Epitome of the history of philosophy; being the work adopted by the University of France for instruction in the colleges and high schools Volume 2

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1874 edition. Excerpt: ... gence. But this system, overlooking the other els ments of human nature, engenders multiplied extrav. agances, such as were displayed in the Alexandrian school, and have been displayed in every age. These four systems contain all the fundamental elements of philosophy, and, consequently, of the history of philosophy. _ They have each their part of truth, which it is the business of eclecticism to dis. tinguish from their part of error, and to combine together into the unity and harmony of a comprehensive system. Observations. 1. In adopting the method of internal observation, and making psychology the basis of all philosophy, Cousin agrees with Locke and the sensual school, with the Scottish school, and with Kant, and differs from Schelling and the new German philosophy. But he refuses to limit philosophy within the sphere of psychology, and contends for a philosophy of the absolute and infinite. In this respect he differs from Locke, Reid, and Kant, and agrees with Schelling and the later Germans. But while he agrees with Schelling in making the absolute and infinite a positive in knowledge, he differs fundamentally from him in the mode of attaining it. Cousin finds it in consciousness; Schelling in a faculty transcending consciousness: Cousin in the spontaneous reason; Schelling in Intellectual Intuition, which, being a faculty out of consciousness, is a pure hypothesis. It will be seen, therefore, that the peculiarity of the system of Cousin consists not merely in making the absolute and infinite a matter of positive cogni. tion, but in holding the twofold distinction of reason into spontaneous and reflective, and in making the former, as impersonal, and, therefore, not subjective, the faculty of immediately knowing the absolute and infinite....