This instinct extends its domains over the entire sphere of the finite in man, and as form is only revealed in matter, and the absolute by means of its limits, the total manifestation of human nature is connected on a close analysis with the sensuous instinct.  But though it is only this instinct that awakens and develops what exists virtually in man, it is nevertheless this very instinct which renders his perfection impossible.  It binds down to the world of sense by indestructible ties the spirit that tends higher and it calls back to the limits of the present, abstraction Which had its free development in the sphere of the infinite.  No doubt, thought can escape it for a moment, and a firm will victoriously resists its exigencies; but soon compressed nature resumes her rights to give an imperious reality to our existence, to give it contents, substance, knowledge, and an aim for our activity.

The second impulsion, which may be named the formal instinct, issues from the absolute existence of man, or from his rational nature, and tends to set free, and bring harmony into the diversity of its manifestations, and to maintain personality notwithstanding all the changes of state.  As this personality, being an absolute and indivisible unity, can never be in contradiction with itself, as we are ourselves for ever, this impulsion, which tends to maintain personality, can never exact in one time anything but what it exacts and requires for ever.  It therefore decides for always what it decides now, and orders now what it orders for ever.  Hence it embraces the whole series of times, or what comes to the same thing, it suppresses time and change.  It wishes the real to be necessary and eternal, and it wishes the eternal and the necessary to be real; in other terms, it tends to truth and justice.

If the sensuous instinct only produces accidents, the formal instinct gives laws, laws for every judgment when it is a question of knowledge, laws for every will when it is a question of action.  Whether, therefore, we recognise an object or conceive an objective value to a state of the subject, whether we act in virtue of knowledge or make of the objective the determining principle of our state; in both cases we withdraw this state from the jurisdiction of time, and we attribute to it reality for all men and for all time, that is, universality and necessity.  Feeling can only say:  “That is true for this subject and at this moment,” and there may come another moment, another subject, which withdraws the affirmation from the actual feeling.  But when once thought pronounces and says:  “That is” it decides for ever and ever, and the validity of its decision is guaranteed by the personality itself, which defies all change.  Inclination can only say:  “That is good for your individuality and present necessity?” but the changing current of affairs will sweep them away, and what you ardently desire to-day will form the object of your aversion to-morrow.  But when the moral feeling says:  “That ought to be,” it decides for ever.  If you confess the truth because it is the truth, and if you practice justice because it is justice, you have made of a particular case the law of all possible cases, and treated one moment of your life as eternity.