the solution of this important problem; how it was that beliefs
which no reason could justify were admitted without
difficulty by the most enlightened spirits of all ages.

The solution of the historical difficulties which had so long
been sought was thenceforth obvious. I arrived at the conclusion
that beside the rational logic which conditions thought, and was
formerly regarded as our sole guide, there exist very different
forms of logic: affective logic, collective logic, and mystic
logic, which usually overrule the reason and engender the
generative impulses of our conduct.

This fact well established, it seemed to me evident that if a
great number of historical events are often uncomprehended, it is
because we seek to interpret them in the light of a logic which
in reality has very little influence upon their genesis.


All these researches, which are here summed up in a few lines,
demanded long years for their accomplishment. Despairing of
completing them, I abandoned them more than once to return to
those labours of the laboratory in which one is always sure of
skirting the truth and of acquiring fragments at least of
certitude.

But while it is very interesting to explore the world of material
phenomena, it is still more so to decipher men, for which reason
I have always been led back to psychology.

Certain principles deduced from my researches appearing likely to