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This Eclectic School was due to the work of various thinkers, of whom we may cite Laromiguière (1756-1837), who marks the transition from Condillac, Royer-Collard (1763-1845), who, abandoning Condillac, turned for inspiration to the Scottish School (particularly to Reid), Victor Cousin (1792-1867), Jouffroy (1796-1842) and Paul Janet (1823-1899), the last of the notable eclectics. Of these "the chief" was Cousin. His personality dominated this whole school of thought, his ipse dixit was the criterion of orthodoxy, an orthodoxy which we must note was supported by the powers of officialdom.
He rose from the Ecole Normale Supérieure to a professorship at the Sorbonne, which he held from the Restoration (1815 to 1830), with a break of a few years during which his course was suspended. These years he spent in Germany, to which country attention had been attracted by the work of Madame de Staël, De l'Allemagne (1813). From 1830 to the beginning of our period (1851) Cousin, as director of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, as a pair de France and a minister of state, organised and controlled the education of his country. He thus exercised a very great influence over an entire generation of Frenchmen, to whom he propounded the doctrines of his spiritualism.
His teaching was marked by a strong reaction against the doctrines of the previous century, which had given such value to the data of sense. Cousin abhorred the materialism involved in these doctrines, which he styled une doctrine désolante, and he endeavoured to raise the dignity and conception of man as a spiritual being. In the Preface to his Lectures of 1818, Du Vrai, du Beau et du Bien (Edition of 1853), published first in 1846, he lays stress upon the elements of his philosophy, which he presents as a true spiritualism, for it subordinates the sensory and sensual to the spiritual. He upholds the essentially spiritual nature of man, his liberty, moral responsibility and obligation, the dignity of human virtue, disinterestedness, charity, justice and beauty. These fruits of the spirit reveal, Cousin claimed, a God who is both the author and the ideal type of humanity, a Being who is not indifferent to the welfare and happiness of his creatures. There is a vein of romanticism about Cousin, and in him may be seen the same spirit which, on the literary side, was at work in Hugo, Lamartine and De Vigny.
Cousin's philosophy attached itself rather to the Scottish school of "common sense" than to the analytic type of doctrine which had prevailed in his own country in the previous century. To this he added much from various sources, such as Schelling and Hegel among the moderns, Plato and the Alexandrians among the ancients. In viewing the history of philosophy, Cousin advocated a division of systems into four classes—sensualism, idealism, scepticism and mysticism. Owing to the insufficiency of his vérités de sens commun he was prone to confuse the history of philosophy with philosophy itself. There is perhaps no branch of science or art so intimately bound up with its own history as is philosophy, but we must beware of substituting an historical survey of problems for an actual handling of those problems themselves. Cousin, however, did much to establish in his native land the teaching of the history of philosophy.
His own aim was to found a metaphysic spiritual in character, based upon psychology. While he did not agree with the system of Kant, he rejected the doctrines of the empiricists and set his influence against the materialistic and sceptical tendencies of his time. Yet he cannot be excused from "opportunism" not only in politics but in thought. In order to retain his personal influence he endeavoured to present his philosophy as a sum of doctrines perfectly consistent with the Catholic faith. This was partly, no doubt, to counteract the work and influence of that group of thinkers already referred to as Traditionalists, De Bonald, De Maistre and Lamennais. Cousin's efforts in this direction, however, dissatisfied both churchmen and philosophers and gave rise to the remark that his teaching was but une philosophie de convenance. We must add too that the vagueness of his spiritual teaching was largely responsible for the welcome accorded by many minds to the positivist teaching of Auguste Comte.
While Maine de Biran had a real influence upon the thought of our period 1851-1921, Cousin stands in a different relation to subsequent thought, for that thought is largely characterised by its being a reaction against eclecticism. Positivism rose as a direct revolt against it, the neo-critical philosophy dealt blows at both, while Ravaisson, the initiator of the neo-spiritualism, upon whom Cousin did not look very favourably, endeavoured to reorganise upon a different footing, and on sounder principles, free from the deficiencies which must always accompany eclectic thought, those ideas and ideals to which Cousin in his spiritualism had vaguely indicated his loyalty. It is interesting to note that Cousin's death coincides in date with the foundation of the neo-spiritual philosophy by Ravaisson's celebrated manifesto to idealists, for such, as we shall see, was his Rapport sur la Philosophie au Dix-neuvième Siècle (1867). Cousin's spiritualism had a notable influence upon several important men—e.g., Michelet and his friend Edgar Quinet, and more indirectly upon Renan. The latter spoke of him in warm terms as un excitateur de ma pensée.*
[Footnote * : It is worth noting that two of the big currents of opposition, those of Comte and Renouvier, arose outside the professional and official teaching, free from the University which was entirely dominated by Cousin. This explains much of the slowness with which Comte and Renouvier were appreciated.]
Among Cousin's disciples one of the most prominent was Jouffroy of the Collège de France. The psychological interest was keen in his work, but his Mélanges philosophiques (1883) showed him to be occupied with the problem of human destiny. Paul Janet was a noble upholder of the eclectic doctrine or older spiritualism, while among associates and tardy followers must be mentioned Gamier, Damiron, Franke, Caro and Jules Simon.