AZAIS; PIERRE HyActxruE, 1766-1845; a French author and philosopher. He was a teacher in the college at Tarbes, but not liking the duties lie became secretary tp the bishop of Oleron; he soon gave up the place, and supported himself by playing the organ in a church. When the revolution of 1792 broke out, A. was one of its warmest advocates, but the horrors perpetrated made him a vehement opponent, and a pamphlet severely condemning the movement made immediate flight necessary. He returned to Paris in 1806, and in 1809 published his Des Compensations les Destinees Humaines, an optimist's view that good and evil are about fairly balanced, and that it is the duty of good citizens to submit to a fixed government. The idea naturally pleased Napoleon, who made A. professor at St. Cyr. At a later period lie was in the public libraries at Avignon and Nancy. His Bonapartism kept him out of place for some years after the restoration, but he finally got a pension which placed him beyond the reach of want. According to A., all existence, whose cause is God, is the product of two factors, matter and force. Matter consists of primitive atoms. Force is expansive and subject to the law of equilibrium. All the phenomena of the universe are successive stages of the development of this one force acting on the primitive atoms; and this is traced in three orders of facts: 1, the physical; 2, the psychological; and, 3, the intellectual, moral, and political. In the physical, development can be traced from the simplest mechanical
motion up through the more complex forces of light, heat, and electricity to the power of magnetic attraction, by means of which the second great order of facts is produced out of tho first; for magnetic force acting on elastic bodies creates the primitive living globule, which is shaped like a tube open at both ends. From this first vital element a gradual ascent can be traced, culminating in man, who differs from other animals in the possession of intellect, or consciousness of the ideas which external things impress upon him. The immaterial in man, or his soul, is the expansive force inherent in him. Moral and political phenomena are the results of two primitive instincts, progressive and self-conservative, corresponding to the forces of expansion and represssion. From the reciprocal relations of these instincts may be deduced the necessary conditions of political and social life. The ultimate goal of life is the fulfillment of the law of equi librium, the establishment of universal harmony. When that is accomplished, the des tiny of man will have been achieved, and he will vanish from the earth. and that event may be looked for in 7000 years. For establishing complete universal equilibrium, 5000 years more will be requisite, at which period the present system of things will end.