Jean-Paul Sartre as a critic has been harshly judged in Western Europe, indeed he is one of the more notable victims of cold war mental attitudes. This is well illustrated by the quarrel with Albert Camus brought into the open by Jeanson’s harsh review of ‘L’Homme Revoke’ in ‘Les Temps Modernes’, a quarrel in which a very large number of western readers have taken Camus’ side. Camus is seen as the upholder of human dignity and values, over against Sartre, the system builder, infatuated with the marxist myth of history. This attitude very much undervalues Sartre’s contribution—he points out clearly the essential weakness in Camus’ position. Moreover the whole debate is an excellent illustration of the difficulty involved in building any coherent, materialist system of ethics.

This difficulty is rooted in their common ground; both start from the atheism of Nietzsche and its consequence the absolute freedom of man. Yet both belong to the long line of French moralists and are passionately concerned with what a man ought to do, granted this double premiss. However they begin to differ even in the ways they accept this atheism. Sartre is very matter of fact, for him the death of God is so self-evident that there is no point in talking about it. Towards the end of ‘Le Sursis’ Mathieu receives a letter from Daniel in which the latter very interestingly explains his half-conversion to Catholicism. Mathieu reads part of the letter, loses patience with its to him utter irrelevance, and throws it into the waste paper basket. This contrasts sharply with Camus’ interest in the way the individual accepts atheism.