In the period which we have under review the central problem is undoubtedly that of freedom. Practically all the great thinkers in France during this period occupied themselves with this problem, and rightly so, for they realised that most of the others with which philosophy concerns itself depend in a large degree upon the attitude adopted to freedom. Cournot, Renouvier, Ravaisson, Lachelier, Fouillée, Boutroux, Blondel and Bergson have played the chief part in the arena of discussion, and although differing considerably in their methods of treatment and not a little in the form of their conclusions, they are at one in asserting the vital importance of this problem and its primacy for philosophy. The remark of Fouillée is by no means too strong: “The problem which we are going to discuss is not only a philosophical problem; it is, _par excellence_, _the_ problem for philosophy. All the other questions are bound up with this.”[3] This truth will be apparent when, after showing the development of the doctrines concerning freedom, we come, in our subsequent chapters, to consider its application to the questions of progress, of ethics and of the philosophy of religion. [3] In his preface to his Thesis _Liberté et Déterminisme_, later editions, p. vii. I We find in the thought of our period a very striking development or change in regard to the problem of freedom. Beginning with a strictly positivist and naturalist belief in determinism, it concludes with a spiritualism or idealism which not only upholds freedom but goes further in its reaction against the determinist doctrines by maintaining contingency. Taine and Renan both express the initial attitude, a firm belief in determinism, but it is most clear and rigid in the work of Taine. His whole philosophy is hostile to any belief in freedom. The strictly positivist, empiricist and naturalist tone of his thought combined with the powerful influence of Spinoza’s system to produce in him a firm belief in necessity—a necessity which, as we have seen, was severely rational and of the type seen in mathematics and in logic. Although it must also be admitted that in this view of change and development Taine was partly influenced by the Hegelian philosophy, yet his formulations were far more precise and mathematical than those of the German thinker.