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BALLANCHE, PIERRE SIMON (1776-1847)
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See also:BALLANCHE, See also:PIERRE See also:SIMON (1776-1847) , See also:French philosopher of the theocratic school, was See also:born at See also:Lyons. Naturally delicate and highly-strung, he was profoundly stirred by the horrors of the See also:siege of Lyons. His sensitiveness received a second See also:blow in an unsuccessful love affair, which, however, he See also:bore with fortitude. He devoted himself to an examination of the nature of society and his See also:work brought him into connexion with the See also:literary circle of See also:Chateaubriand and Madame See also:Recamier. His See also:great work is the Palinginisie, which is divided into three parts, L'orphee, La formule, La ville See also:des expiations. The first deals with the prehistoric See also:period of the See also:world, before the rise of See also:religion; the second was to be an endeavour to deduce a universal See also:law from known See also:historical facts; the third to See also:sketch the ultimate See also:state of perfection to which humanity is moving. Of these the first alone was completed, but fragments of the other parts exist. Perhaps the most valuable See also:part of the work is the See also:general introduction. His last work, See also:Vision d'Hebal, intended as part of the Ville des expiations, describes the See also:chief of a Scottish See also:clan, who, gifted with second sight, gives semi-prophetic utterances as to the course of world-See also:history. In 1841 Ballanche was elected a member of the French See also:Academy. He died in 1847. A collected edition of his See also:works in nine volumes was begun in 183o. Four only appeared. In 1833 a second edition in six volumes was published. As a See also:man, Ballanche was warm-hearted and enthusiastic, but he was endowed with a too-vivid See also:imagination and his See also:strange thoughts are expressed in equally bizarre See also:language. To give a connected See also:account of his views is difficult; their full development should be studied in relation with his See also:life-history, the stages of which are curiously parallel to his theory of the progress of man, the fall, the trial, the perfection. As has been said, he belonged to the theocratic school, who, in opposition to the See also:rationalism of the preceding See also:age, emphasized the principle of authority, placing See also:revelation above individual See also:reason, See also:order above freedom and progress. But Ballanche made a sincere endeavour to unite in one See also:system what was valuable in the opposed modes of thinking. He held with the theocratists that See also:individualism was an impracticable view; man, according to him, exists only in and through society. He agreed further with them that the origin of society was to be explained, not by human See also:desire and efforts, but by a See also:direct revelation from See also:God. Lastly, with De See also:Bonald, he reduced the problem of the origin of society to that of the origin of language, and held that language was a divine See also:gift. But at this point he parts See also:company with the theocratists, and in this very revelation of language finds a germ of progress. Originally, in the See also:primitive state of man, speech and thought are identical; but gradually the two See also:separate; language is no longer only spoken, it is also written and finally is printed. Thus the primitive unity is broken up; the See also:original social order which co-existed with, and was dependent on it, breaks up also. New institutions See also:spring up, upon which thought acts, and in and through which it even draws nearer to a final unity, a See also:palingenesis. The volition of primitive man was one with that of God but it becomes broken up into separate volitions which oppose themselves to the divine will, and through the oppositions and trials of this world work onward to a second and completer See also:harmony. Humanity, therefore, passes through three stages, the fall from perfection, the period of trial and the final re-See also:birth or return to perfection. In the dim records of mythical times may be traced the obscure outlines of primitive society and of its fall. Actual history exhibits the conflict of two great principles, which may be said to be realized in the See also:patricians and plebeians of See also:Rome. Such a distinction of See also:caste is regarded by Ballanche as the original state of historical society; and history, as a whole, he considers to have followed the same course as that taken by the See also:Roman See also:plebs in its attempts to attain equality with the patriciate. On the events through which the human See also:race is to achieve its destiny Ballanchegives few intelligible hints. The sudden flash which disclosed to the eyes of Hebal the whole epic of humanity cannot be reproduced in language trammelled by See also:time and space. Scattered throughout the works of Ballanche are many valuable ideas on the connexion of events which makes possible a See also:philosophy of history; but his own theory does not seem likely to find more favour than it has already received. Besides the Palinginisie, Ballanche wrote a poem on the siege at Lyons (unpublished) ; Du sentiment considers dans la literature et clans See also:les arts (i8oi); See also:Antigone, a See also:prose poem (1814); Essai sur les institutions sociales (1818), intended as a prelude to his great work; Le Vieillard et le jeune homme, a philosophical See also:dialogue (1819); L'Homme sans nom, a novel (182o). See See also:Ampere, Ballanche (See also:Paris, 1848) ; Ste Beuve, Portraits contemporains, vol. ii.; See also:Damiron, Philosophie de XIX, siecle; See also:Eugene See also:Blum, Essai sur Ballanche " (in Critique Philos., 30th See also:June 1887) ; Gaston Frainnet, Essai sur la philos. de P. S. Ballanche (Paris, 1903, containing unpublished letters, portraits and full bibliography); C. Huit, La See also:Vie et les oeuvres de Ballanche (1904). An admirable See also:analysis of the works composing the Palinginisie is given by Barchou, Revue des deux mondes (1831), t. 2. pp. 410-456. 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