HENRI-FRÉDÉRIC AMIEL. - Thinker and poet, born in Geneva on 27 September 1821, and died there on 11 May 1881. Professor of aesthetics and later of philosophy at the University of Geneva, he was deeply influenced by German pessimistic philosophy, but, failing to organize his speculations into a coherent system, he left behind only a harvest of acute and penetrating observations. Like Heraclitus, to whom he traces his thought through German philosophy, he affirms that «all life is a struggle of opposing forces, confined within the limits of an equilibrium»: the law of the universe is activity, that is, struggle, and since every ideal, when realized, resolves itself into disappointment, the unhappiness of life is inevitable. Thus, as Bourget says, «he tries to flee into dreams, having suffered too much from life». The feeling of universal suffering and the impotent rebellion against the mystery of existence in him sometimes resolves into moments of quietistic calm, sometimes into mystical exaltation. For Amiel, there is a difference but not an opposition between philosophy and religion; in Christianity, however, whose spiritual force he fully appreciated, he sees only that Jesus’ teaching is not a positive religion founded by Him, to which He gave obligatory precepts and rites; rather, His religion has as its God the Absolute and as its moral law order. Nevertheless, hindered by his intellectualistic pessimism, he never succeeded in possessing God, toward whom he was driven by an inner need.
A mediocre poet, whose verses are mostly cold and labored, he wrote many, from *Grains de mil* (1854) to *Il Pensieroso* (1858) and *Jour à jour* (1877). Amiel could often be a poet in prose: the *Journal intime*, to which his name is chiefly attached, is notable not only for the penetrating subtlety of its self-analysis but also for the many pages in which religious fervor is expressed in impassioned and poetic prose.
There are partial editions of the *Journal*, one from Geneva (1883–84) and another published in Paris in 1923. Recently, B. Bouvier published *La jeunesse de H. F. Amiel. Lettres à sa famille, ses amis, ses amies, pour servir d'introduction au «Journal intime»* (1837–49), Paris 1936.