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.

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 inca-

pable 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 PRINCI-

Résumé of the preceding Lecture. A new question, that of the origin of

universal and necessary principles.-Danger of this question, and its ne-

cessity. 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 induc-

tion founded on particular notions.

LECTURE III.-ON THE VALUE OF UNIVERSAL AND NECESSARY

PRINCIPLES

Page 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; Fénelon; Bossuet; Leibnitz.-Truth the medi-

ator between God and man.-Essential distinctions.

LECTURE V.-ON MYSTICISM

102

Distinction between the philosophy that we profess and mysticism. Mysti-

cism 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.—Conclu-

sion of the first part of the course.

PART SECOND.-THE BEAUTIFUL.

LECTURE VI.-THE BEAUTIFUL IN THE MIND ON 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.-Refuta-

tion 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

Page 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 pro-

portion.-Essential characters of the beautiful.--Different kinds of beau-

ties. 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. Quatremère 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 di-

rectly 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.-Classi-

fication 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. Molière. La Fontaine. Boileau.-Paint-

ing:- Lesueur. Poussin. Le Lorrain. Champagne. - Engraving. -

Sculpture-Sarrazin. The Anguiers. Girardon. Pujet.-Le Notre.—

Architecture.

PART THIRD.-THE GOOD.

215

LECTURE XI.-PRIMARY NOTIONS OF COMMON SENSE

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 devoted-

ness. — Liberty.-Esteem and contempt.-Respect. - Admiration and

indignation. - Dignity. - Empire of opinion. - Ridicule. - Regret and

repentance. Natural and necessary foundations of all justice. - Dis-

tinction between fact and right.-Common sense, true and false phi-

losophy.

LECTURE XII.—THE ETHICS OF INTEREST.

Page 229

Exposition of the doctrine of interest.-What there is of truth in this doc-

trine. Its defects. 1st. It confounds liberty and desire, and thereby

abolishes liberty. 2d. It cannot explain the fundamental distinction be-

tween 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 des-

potism.

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 ETHIOS

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.