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COUSIN 435 been diverted from belles-lettres to philosophy. The attractive lectures of Laromiguiere, one of the society of Auteuil, and the most grace- ful of the followers of Condillac, first inter- ested him in sensationalism or ideology, the reigning philosophy of the 18th century. The first who openly revolted from the authority of Condillac was Royer-Collard, who devel- oped in France the theories of the Scottish school, and of whom Cousin was the favorite pupil. When at the close of 1815 Royer-Collard was raised to civil office under the restoration, Cousin became his successor as deputy profes- sor of philosophy in the Sorbonne, and for five years he lectured both at the university and the normal school. From the speculations of Maine de Biran concerning the will he derived the germs of his ideas of personality, causality, and liberty ; and his earliest courses followed the system of Reid, and were devoted in gene- ral to an exposition of ideal truth. He spent the vacations of 1817 and 1818 in Germany, acquainting himself with the literature and thinkers of that country ; and the metaphysics of Kant tinged the lectures delivered after his return. In 1821, in consequence of the royalist reaction in the state, his views of free agency were thought to have a political intent, and his course was indefinitely suspended. The next year the normal school was closed by a royal ordinance. The leisure thus afforded he occu- pied in prosecuting his editions of Proems (6 vols., Paris, 1820-'2V) and Descartes (11 vols., 1826), and his translation of Plato, with sum- maries, on which he employed, like Raphael, the labor of his pupils subject to his own revision (13 vols., 1825-'40). He also took charge of the education of a son of Marshal Lannes, and in 1824 visited Germany with his pupil. He was arrested at Dresden, on sus- picion of being an accomplice of the carbonari, was taken to Berlin, where he suffered a cap- tivity of six months, and was visited in prison by Hegel, whose philosophy was then predom- inant in Germany. He also became inti- mately acquainted with Schleiermacher and Schelling. Returning to Paris, he published in 1826 the first series of his Fragments phi- losophiques (followed by a series of Nouveaux fragments in 1828), and favored the increas- ing liberal party. In 182V the Villele min- istry was supplanted by that of Martignac, and he was restored to the chair of philos- ophy in the Sorbonne, with Guizot and Ville- main for colleagues. The successful triumvi- rate at once attracted audiences to the univer- sity unexampled in numbers and enthusiasm since the time of Abelard. Stenographic re- ports of their lectures were distributed through- out France. Cousin had already unfurled the banner of eclecticism in the preface to his Fragments philosophiques, and he now fully developed the theory that four systems of philosophy have alternately prevailed, each of which is a partial truth, and that the human mind can escape from past error only by uniting the elements of truth contained in each system, so as to form a composite and complete philosophy. He found in the East, in Greece, in medieval scholasticism, and in all modern speculations, only different phases of sensualism,' idealism, skepticism, and mys- ticism. His forte lay In developing a system from its central principle till it took in the universe in its consequences. His eloquence was at once impetuous and grave, and his style and splendid language recalled the stateli- ness of the old French classics. The students, accustomed to the calm dissertations of the sensationalists, followed with admiration his adventurous flight. He was the first to un- fold . to French audiences the speculations and strange technology of the German philosophi- cal development from Kant to Hegel, giving popular expression to theories of the absolute. His lectures derived additional interest from the political temper of the time, a liberal audience gladly discovering political allusions in the words of a liberal professor. At this period Cousin enjoyed his highest reputation. He took no part in the revolution of 1830, but immediately after dedicated a volume of Plato to the memory of one of his pupils who had fallen in the fight. He soon became councillor of state, member of the royal council of pub- lic instruction, officer of the legion of honor, titular professor in the Sorbonne, member of the French academy, to succeed Baron Fourier (1830), and of the academy of moral and po- litical sciences at its foundation, director of the reestablished normal school, and peer of France (1832). He reorganized the system of primary instruction in France, arranged the plan of studies which is still retained in the normal school, and visited Prussia (1833) and Holland (1837) to observe the institu- tions of public instruction, concerning which he published full and valuable reports, which were translated into English by Mrs. Austin. He urged that national instruction should be associated with religion and founded on the Christian principle, and maintained that edu- cation which is not specially religious is likely to be hurtful rather than beneficial, illustrating this view in speeches delivered in the chamber of peers. In 1840 he became minister of pub- lic instruction in the cabinet of Thiers, which lasted but eight months. In 1844 he gained his greatest parliamentary distinction by his speech in the chamber of peers in defence of the uni- versity and of philosophy. Though surprised by the revolution of 1848, he gave it his aid, and began the series of publications undertaken by the institute at the request of Gen. Cavaignac in behalf of popular morality. He issued an edition of Rousseau's Profession de foi du m- caire Savoyard, and in short treatises entitled Philosophic populaire and Justice et charite combated the doctrines of socialism. He had become after 1830 one of the writers for the Journal des Savants and the Revue des Deux Mondes, in which many of the articles com-