (e.g., Vacherot, Taine, Renan, Renouvier, Hugo, Quinet)—Effects of 1870, the War, the Commune, and the Third Republic. General character of the Philosophy of the Period—Reaction against both Eclecticism and Positivism. THE THREE MAIN CURRENTS. I. Positivist and naturalist current turning upon itself, seen in Vacherot, Taine, and Renan. II. Cournot, Renouvier, and the neo-critical philosophy. III. The New Spiritual Philosophy, to which the main contributors were Ravaisson, Lachelier, Boutroux, Fouillée, Guyau, Bergson, Blondel, and Weber.