This brief sketch of the currents and, cross-currents of
contemporary French thought will, we hope, serve to illuminate
many of the themes in Gabriel Marcel's doctrine which we are
about to discuss, and also place this doctrine as a whole in
the nexus of intellectual relationshipb from which no
philosopher, least, of all an Existentialist, should be'
sundered. It may also make clear that'the Existentialist
movement in France is not only much more complex than would
appear. to the uninitiated, but that its roots are, to a
greater extent than is realised, and without discounting
the obvious external, influences, in traditional French
thought