[62] M. Paul Desjardins (at present a professor of “letters” at Sévres)
was influential in Paris about 1892–93 as the founder of a _Union pour
l’Action morale_, which published a monthly bulletin. This society
still exists, but under the name (and the change is indeed highly
significant of what Pragmatism in general really needs) _L’Union pour
la vérité morale et sociale_. I append a few words from one of the
bulletins I received from M. Desjardins. They are indicative of the
spiritualizations of thought and action for which the old society
stood. “Il ne s’agit de rien moins que de renverser entièrement
l’échelle de nos jugements, de nos attaches, de mettre en haut ce
qui était en bas, et en bas ce qui était en haut. Il s’agit d’une
conversion totale, en somme....” “La règle commune c’est la médiocrité
d’âme, ou même ce qu’on pourrait appeler _l’athéisme pratique_. En
effet, Dieu étant, par rapport à notre conscience, la Volonté que le
bien se réalise, ou la Règle vivante, on devient pratiquement, athée,
fût-on d’ailleurs très persuadé par les preuves philosophiques de
l’existence de Dieu, lorsqu’on perd la notion de cette Volonté immuable
avec laquelle la nôtre se confond activement _dès qu’elle mérite le nom
de volonté libre_, etc.” In this last sentence there is a distinctly
pragmatist note in the sense of the action philosophy of Blondel and
Bergson and the rest.
[63] See also the recent book by Flournoy on the _Philosophy of James_
(Paris, 1911), in which this interesting special subject is discussed
as well as the important difference between James and Bergson.
[64] Rey in his _Philosophie Moderne_, 1908, speaks of the “gleaning of
the practical factors of rationalistic systems” as the “new line” in
French philosophy (_Journ. of Phil._, 1911, p. 226).
[65] From the Lalande article already mentioned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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