Brochard (1848-1907) is mainly known by his _treatise De l’Erreur_ (1879) and his volumes on Ethics, _De la Responsabilité morale_ (1876), and _De l’Universalité des Notions morales_ (1876), in all of which the primacy of moral considerations is advocated in a tone inspired by Renouvier’s strong moral standpoint. The work _De l’Erreur_ emphasises the importance of the problem of freedom as being the crux of the whole question involved in the relation of science and morality. Adhering to the neo-critical doctrines in general, and particularly to the value of the practical reason, Brochard, by his insistence upon action as a foundation for belief, has marked affinities with the doctrines of Blondel (and Olle-Laprune), the significance of whose work will appear at the end of our next section. The phenomenalism of Renouvier was followed up by two thinkers, who cannot, however, be regarded as belonging to his neo-critical school. In 1888 Gourd published his work entitled _Le Phénomène_, which was followed six years later by the slightly more coherent attempt of Boirac to base a philosophy upon the phenomenalism which expresses itself so rigidly in Hume. In his book _L’Idée du Phénomène_ (1894), he had, however, recourse to the Leibnitzian doctrines, which had finally exercised a considerable influence over Renouvier himself. III The reaction against positivism and against eclecticism took another form quite apart from that of the neocritical philosophy. This was the triumphant spiritualist philosophy, as we may call it, to give it a general name, represented by a series of great thinkers—Ravaisson, Lachelier, Fouillée, Guyau, Boutroux, Bergson and, we may add, Blondel. These men have all of them had an influence much greater than that of Renouvier, and this is true of each of them separately. This is rather noteworthy for, if we exclude Fouillee, whose writings are rather too numerous, the works of all the other men together do not equal in quantity the work of Renouvier. There is another point which is worthy of notice. While Renouvier worked in comparative solitude and never taught philosophy in any college or university, being, in fact, neglected by the University of Paris, all the company—Ravaisson, Lachelier, Fouillée, Guyau, Boutroux and Bergson—had a connection with the University of Paris in general, being associated with the Sorbonne, the Collège de France or the important Ecole Normale Supérieure. The initiator of the spiritualistic philosophy was Ravaisson (1815-1900), who himself drew inspiration from Maine de Biran, to whose work he had called attention as early as 1840 in a vigorous article contributed to the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. This roused the indignation of Victor Cousin and the eclectics, who in revenge excluded Ravaisson from the Institute. His independent spirit had been shown in his thesis _De l’Habitude_ (1838)[32] and his remarkable study of the metaphysics of Aristotle (1837-1846).