In one of his _Essais_ Taine further argued in defence of his doctrine of universal determination that since WE ourselves are determined—that is to say, since there is a psychological determinism as well as a physical determinism—we do not feel the restriction which this determinism implies, we have the illusion of freedom and act just as if we were free. To this Fouillée replied that the value of Taine’s argument was equal to that of a man who might say, “Because _I_ am asleep, all of me, all my powers and faculties, therefore I am in a state where I am perfectly free and responsible.” Certainly Taine’s remark that _we_ are determined had nothing in common with the belief in that true determinism, which is equally true freedom, since it is _self_-determination. Taine professed no such doctrine, and rested in a purely naturalistic fatalism, built upon formulæ of geometry and logic, in abstraction from the actual living and acting of the soul, and this dogma of determinism, to which he clung so dearly, colours his view of ethics and of history. For Taine, “the World is a living geometry” and “man is a theorem that walks.” Like Taine, Renan set out from the belief in universal causation, but he employed the conception not so much in a warfare against man’s freedom of action as against the theologians’ belief in miracle and the supernatural. There is none of Taine’s rigour and preciseness in Renan, and it is difficult to grasp his real attitude to the problem of freedom. If he ever had one, may be doubted. The blending of viewpoints, the paradox so characteristic of him, seems apparent even in this question.