Francois Pierre Gonthier Maine De Biran, a French metaphysician, born at Grateloup, near Bergerac, Nov. 29, 1766, died in Paris, July 16, 1824. He entered the body guard of Louis XVI. in 1784, and was at Versailles during the tumults of Oct. 5 and 6, 1789, but lived in retirement during the revolution. In 1797 he was chosen to the council of 500, from which he was excluded on suspicion of royalism, and under the empire became sub-prefect of the department of Dordogne at Bergerac, and a member of the legislative body. In 1813 he was one of the commission appointed to draw up an address to the emperor, which for the first time manifested a decided opposition to his policy. Alter the restoration he was reelected to the chamber of deputies, became a councillor of state in 1816, and from 1818 retained his seat in the legislature, in which lie constantly maintained the prerogatives of the crown. In a memoir entitled Influence de Vhabitude sur la faculte de penssr, which obtained the prize of the institute in 1803, he prepared for his departure from the reigning philosophy of Condillac by maintaining a distinction between active and passive mental habits, according to which the mind is active in perception and passive in mere sensation.

In his second memoir, Sur la decomposition de lapensee (1805), he abandoned the effort to give a physiological origin to thought, suggested that sensation could not furnish the active and motive element in man, and was disposed to admit a principle of intelligence distinct from the organism. This work was rapidly followed by others, the most important of which was the Examen des lecons de M. de Laromiguiere (1817), in which he completely passes from sensational to spiritual philosophy, and develops his own system, which caused Royer-Collard to say of him: "He is the master of us all." A complete edition of his works was edited by Cousin (4 vols., Paris, 1841). - See Xaville, Maine de Biran, sa vie et ses pensees (Paris, 1857).