4595 fine, I readily perceive that the objective being of an idea cannot be produced by a being that is merely potentially existent,which properly speaking is nothing, but only a being existing formally or actually.

And truly, I see nothing in all that I have now said which it is not easy for any one who shall carefully consider it, to discern by the natural light; but when I allow my attention in some degree to relax, the vision of my mind being obscured and as it were blinded by the images of sensible objects, I do not readily remember the reason why the idea of a being more perfect than myself must of necessity have proceeded from a being in reality more perfect. On this account I am here desirous to inquire further whether I, who possess this idea of God, could exist supposing there were no God. And I ask, from whom could I in that case derive my existence? Perhaps from myself, or from my parents, or from some other causes less perfect than God; for anything more perfect, or even equal to God, cannot be thought or imagined. But if I were independent of every other existence, and were myself the author of my being, I should doubt of nothing, I should desire nothing, and in fine, no perfection would be wanting to me; for I should have bestowed upon myself every perfection of which I possess the idea, and I should thus be God. And it must not be imagined that what is now wanting to me is perhaps of more difficult acquisition than that of which I am already possessed; for on the contrary, it is quite manifest that it was a matter of much higher difficulty that I, a thinking being, should arise from nothing, than it would be for me to acquire the knowledge of many things of which I am ignorant, and which are merely the accidents of a thinking substance; and certainly, if I possessed of myself the greater perfection of which I have now spoken,-in other words, if I were the author of my own existence,-I would not at least have denied to myself things that may be more easily obtained, as that infinite variety of knowledge of which I am at present destitute. I could not indeed have denied to myself any property which I perceive is contained in the idea of God, because there is none of these that seems to be more difficult to make or acquire; and if there were any that should happen to be more difficult to acquire, they would certainly appear so to me (supposing that I myself were the source of the other things I possess), because I should discover in them a limit to my power.

PAUL DESJARDINS

BY GRACE KING

HAT a man stands for, in the life and literature of his day, is easily enough estimated when his name passes current in his language for a hitherto undesignated shade of meaning. One of the most acute and sensitive of contemporary French critics, M. Jules Lemaître, in an article on an evolutionary phase in modern literature, expresses its significant characteristic to be "L'idéal de vie intérieure, la morale absolue,- si je puis m'exprimer ainsi, le Desjardinisme» (The ideal of spiritual life, absolute morality,- ii I may so express myself, Desjardinism). The term, quickly appropriated by another French critic, and one of the remarkable women of letters of her day,- the late Baronne Blaze de Bury,-is literally interpreted as "summing up whatever is highest and purest and of most rare attainment in the idealism of the present hour." And she further, with the intuition of her sex, feeling a pertinent question before it is put, singles out the vital germ of difference which distinguishes this young writer as typical of the idealism of the hour, and makes him its name-giver:-"What is in other men the indirect and hidden source of their public acts, is in Paul Desjardins the direct source of life itself - the life to be lived; and also of the mode in which that life is to be conceived and to be made apparent to the world." Of the life, "sincerity is its prime virtue. Each leader proves his faith by his individual conduct, as by his judgments on events and men. The pure passion of abstract thought fires each to do the best that is his to do. His life is to be the word-for-word translation of his own spirit."

The death-bed repentance of a century, born skeptical, reared decadent, and professing practical materialism; the conversion of a literature from the pure passion of the senses to the pure passion of abstract thought; the assumption of an apostolic mission by journalists, novelists, playwrights, college professors, and scientific masters, will doubtless furnish the century to come with one of its most curious and interesting fields of study. It is an episode in evolution which may indeed be termed dramatic, this fifth act of the nineteenth-century epic of France, or it might be called, of Paris; the story of its pilgrimage from revolution to evolution. M. Melchior de Voguë, himself one of the apostles of the new life, or of the new

work in the old life, of France, describes the preparation of the national soil for the growth of Desjardinism. He says:

"The French children who were born just before 1870 grew up in an atmosphere of patriotic mourning and amidst the discouragement of defeat. National life, such as it became reconstituted after that terrible shock, revealed to them on all sides nothing but abortive hopes, paltry struggles of interest, and a society without any other hierarchy but that of money, and without other principle or ideal than the pursuit of material enjoyment. Literature reflected these same tendencies; it was dejected or vile, and distressed the heart by its artistic dryness or disgusted it by its trivial realism. Science itself . . . began to appear to many what it is in reality, namely, a means, not an end; its prestige declined and its infallibility was questioned. Above all, it was clear from too evident social symptoms that if science can satisfy some very distinguished minds, it can do nothing to moralize and discipline societies.

"For a hundred years after the destruction of the religious and political dogmas of the past, France had lived as best she could on some few fragile dogmas, which had in their turn been consecrated by a naïve superstition; these dogmas were the principles of 1789 the almightiness of reason, the efficacy of absolute liberty, the sovereignty of the people in a word, the whole credo of the revolution. . . . In order to shake that faith [in these principles]. . . . it was necessary that human reason, proclaimed infallible, should turn its arms against itself. And that is what happened. Scientific criticism, after having ruined old dogmatism, made as short work of the revolutionary legend as of the monarchical one, and showed itself as pitiless for the rights of man as it had been for the rights of God. All these causes combined, sufficiently explain the nihilism and pessimism which invaded the souls of the young during the past ten years. Clear

sighted boys analyzed life with a vigor and a precision unknown to their predecessors; having analyzed it, they found it bad; they turned away from life with fear and horror. There was heard from the peaks of intelligence a great cry of discouragement: — Beware of deceitful nature; fear life, emancipate yourselves from life! This cry was first uttered by the masters of contemporary thought,- a Schopenhauer, a Taine, a Tolstoy; below them, thousands of humbler voices repeat it in chorus. According to each one's turn of mind, the new philosophy assumed shades different in appearance - Buddhist nirvana, atheistic nihilism, mystic asceticism; but all these theories proceeded from the same sentiment, and all these doctrines may be reduced to the same formula:-'Let us depreciate life, let us escape from its snares.'»

Paul Desjardins, by name and family, belongs to the old bourgeoisie of France, that reserve force of Gallic virtue to which the French people always look for help in political and moral crises. Like most of the young men of distinction in the French world of letters, he combines professional and literary work; he is professor of rhetoric at the College of St. Stanislas in Paris, and a member of the brilliant editorial staff of the Journal des Débats. Paris offered to his grasp

her same old choice of subjects, to his eye the same aspects of life. which form her one freehold for all artists, and he had but the instrument of his guild-his pen; the series of his collected contributions to journals and magazines bear a no more distinctive title than the hackneyed one of 'Notes Contemporaines,' but the sub-titles. betray at once the trend of originality: Great Souls and Little Lives,' The Obscure Ones,' 'Companions of the New Life'; and in the treatment of these subjects, and especially in his sketches of character and critical essays upon the literature of his day, Desjardins's originality resolves itself more and more clearly into spirituality of thought, expressed in an incorruptible simplicity of style. To quote from Madame de Bury again:-"One of the chief characteristics of Paul Desjardins's utterances is their total disinterestedness, their absolute detachment from self. Nowhere else have you the same indescribable purity, the same boundless generosity of joy in others' good, the same pervading altruism.»

These writings were the expression of a mind on a journey, a quest, not of any one definite mind, for so completely has the personality of the author been subdued to his mission, that his mind seems typical of the general mind of young France in quest of spirituality, his individuality a common one to all participants in the new movement, as it is called.

In 1892 the boldest effort of Desjardins's,- a small pamphlet, 'The Present Duty,'-appeared. It created a sensation in the thinking world of Paris. It marked a definite stage accomplished in the new movement, and an arrival at one stopping-place at least. While the critics were still diagnosing over the pamphlet as a theory, a small band of men, avowing the same convictions as Desjardins, proceeded to test it as a practical truth. They enrolled themselves into a "Union for Moral Action," which had for its object to associate together, without regard to religious or political beliefs, all seriousminded men who cared to work for the formation of a healthy public opinion, for a moral awakening, and for the education and strengthening of the modern decadent or enervated will power. In general, it is common interests, doctrines, needs, that bring men together in associations. The Union for Moral Action sought, on the contrary, to associate men of diverse interests and opinions— adversaries even, -into collaboration for the common morality. In response to the interpellations, questions, and doubts evoked by The Present Duty,' Desjardins published in the Débats a series of articles on 'The Conversion of the Church.' They contributed still more to differentiate him from the other leaders of the new movement; in fact, few caring to share the responsibility of such radical utterances, he has been left in literary isolation in his advanced position: a position which,

although it can but command the admiration and respect of the press and the educational and religious contingent of Paris, none the less attracts sarcasm and irony in the world's centre of wit, sensual tolerance, and moral skepticism. As the reproach of his literary confrères expresses it, the author has given way before the apostle. The "life to be lived" commanded the sacrifice. Desjardins makes now but rare appearances in his old journalistic places, and in literature he has determinately severed connections through which fame and fortune might confidently be expected. He now gives his writ

ings anonymously to the small weekly publication, the official organ of the Union for Moral Action, depending for his living upon his professorial position in the Collège St. Stanislas.

'Une Critique,' one of Desjardins's earliest essays, strikes the note of his life and writings at a time when he himself was unconscious of its portentous meaning to his world and his literature:

"Whatever deserves to be, deserves the best attention of our intellect. Everything calls for interest, only it must be an interest divested of selfinterest, and sincere. But above all we must labor-labor hard-to understand, respect, and tenderly love in others whatever contains one single grain of simple intrinsic Goodness. Believe me, this is everywhere, and it is everywhere to be found, if you will only look for it.

"The supremacy of the truly Good!-here lies the root of the whole teaching-the whole new way of looking at things and judging men.

"New views of the universality of our world, of poetry, of religion, of kindness (human kindness), of virtue, of worth! Think it over; these are the objects on which our new generation is fixing its thoughts, and trying to awaken yours. This it is which is so new!»

Translation of Madame Blaze de Bury.

Uran Ting