Before him, M.de Bonald thought he had discovered it in language.

Quite recently, M.Buchez has proposed morality; and, to harmonize them all, the eclectics have said that it was absurd to seek for an absolute criterion, since there were as many criteria as special orders of knowledge.
Of all these hypotheses it may be observed, That the testimony of the senses is not a criterion, because the senses, relating us only to phenomena, furnish us with no ideas; that intuition needs external confirmation or objective certainty; that evidence requires proof, and argument verification; that universal reason has been wrong many a time; that language serves equally well to express the true or the false; that morality, like all the rest, needs demonstration and rule; and finally, that the eclectic idea is the least reasonable of all, since it is of no use to say that there are several criteria if we cannot point out one.
I very much fear that it will be with the criterion as with the philosopher's stone; that it will finally be abandoned, not only as insolvable, but as chimerical.

Consequently, I entertain no hopes of having found it; nevertheless, I am not sure that some one more skilful will not discover it.
Be it as it may with regard to a criterion or criteria, there are methods of demonstration which, when applied to certain subjects, may lead to the discovery of unknown truths, bring to light relations hitherto unsuspected, and lift a paradox to the highest degree of certainty.

In such a case, it is not by its novelty, nor even by its content, that a system should be judged, but by its method.

The critic, then, should follow the example of the Supreme Court, which, in the cases which come before it, never examines the facts, but only the form of procedure.