LECTURES

ON

THE TRUE, THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE GOOD.

BY M. V. COUSIN.

INCREASED BY

An Appendix on French Art.

TRANSLATED, WITH THE APPROBATION OF M. COUSIN, BY

O. W. WIGHT,

TRANSLATOR OF COUSIN'S "COURSE OF THE HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY," AMERICAN EDITOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BART., AUTHOR OF "THE ROMANCE OF ABELARD AND HELOISE," ETC., ETC.

"God is the life of the soul, as the soul is the life of the body."
The Platonists and the Fathers.

NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
549 & 551 BROADWAY.
1872.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854,

By D. APPLETON & CO.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States
for the Southern District of New York.

TO

SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BART.,

Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh:

WHO HAS CLEARLY ELUCIDATED, AND, WITH GREAT ERUDITION,

SKETCHED THE HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF

COMMON SENSE;

WHO, FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF HIS ILLUSTRIOUS COUNTRYMAN, REID

HAS ESTABLISHED THE DOCTRINE OF THE

IMMEDIATENESS OF PERCEPTION,

THEREBY FORTIFYING PHILOSOPHY AGAINST THE ASSAULTS OF SKEPTICISM;

WHO, TAKING A STEP IN ADVANCE OF ALL OTHERS,

HAS GIVEN TO THE WORLD A DOCTRINE OF THE

CONDITIONED,

THE ORIGINALITY AND IMPORTANCE OF WHICH ARE ACKNOWLEDGED BY THE

FEW QUALIFIED TO JUDGE IN SUCH MATTERS; WHOSE

NEW ANALYTIC OF LOGICAL FORMS

COMPLETES THE HITHERTO UNFINISHED WORKS OF ARISTOTLE;

THIS TRANSLATION OF M. COUSIN'S

Lectures on the True, the Beautiful, and the Good,

IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED,

IN ADMIRATION OF A PROFOUND AND INDEPENDENT THINKER,

OF AN INCOMPARABLE MASTER OF PHILOSOPHIC CRITICISM;

AS A TOKEN OF ESTEEM FOR A MAN IN WHOM GENIUS

AND ALMOST UNEQUALLED LEARNING

HAVE BEEN ADORNED BY

TRUTH, BEAUTY, AND GOODNESS OF LIFE.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

For some time past we have been asked, on various sides, to collect in a body of doctrine the theories scattered in our different works, and to sum up, in just proportions, what men are pleased to call our philosophy.

This résumé was wholly made. We had only to take again the lectures already quite old, but little known, because they belonged to a time when the courses of the Faculté des Lettres had scarcely any influence beyond the Quartier Latin, and, also, because they could be found only in a considerable collection, comprising all our first instruction, from 1815 to 1821.[1] These lectures were there, as it were, lost in the crowd. We have drawn them hence, and give them apart, severely corrected, in the hope that they will thus be accessible to a greater number of readers, and that their true character will the better appear.

The eighteen lectures that compose this volume have in fact the particular trait that, if the history of philosophy furnishes their frame-work, philosophy itself occupies in them the first place, and that, instead of researches of erudition and criticism, they present a regular exposition of the doctrine which was at first fixed in our mind, which has not ceased to preside over our labors.

This book, then, contains the abridged but exact expression of our convictions on the fundamental points of philosophic science. In it will be openly seen the method that is the soul of our enterprise, our principles, our processes, our results.

Under these three heads, the True, the Beautiful, the Good, we embrace psychology, placed by us at the head of all philosophy, æsthetics, ethics, natural right, even public right to a certain extent, finally theodicea, that perilous rendez-vous of all systems, where different principles are condemned or justified by their consequences.

It is the affair of our book to plead its own cause. We only desire that it may be appreciated and judged according to what it really is, and not according to an opinion too much accredited.

Eclecticism is persistently represented as the doctrine to which men deign to attach our name. We declare that eclecticism is very dear to us, for it is in our eyes the light of the history of philosophy; but the source of that light is elsewhere. Eclecticism is one of the most important and most useful applications of the philosophy which we teach, but it is not its principle.

Our true doctrine, our true flag is spiritualism, that philosophy as solid as generous, which began with Socrates and Plato, which the Gospel has spread abroad in the world, which Descartes put under the severe forms of modern genius, which in the seventeenth century was one of the glories and forces of our country, which perished with the national grandeur in the eighteenth century, which at the commencement of the present century M. Royer-Collard came to re-establish in public instruction, whilst M. de Chateaubriand, Madame de Staël, and M. Quatremère de Quincy transferred it into literature and the arts. To it is rightly given the name of spiritualism, because its character in fact is that of subordinating the senses to the spirit, and tending, by all the means that reason acknowledges, to elevate and ennoble man. It teaches the spirituality of the soul, the liberty and responsibility of human actions, moral obligation, disinterested virtue, the dignity of justice, the beauty of charity; and beyond the limits of this world it shows a God, author and type of humanity, who, after having evidently made man for an excellent end, will not abandon him in the mysterious development of his destiny. This philosophy is the natural ally of all good causes. It sustains religious sentiment; it seconds true art, poesy worthy of the name, and a great literature; it is the support of right; it equally repels the craft of the demagogue and tyranny; it teaches all men to respect and value themselves, and, little by little, it conducts human societies to the true republic, that dream of all generous souls which in our times can be realized in Europe only by constitutional monarchy.

To aid, with all our power, in setting up, defending, and propagating this noble philosophy, such is the object that early inspired us, that has sustained during a career already lengthy, in which difficulties have not been wanting. Thank God, time has rather strengthened than weakened our convictions, and we end as we began: this new edition of one of our first works is a last effort in favor of the holy cause for which we have combated nearly forty years.

May our voice be heard by new generations as it was by the serious youth of the Restoration! Yes, it is particularly to you that we address this work, young men whom we no longer know, but whom we bear in our heart, because you are the seed and the hope of the