Lectures on the true, the beautiful and the good

BY M. V. COUSIN.
INCREASED BY
An Appendix on French Art.
TRANSLATED, WITH THE APPROBATION OF M. COUSIN, BY
O. W. WIGHT,
TRANSLATOR OF COUSIN'S COURSE OF THE HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY, AMERICAN EDITOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BART., AUTHOR OF THE ROMANCE OF ABELARD AND HELOISE, ETC., ETC.
God is the life of the soul, as the soul is the life of the body. The Platonists and the Fathers.
NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 549 & 551 BROADWAY. 1872.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, By D. APPLETON & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.
TO SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BART., Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh: WHO HAS CLEARLY ELUCIDATED, AND, WITH GREAT ERUDITION, SKETCHED THE HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF COMMON SENSE; WHO, FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF HIS ILLUSTRIOUS COUNTRYMAN, REID HAS ESTABLISHED THE DOCTRINE OF THE IMMEDIATENESS OF PERCEPTION, THEREBY FORTIFYING PHILOSOPHY AGAINST THE ASSAULTS OF SKEPTICISM; WHO, TAKING A STEP IN ADVANCE OF ALL OTHERS, HAS GIVEN TO THE WORLD A DOCTRINE OF THE CONDITIONED, THE ORIGINALITY AND IMPORTANCE OF WHICH ARE ACKNOWLEDGED BY THE FEW QUALIFIED TO JUDGE IN SUCH MATTERS; WHOSE NEW ANALYTIC OF LOGICAL FORMS COMPLETES THE HITHERTO UNFINISHED WORKS OF ARISTOTLE; THIS TRANSLATION OF M. COUSIN'S Lectures on the True, the Beautiful, and the Good, IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, IN ADMIRATION OF A PROFOUND AND INDEPENDENT THINKER, OF AN INCOMPARABLE MASTER OF PHILOSOPHIC CRITICISM; AS A TOKEN OF ESTEEM FOR A MAN IN WHOM GENIUS AND ALMOST UNEQUALLED LEARNING HAVE BEEN ADORNED BY TRUTH, BEAUTY, AND GOODNESS OF LIFE.
For some time past we have been asked, on various sides, to collect in a body of doctrine the theories scattered in our different works, and to sum up, in just proportions, what men are pleased to call our philosophy.
The eighteen lectures that compose this volume have in fact the particular trait that, if the history of philosophy furnishes their frame-work, philosophy itself occupies in them the first place, and that, instead of researches of erudition and criticism, they present a regular exposition of the doctrine which was at first fixed in our mind, which has not ceased to preside over our labors.