Editing Maine de Biran (section)

==Life==

Maine de Biran was born in [[Bergerac, Dordogne|Bergerac]]. The name Maine he assumed (some time before 1787) from an estate called Le Maine, near [[Mouleydier]]. After studying with distinction at [[Périgueux]], he entered the [[Garde du Corps (France)|life guards]] of King [[Louis XVI of France]], and was present at [[Palace of Versailles|Versailles]] during the events of October 1789. 

He entered politics and was part of the [[Conseil des Cinq Cents]]<ref>{{CathEncy|wstitle=François-Pierre-Gonthier Maine de Biran}}</ref> in April, 1797; however, as he incurred the hostility of the Directory by his royalist sympathies he withdrew to his patrimonial inheritance of [[Grateloup-Saint-Gayrand|Grateloup]], near Bergerac, where he avoided the excesses of the [[French Revolution]]<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Maine de Biran, François-Pierre-Gonthier|volume=17|page=441}}</ref> and where he devoted himself to philosophy. It was at this period that, to use his own words, he "passed ''[[per saltum]]'' from frivolity to [[philosophy]]". He began with [[psychology]], which he made the study of his life. 

After the [[Reign of Terror]], Biran took part in politics and was elected to parliament in 1812, 1815, and 1820. Having been excluded from the [[Council of the Five Hundred]] on suspicion of [[House of Bourbon|royalism]], he took part with his friend [[Joseph Lainé]] in the commission of 1813, which first expressed direct opposition to the will of the emperor [[Napoleon Bonaparte|Napoleon]]. After the [[Bourbon Restoration in France|restoration of the monarchy]], he became treasurer to the [[Chamber of Deputies]], retiring during each autumn recess to study at home.<ref name="EB1911"/> 

His constitution was delicate and sensitive and his philosophic bent had already manifested itself by his observations on the influence of the physical state on the moral. As an ideologist he won the prize at the Institut with his essay "Sur l'habitude" (1802); but his "Décomposition de la pensée" (1805) shows him deviating from the theory of that school, and in "La perception immédiate" (1807), and "Rapports du physique et du morale de l'homme" (1811), he is an opponent of the eighteenth-century philosophy. In his latter days his tendency to mysticism gradually brought him back towards practical Christianity, and he died a faithful child of the Catholic Church.<ref>NAVILLE, Maine de Biran, sa vie et ses pensées (Paris, 1877); COUSIN, Preface to his edition of the works (Paris, 1834-41); TURNER, History of Philosophy (Boston, 1903), 606-7; UEBERWEG, History of Philosophy, tr. MORRIS, II (New York. 1903), 340-1; TRUMAN, Maine de Biran's Philosophy of Will (New York, 1904); GÉRARD, Philosophie de Maine de Biran, an essay with unpublished fragments (Paris, 1876); MAYONADE, Pensées et pages inédites de Maine de Biran (Périgueux, 1896); COUAILHAC, Maine de Biran (Paris, 1905), an excellent study of his philosophy.</ref>

He married twice in 1795 and 1814 and had a son Félix in 1796 and two daughters Eliza 1797 and Adine 1800 who all bore the new surname of Maine de Biran. His son, Félix, having only daughters, the name "Maine de Biran" died out in 1879 before being taken over at the end of the 19th century by the natural son of a distant niece, Françoise Gontier de Biran known as Nelly, with an unknown man.