Chapter V: Cousin

_June 15, 1853._

* * * * *

A too indulgent public having promptly rendered necessary a new edition of this book, we are forced to render it less unworthy of the suffrages which it has obtained, by reviewing it with severe attention, by introducing a mass of corrections in detail, and a considerable number of additions, among which the only ones that need be indicated here are some pages on Christianity at the end of Lecture XVI., and the notes placed as an Appendix[2] at the end of the volume, on various works of French masters which we have quite recently seen in England, which have confirmed and increased our old admiration for our national art of the seventeenth century.

_November 1, 1853._

FOOTNOTES:

[1] 1st Series of our work, _Cours de l'Histoire de la Philosophie Moderne_, five volumes.

[2] The Appendix has been translated by Mr. N. E. S. A. Hamilton of the British Museum, who is alone entitled to credit and alone responsible.--TR.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

The nature of this publication is sufficiently explained in the preface of M. Cousin.

We have attempted to render his book, without comment, faithfully into English. Not only have we endeavored to give his thought without increase or diminution, but have also tried to preserve the main characteristics of his style. On the one hand, we have carefully shunned idioms peculiar to the French; on the other, when permitted by the laws of structure common to both languages, we have followed the general order of sentences, even the succession of words. It has been our aim to make this work wholly Cousin's in substance, and in form as nearly his as possible, with a total change of dress. That, however, we may have nowhere missed a shade of meaning, nowhere introduced a gallicism, is too much to be hoped for, too much to be demanded.

M. Cousin, in his Philosophical Discussions, defines the terms that he uses. In the translation of these we have maintained uniformity, so that in this regard no farther explanation is necessary.

This is, perhaps, in a philosophical point of view, the most important of all M. Cousin's works, for it contains a complete summary and lucid exposition of the various parts of his system. It is now the last word of European philosophy, and merits serious and thoughtful attention.

This and many more like it, are needed in these times, when noisy and pretentious demagogues are speaking of metaphysics with idiotic laughter, when utilitarian statesmen are sneering at philosophy, when undisciplined sectarians of every kind are decrying it; when, too, earnest men, in state and church, men on whose shoulders the social world really rests, are invoking philosophy, not only as the best instrument of the highest culture and the severest mental discipline, but also as the best human means of guiding politics towards the eternally true and the eternally just, of preserving theology from the aberrations of a zeal without knowledge, and from the perversion of the interested and the cunning; when many an artist, who feels the nobility of his calling, who would address the mind of man rather than his senses, is asking a generous philosophy to explain to him that ravishing and torturing Ideal which is ever eluding his grasp, which often discourages unless understood; when, above all, devout and tender souls are learning to prize philosophy, since, in harmony with Revelation, it strengthens their belief in God, freedom, immortality.

Grateful to an indulgent public, on both sides of the ocean, for a kindly and very favorable reception of our version of M. Cousin's "Course of the History of Modern Philosophy," we add this translation of his "Lectures on the True, the Beautiful, and the Good," hoping that his explanation of human nature will aid some in solving the grave problem of life,--for there are always those, and the most gifted, too, who feel the need of understanding themselves,--believing that his eloquence, his elevated sentiment, and elevated thought, will afford gratification to a refined taste, a chaste imagination, and a disciplined mind.

O. W. WIGHT.

LONDON, Dec. 21, 1853

ADVERTISEMENT.

The Publishers have to express their thanks to M. COUSIN for his cordial concurrence, and especially for his kindness in transmitting the sheets of the French original as printed, so that this translation appears almost simultaneously with it.

EDINBURGH, 38 GEORGE-STREET,
Dec. 26, 1853.

THE STEM.

CONTENTS.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE _Page_ 7

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 15

DISCOURSE PRONOUNCED AT THE OPENING OF THE COURSE.--PHILOSOPHY OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 25

Spirit and general principles of the Course.--Object of the
Lectures of this year:--application of the principles of which
an exposition is given, to the three Problems of the True, the
Beautiful, and the Good.

PART FIRST.--THE TRUE.

LECTURE I.--THE EXISTENCE OF UNIVERSAL AND NECESSARY PRINCIPLES 39

Two great wants, that of absolute truths, and that of absolute
truths that may not be chimeras. To satisfy these two wants is
the problem of the philosophy of our time.--Universal and
necessary principles.--Examples of different kinds of such
principles.--Distinction between universal and necessary
principles and general principles.--Experience alone is
incapable of explaining universal and necessary principles, and
also incapable of dispensing with them in order to arrive at the
knowledge of the sensible world.--Reason as being that faculty
of ours which discovers to us these principles.--The study of
universal and necessary principles introduces us to the highest
parts of philosophy.

LECTURE II.--ORIGIN OF UNIVERSAL AND NECESSARY PRINCIPLES 51

_Resume_ of the preceding Lecture. A new question, that of the
origin of universal and necessary principles.--Danger of this
question, and its necessity.--Different forms under which truth
presents itself to us, and the successive order of these forms:
theory of spontaneity and reflection.--The primitive form of
principles; abstraction that disengages them from that form,
and gives them their actual form.--Examination and refutation of
the theory that attempts to explain the origin of principles by
an induction founded on particular notions.

LECTURE III.--ON THE VALUE OF UNIVERSAL AND NECESSARY PRINCIPLES 65

Examination and refutation of Kant's skepticism.--Recurrence to
the theory of spontaneity and reflection.

LECTURE IV.--GOD THE PRINCIPLE OF PRINCIPLES 75

Object of the lecture: What is the ultimate basis of absolute
truth?--Four hypotheses: Absolute truth may reside either in us,
in particular beings and the world, in itself, or in God. 1. We
perceive absolute truth, we do not constitute it. 2. Particular
beings participate in absolute truth, but do not explain it;
refutation of Aristotle. 3. Truth does not exist in itself;
defence of Plato. 4. Truth resides in God.--Plato; St.
Augustine; Descartes; Malebranche; Fenelon; Bossuet;
Leibnitz.--Truth the mediator between God and man.--Essential
distinctions.

LECTURE V.--ON MYSTICISM 102

Distinction between the philosophy that we profess and
mysticism. Mysticism consists in pretending to know God without
an intermediary.--Two sorts of mysticism.--Mysticism of
sentiment. Theory of sensibility. Two sensibilities--the one
external, the other internal, and corresponding to the soul as
external sensibility corresponds to nature.--Legitimate part of
sentiment.--Its aberrations.--Philosophical mysticism. Plotinus:
God, or absolute unity, perceived without an intermediary by
pure thought.--Ecstasy.--Mixture of superstition and abstraction
in mysticism.--Conclusion of the first part of the course.

PART SECOND.--THE BEAUTIFUL.

LECTURE VI.--THE BEAUTIFUL IN THE MIND OF MAN 123

The method that must govern researches on the beautiful and art
is, as in the investigation of the true, to commence by
psychology.--Faculties of the soul that unite in the perception
of the beautiful.--The senses give only the agreeable; reason
alone gives the idea of the beautiful.--Refutation of
empiricism, that confounds the agreeable and the
beautiful.--Pre-eminence of reason.--Sentiment of the beautiful;
different from sensation and desire.--Distinction between the
sentiment of the beautiful and that of the
sublime.--Imagination.--Influence of sentiment on
imagination.--Influence of imagination on sentiment.--Theory of
taste.

LECTURE VII.--THE BEAUTIFUL IN OBJECTS 140

Refutation of different theories on the nature of the beautiful:
the beautiful cannot be reduced to what is useful.--Nor to
convenience.--Nor to proportion.--Essential characters of the
beautiful.--Different kinds of beauties. The beautiful and the
sublime. Physical beauty. Intellectual beauty. Moral
beauty.--Ideal beauty: it is especially moral beauty.--God, the
first principle of the beautiful.--Theory of Plato.

LECTURE VIII.--ON ART 154

Genius:--its attribute is creative power.--Refutation of the
opinion that art is the imitation of nature--M. Emeric David,
and M. Quatremere de Quincy.--Refutation of the theory of
illusion. That dramatic art has not solely for its end to excite
the passions of terror and pity.--Nor even directly the moral
and religious sentiment.--The proper and direct object of art is
to produce the idea and the sentiment of the beautiful; this
idea and this sentiment purify and elevate the soul by the
affinity between the beautiful and the good, and by the relation
of ideal beauty to its principle, which is God.--True mission of
art.

LECTURE IX.--THE DIFFERENT ARTS 165

Expression is the general law of art.--Division of
arts.--Distinction between liberal arts and trades.--Eloquence
itself, philosophy, and history do not make a part of the fine
arts.--That the arts gain nothing by encroaching upon each
other, and usurping each other's means and
processes.--Classification of the arts:--its true principle is
expression.--Comparison of arts with each other.--Poetry the
first of arts.

LECTURE X.--FRENCH ART IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 178

Expression not only serves to appreciate the different arts, but
the different schools of art. Example:--French art in the
seventeenth century. French poetry:--Corneille. Racine. Moliere.
La Fontaine. Boileau.--Painting:--Lesueur. Poussin. Le Lorrain.
Champagne.--Engraving.--Sculpture:--Sarrazin. The Anguiers.
Girardon. Pujet.--Le Notre.--Architecture.

PART THIRD.--THE GOOD.

LECTURE XI.--PRIMARY NOTIONS OF COMMON SENSE 215

Extent of the question of the good.--Position of the question
according to the psychological method: What is, in regard to the
good, the natural belief of mankind?--The natural beliefs of
humanity must not be sought in a pretended state of nature.--
Study of the sentiments and ideas of men in languages, in life,
in consciousness.--Disinterestedness and devotedness.--Liberty.--
Esteem and contempt.--Respect.--Admiration and indignation.--
Dignity.--Empire of opinion.--Ridicule.--Regret and repentance.--
Natural and necessary foundations of all justice.--Distinction
between fact and right.--Common sense, true and false philosophy.

LECTURE XII.--THE ETHICS OF INTEREST 229

Exposition of the doctrine of interest.--What there is of truth
in this doctrine.--Its defects. 1st. It confounds liberty and
desire, and thereby abolishes liberty. 2d. It cannot explain the
fundamental distinction between good and evil. 3d. It cannot
explain obligation and duty. 4th. Nor right. 5th. Nor the
principle of merit and demerit.--Consequences of the ethics of
interest: that they cannot admit a providence, and lead to
despotism.

LECTURE XIII.--OTHER DEFECTIVE PRINCIPLES 255

The ethics of sentiment.--The ethics founded on the principle of
the interest of the greatest number.--The ethics founded on the
will of God alone.--The ethics founded on the punishments and
rewards of another life.

LECTURE XIV.--TRUE PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS 274

Description of the different facts that compose the moral
phenomena.--Analysis of each of these facts:--1st, Judgment and
idea of the good. That this judgment is absolute. Relation
between the true and the good.--2d, Obligation. Refutation of
the doctrine of Kant that draws the idea of the good from
obligation instead of founding obligation on the idea of the
good.--3d, Liberty, and the moral notions attached to the notion
of liberty.--4th, Principle of merit and demerit. Punishments
and rewards.--5th, Moral sentiments.--Harmony of all these facts
in nature and science.

LECTURE XV.--PRIVATE AND PUBLIC ETHICS 301

Application of the preceding principles.--General formula of
interest,--to obey reason.--Rule for judging whether an action
is or is not conformed to reason,--to elevate the motive of this
action into a maxim of universal legislation.--Individual
ethics. It is not towards the individual, but towards the moral
person that one is obligated. Principle of all individual
duties,--to respect and develop the moral person.--Social
ethics,--duties of justice and duties of charity.--Civil
society. Government. Law. The right to punish.

LECTURE XVI.--GOD THE PRINCIPLE OF THE IDEA OF THE GOOD 325

Principle on which true theodicea rests. God the last foundation
of moral truth, of the good, and of the moral person.--Liberty
of God.--The divine justice and charity.--God the sanction of
the moral law. Immortality of the soul; argument from merit and
demerit; argument from the simplicity of the soul; argument from
final causes.--Religious sentiment.--Adoration.--Worship.--Moral
beauty of Christianity.

LECTURE XVII.--RESUME OF DOCTRINE 346

Review of the doctrine contained in these lectures, and the
three orders of facts on which this doctrine rests, with the
relation of each one of them to the modern school that has
recognized and developed it, but almost always exaggerated
it.--Experience and empiricism.--Reason and idealism.--Sentiment
and mysticism.--Theodicea. Defects of different known
systems.--The process that conducts to true theodicea, and the
character of certainty and reality that this process gives to
it.