"In the continuous development of nature and spirit, Boutroux believes it is impossible to establish anything definitive that has eternal value. Man, therefore, who is the greatest exponent of progress, does not know what his progress is tending towards; he does not know, therefore, whether his progress is true progress. Everything disappears into the indefinite, into confusion, and a sceptical conclusion seems inevitable. But no: Boutroux, like James before him, does not lose himself in negation at this point, but seeks to save himself from scepticism. And so negation itself is transformed into affirmation. It is precisely the indistinct, the confused that has within itself the reason for life: in it is love, faith, the ideal: in it is that powerful impulse that moves the poet, the artist, the scientist himself, for science would be nothing without faith. But religion thus attained is an empty religion, and the ideal thus posited is an ideal that fades into nothingness."