This error, for I am very much inclined to believe this was an error, will be somewhat lessened in 
the eyes of those who will take into consideration that in metaphysics every thing is connected, 
linked and bound together like the meshes of the most delicate tissue, in such a manner that a 
principal cannot be detached from the whole number of definitions, observations, and hypotheses from 
which it emanates, without losing most of its apparent importance and perspicuity. When Ampère, 
still warmly excited by the conferences he had just held with the psychologists, strove madly, I 
mean without preparation, to hurl l’émesthèse, for example, into the midst of a reunion of 
geometers, physicist, and naturalists, when still under the influence of his enthusiasm, he 
maintained that an obscure word, or at least one not understood, contained the most beautiful 
discovery of the century, was it not natural he should encounter skeptics? This would have been of 
no consequence if the extreme amiability of our associate had not allowed the skeptics whose role is 
to ridicule, to usurp the place of those whose doubts were serious. 
I find in the manuscript correspondence, to which I have access through M. Bredin, that Ampère had 
contemplated while in Paris the publication of a book which he intended to call “Introduction 
to Philosophy.” 
The famous anathema of Napoleon against ideology did not discourage him; it seemed to him rather to 
contribute to the propagation of this kind of studies than to its suppression. Our associate 
continued to elaborate his Theory of Relations, his Theory of Existence, of 
Subjective and Objective Knowledge, and of Absolute Morality. 
He considered himself incapable of throwing sufficient light on subjects so difficult to treat 
without submitting them to animated verbal discussions. Unfortunately the so ardently desired 
opportunities were not to be found in Paris at that time. Maine de Biron had returned to Bergerac, 
and among the remaining inhabitants of that immense capital, not one seemed to feel any interest, 
from a metaphysical point of view, in subjective, objective, and absolute morality. Ampère then 
turned his eyes in the direction of the friends of his youth, and resolved to return for a short 
time to Lyons. The terms of the visit were strictly arranged; a certainty of at least four 
afternoons a week devoted to discussions on ideology, a formal promise that each day should be 
read and examined with a view to correction in composition and perspicuity, the subjects of each 
day’s study. Although I have not at hand the text of the replies received by Ampère I have every 
reason to believe they were far from giving him satisfaction. “How wonderful is the science of 
psychology!” he wrote to M. Bredin, “and most unhappily for me, you no longer feel an interest 
in it, is it necessary, besides to deprive me of all earthly consolation, he said, to know we no 
longer sympathize on physical subjects. * * * About the only thing which interests me,