r the faculty of willing, they went into logic.

It taught them the nature of analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction,
and the principal causes of our errors.

Nearly all come from the misuse of words.

"The sun is going to bed." "The weather is becoming brown," "The winter
is drawing near"--vicious modes of speech which would make us believe in
personal entities, when it is only a question of very simple
occurrences. "I remember such an object," "such an axiom," "such a
truth"--illusion! These are ideas and not at all things which remain in
me; and the rigour of language requires, "I remember such an act of my
mind by which I perceived that object," "whereby I have deduced that
axiom," "whereby I have admitted this truth."

As the term that describes an incident does not embrace it in all its
aspects, they try to employ only abstract words, so that in place of
saying, "Let us make a tour," "It is time to dine," "I have the colic,"
they give utterance to the following phrases: "A promenade would be
salutary," "This is the hour for absorbing aliments," "I experience a
necessity for disburdenment."

Once masters of logic, they passed in review the different criterions;
first, that of common sense.

If the individual can know nothing, why should all individuals know
more? An error, were it a hundred thousand years old, does not by the
mere fact of its being old constitute truth. The multitude invariably
pursues the path of routine. It is, on the contrary, the few who are
guided by progress.

Is it better to trust to the evidence of the senses? They sometimes
deceive, and never give information save as to externals. The innermost
core escapes them.

Reason offers more safeguards, being immovable and impersonal; but in
order that it may be manifested it is necessary that it should
incarnate itself. Then, reason becomes my reason; a rule is of little
value if it is false. Nothing can show such a rule to be right.

We are recommended to control it with the senses; but they may make the
darkness thicker. From a confused sensation a defective law will be
inferred, which, later, will obstruct the clear view of things.

Morality remains.

This would make God descend to the level of the useful, as if our wants
were the measure of the Absolute.

As for the evidence--denied by the one, affirmed by the other--it is its
own criterion. M. Cousin has demonstrated it.

"I see no longer anything but revelation," said Bouv