Note 44. p. [297]. The Eclectic School Of France.
The Eclectic School is sketched in Morell's History of Philosophy, vol. ii. c. viii; Damiron's Essai sur l'Histoire de la Philosophie en France au 19ème siècle, 1828, pp. 280-385: Nettement's Histoire de la Litt. Franc. sous la Restoration, 1853, vol. i. b. ii. p. 127 seq.; vol. ii. b. viii. p. 290 seq.; and Hist. de la Litt. Franç. sous le Gouvernement de Juillet, vol. i. b. vi: also in Taine's Philosophie Française du 19ème siècle. The last writer is wholly unfavourable to the school, on the ground of the uselessness of metaphysical philosophy.
The eclectic school was the means of uniting together the philosophy [pg 447] of Scotland and Germany, which had previously been running in separate streams. The leading minds of the school have been four,—Royer Collard, Maine de Biran, Cousin, and Jouffroy.
The founder of it, R. Collard (1763-1845), was a disciple of the Scotch school, who about 1812 commenced an attack on the philosophy of Condillac, very similar to that of Reid on Hume. He devoted himself to the analysis of the intellectual and moral parts of men, in order to assert the existence of a world within, independent of sensational impressions. The next writer, Maine de Biran (1766-1824), devoted himself especially to the examination of the will and the notion of cause, and reproduced the ideas of Leibnitz. The third, Cousin (born 1792), succeeded Collard in 1815 as professor at Paris; and in his early lectures followed the Scotch school. When the conservative reaction occurred in 1822, consequent on the assassination of the duke de Berri, the constitutional party was thrown into disgrace; and Cousin therefore retired into Germany, and there imbibed the spirit of the great schools of philosophy, especially of Schelling and Jacobi. He has given, his own history in the preface to Fragments Philosophiques, vol. ii. Lastly came Jouffroy, the translator of Dugald Stewart, who improved upon the Scotch school. See Sainte-Beuve's criticism on Jouffroy. (Crit. Litt. vol. i.)
Damiron was an admirable exponent of the eclectic school; Benjamin Constant, Degerando, and Lerminier, partially belonged to the same school. Its effects are ably stated in Morell. The delicate hand of E. Renan also has sketched the influence of Cousin et L'école Spiritualiste, in the Revue des Deux Monds, April. 1858; reprinted in his Essais de Morale et de Critique.
Note 45. p. [300]. The Catholic Reactionary School Of France.
Concerning this school, see Morell's History of Philosophy, vol. ii. pp. 274-318; Damiron (as in the last note), pp. 105-197; Nettement (second work), vol. i. b. v.
The members of this school all agree in reposing upon the principle of authority; but differ in the source in which they place it. Their philosophy accordingly does not aim at discovering truth, but only the authority on which we may rely as the oracle of truth.