silenced: the network of our intellectual habits is broken; henceforth a
new leaven works and ferments in us; we shall no longer think as we used to
think; and be we pupils or critics, we cannot mistake the fact that we have
here a principle of integral renewal for ancient philosophy and its old and
timeworn problems.

It is obviously impossible to sketch in brief all the aspects and all the
wealth of so original a work. Still less shall I be able to answer here
the many questions which arise. I must decide to pass rapidly over the
technical detail of clear, closely-argued, and penetrating discussions;
over the scope and exactness of the evidence borrowed from the most diverse
positive sciences; over the marvellous dexterity of the psychological
analysis; over the magic of a style which can call up what words cannot
express. The solidity of the construction will not be evidenced in these
pages, nor its austere and subtle beauty. But what I do at all costs wish
to bring out, in shorter form, in this new philosophy, is its directing
idea and general movement.

In such an undertaking, where the end is to understand rather than to
judge, criticism ought to take second place. It is more profitable to
attempt to feel oneself into the heart of the teaching, to relive its
genesis, to perceive the principle of organic unity, to come at the
mainspring. Let our reading be a course of meditation which we live. The
only true homage we can render to the masters of thought consists in
ourselves thinking, as far as we can do so, in their train, under their
inspiration, and along the paths which they have opened up.

In the case before us this road is landmarked by several books which it
will be sufficient to study one after the other, and take successively as
the text of our reflections.