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 Rh of Renouvier's philosophy I must refer the reader to Gabriel Seailles: La philosophie de Charles Renouvier, 1905.

The choice of first principles determines the world-theory, and in this connection Renouvier in his later years (Les dilemmes de la metaphysique, 1901) emphasized more and more the antithesis of thing and personality. If we remember that things always exist only as objects for personalities, our world-view must necessarily assume the character of monadology or of personalism. (See particularly Renouvier's last essay, L'Personalisme, 1903.) In this way he passes from criticism and the theory of discontinuity to spiritualistic metaphor. As a critical philosopher he seeks to show that the universe must have a beginning—because of the principle of definite number—as a personalist he explains this beginning as the act of a god who (on account of the existence of evil) is not however to be regarded as absolute or almighty. Renouvier constantly insists on the epistemological principle of relativity (la loi de relation): our knowledge aims to discover the relations which things bear to each other; each object represents to us a system of relations; our knowledge itself consists of a relation of things to us and hence all objects are only phenomena. Religious postulates alone can transcend phenomena—but even these postulates, as acts of thought, are governed by the principle, or, more correctly, the method of relativity (la methode des relations).

This vigorous and profound thinker remained busily occupied with his philosophy even on his death-bed. He experienced a sense of incompleteness, and he did not wish to die until he had given his ideas a definite form. A close friend has preserved his last words and