BAUTAIN, LOUIS EUGENE MARIE French philosopher and theologian, was professor of philosophy at Strasbourg from 1819 to 1828, when he took holy orders. In he settled in Paris where he was vicar of the diocese, and in 1853 became professor of moral philosophy in the theological faculty of the university. Like the Scholastics Bautain distinguished between reason and faith, but, inspired by the Kantian view that reason can never yield knowledge of things in themselves, he so undervalued reason that he was required in 1835, 184o-1844 to sign articles denying that the existence of God, the spirituality and immortality of the soul, the principles of metaphysics, and the credibility of revelation, are beyond the powers of reason.
Many of his theories may well be compared with the arbitrary mysticism of van Helmont and the Gnostics. The most important of his works are : Philosophic du Christianisme 0835); Psycho logie experimentale (1839), new edition entitled Esprit humain et ses lactates (1859) ; Philosophie morale (1842) ; Religion et liberte (1848) ; La Morale de l'evangile comparee aux divers systemes de morale (Strasbourg, 1827); De l'education publique en France an siecle (1876). See De Regny: L'abbe Bautain, sa vie et ses oeuvres (1884) .