I accept the certainty of which I am the author.” The _première vérité_ is a free personal act of faith. Certainty in philosophy or in science reposes ultimately upon freedom and the consciousness of freedom. [30] Jules Lequier was born in 1814 and entered the Ecole polytechnique in 1834, leaving two years later for a military staff appointment. This he abandoned in 1838. He died in 1862 after having destroyed most of his writings. Three Years after his death was published the volume, _La Recherche d’une première Vérité, fragments posthumes de Jules Lequier_. The reader should note the very interesting remarks by Renouvier at the end of the first volume of his Psychologie rationnelle, 1912 ed., pp. 369-393, on Lequier and his Philosophy, also the Fragments reprinted by Renouvier in that work, _Comment trouver, comment chercher_, vol. i., on Subject and Object (vol. ii.), and on Freedom. [31] Lotze employs a similar phrase, eine Gemüths-sache. Here again, as in the philosophy of Cournot, we find the main emphasis falling upon the double problem of the period. It is in reality one problem with two aspects—the relation of science to morality, or, in other words, the place and significance of freedom. The general influence of Renouvier has led to the formation of a neo-critical “school” of thought, prominent members of which may be cited: Pillon and Prat, his intimate friends, Séailles and Darlu, who have contributed monographs upon their master’s teaching, together with Hamelin, Liard and Brochard, eminent disciples. Hamelin (1856-1907), whose premature and accidental death deprived France of a keen thinker, is known for his _Essai sur les Eléments principaux de la Représentation_ (1907), supplementing the doctrines of Renouvier by those of Hegel. In the work of Liard (1846-1917), _La Science positive et la Métaphysique_ (1879), we see a combination of the influence of Vacherot, Renouvier and Kant. He was also perplexed by the problem of efficient and final causes as was Lachelier, whose famous thesis _De l’Induction_ appeared eight years earlier. While Lachelier was influenced by Kant, he, none the less, belongs to the current of the new spiritualism which we shall presently examine. Liard, however, by his adherence to many critical and neo-critical standpoints may be justly looked upon as belonging to that great current of which Renouvier is the prominent thinker.