LOUIS

See also:

• EUGENE

EUGENE

See also:

• MARIE

MARIE

See also:

• LOUIS EUGENE MARIE BAUTAIN (1796-1867)

BAUTAIN (1796-1867)  , French philosopher and theologian, was born at Paris . At the Ecole Normale he came under the influence of Cousin: In 1816 he adopted the profession of higher teaching, and was soon after called to the chair of philosophy in the university of Strassburg . He held this position for many years, and gave a parallel course of lectures as professor of the literary faculty in the same city . The reaction against speculative philosophy, which carried away De Maistre and Lamennais, influenced him also . In 1828 he took orders, and resigned his chair at the university . For several years he remained at Strassburg, lecturing at the Faculty and at the college of Juilly, but in 1849 he set out for Paris as vicar of the diocese . At Paris he obtained considerable reputation as an orator, and in 1853 was made professor of moral theology at the theological faculty . This post he held till his death . Like the Scholastics, he distinguished reason and faith, and held that revelation supplies facts, otherwise unattainable, which philosophy is able to group by scientific methods . Theology and philosophy thus form one comprehensive science . Yet Bautain was no rationalist; like Pascal and Newman he exalted faith above reason . He pointed out, following chiefly the Kantian criticism, that reason can never yield knowledge of things in themselves .

But there exists in addition to reason another faculty which may be called intelligence, through which w e are put in connexion with spiritual and invisible truth . This intelligence does not of itself yield a

body of truth; it merely contains the germs of the higher ideas, and these are made productive by being brought into contact with revealed facts . This fundamental conception Bautain worked out in the departments of psychology and morals . The details of this theology are highly imaginative . He says, for instance, that there is a spirit of the world and a spirit of nature; the latter gives birth to a physical and psychical spirit, and the physical spirit to the animal and vegetable spirits . His theories may well be compared with the arbitrary mysticism of van Helmont and the Gnostics . The most important of his works are :—Philosophie du C'hristianisme (1835); Psychologie experimentale (1839), new edition entitled Esprit humain et ses facultes (1859); Philosophie morale (1840); Religion et liberte (1848); La Morale de l'evangile comparee aux divers systemes de morale (Strassburg, 1827; Paris, 1855); De l'education publique en France au XIX e siecle (Paris, 1876) .