The intellectual element, which is constitutive in the practical judgment as in every other historical judgment, can also be called the philosophical element. Hence the consequence that a philosophy of the practical activity is a necessary condition of every practical judgment. This is another thesis of paradoxical appearance, which, however, it is not difficult to make plausible with suitable reflections, plausible at least to those who do not refuse to reflect. For what is philosophy but the thinking of the concept, and in this case the concept of the practical? The conclusion, then, that a philosophy is necessary for a judgment is irrefutable. The difficulty in admitting it comes from the false association of ideas, for which the sound of the word "philosophy" suggests the disputes of the schools, the treatise, the manual, or the academic lecture whereas we should think of philosophy in all its extension and profundity, inborn in the human spirit (we have elsewhere called this _ingenuous philosophy_) before its more complicated forms Every man has his own philosophy, more or less developed or rudimentary, more or less defective no one is without any philosophy. The first judgment on the practical activity is already guided by the light of a philosophical concept which, if it does not give a light, gives at least a glimmer, if not straight and certain, at the least undulating and tremulous, producing therefore tremulous and undulating judgments. Ingenuous philosophy and philosophy in the specific sense are not, therefore, separable from one another, with a clear-cut distinction, and if there exist a disability in pronouncing a judgment as to many people and to many actions, that arises from difficulties consequent upon the philosophy of the time, which must first of all be solved, before passing to the effective judgment. Hence long researches into doctrine are sometimes necessary. Thus it is difficult to do justice to the work of a rebel or of a revolutionary, without first clearing away prejudices and understanding what a revolution is, and the relative value of what is called obedience to the existing order of things. Thus it would be naive to condemn as faithless the Saxon regiments which deserted Napoleon on the field of Leipzig, or Marshal Ney, who returned to the service of Napoleon from that of Louis XVIII., unless we previously make clear the meaning and the limits of the political treaty and of the military oath, which cannot be the only unconditioned things in a world where nothing is unconditioned save the world itself. [Sidenote: _Confirmation of the philosophical incapacity of the psychological method._]