In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern

District of New York.

CONTENTS.

SECOND SERIES-VOL. I.

LECTURE I.

IDEA OF PHILOSOPHY.

Subject of the first lecture:-That philosophy is a special want and a neces

sary product of the human mind.-Enumeration of the fundamental wants

of the human mind, of the general ideas which govern its activity: 1st,

Idea of the useful, mathematical, and physical sciences, industry, political

economy: 2d, Idea of the just, civil society, the State, jurisprudence: 3d,

Idea of the beautiful, art: 4th, the idea of God, religion, worship: 5th,

Of reflection, as the foundation of philosophy.-Philosophy, the last de

velopment of thought.-Its true character in the nineteenth century...13

LECTURE II.

PERPETUITY OF PHILOSOPHY.

Subject of this lecture: Verification by history of the results obtained by

psychology. Has philosophy had an historical existence, and what has this

existence been?-ist, The East.-Birth of philosophy. 2d, Greece and

Rome.-Development of philosophy.-Socrates. 3d, Middle age.-Scho-

lasticism. 4th, Modern philosophy.-Descartes. 5th, Actual condition

of philosophy.-View of the future.-Conclusion: That philosophy has

not been wanting to any epoch of humanity; that its importance has

increased from epoch to epoch; and that its tendency is to become, without

ceasing, a more considerable portion of history..

LECTURE III.

HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.

29

Recapitulation of the last two lectures. A word upon the method employ-

ed. Subject of this lecture: Application to the history of philosophy

of what has been said of philosophy. 1st, That the history of philosophy

is a real element of universal history, like the history of legislation, of arts,

and of religions. 2d, That the history of philosophy is clearer than all other

parts of history, and that it contains their explanation. Logical demon-

stration. Historical demonstration. Explanation of Indian civilization by

philosophy: Bhagavad-Gita. Greece: Explanation of the age of Pericles

by the philosophy of Socrates. Modern history: Explanation of the six-

teenth century by the philosophy of Descartes. Explanation of the

eighteenth century by the philosophy of Condillac and of Helvetius, 3d,

28835

That the history of philosophy comes last in the development of historical

labors, as philosophy is the last degree of the interior development of the

mind, and of the movement of an epoch.-Relation of the history of phi-

losophy to general history.-Favorable situation of our age for the history

of philosophy..

LECTURE IV.

OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL METHOD IN HISTORY.

49

That the history of philosophy is at the same time special and general.-Of

the qualities of an historian of philosophy. Of the love of humanity.-Of

the historical method. Two methods. Empirical method: which is al-

most impracticable, and cannot give the reason of facts.-Of the specula-

tive method.-Union of the two methods in one, which, starting from the

human reason, from its elements, from their relations and their laws, would

seek their development in history. The result of such a method would be

the harmony of the interior development of reason with its historical devel-

opment, the harmony of philosophy with its history.-Application of this

method. Three points that the method should embrace: 1st, The com-

plete enumeration of the elements of reason; 2d, Their reduction; 3d,

Their relation.-Historical antecedents of this research. Aristotle and Kant.

Vices of their theory. 1st, Enumeration of the elements of reason; 2d, Re-

duction to two, unity and variety, identity and difference; absolute being,

relative being, the absolute cause and the relative cause, the infinite and

the finite; 3d, Their relation.-Contemporaneousness of the two essential

ideas of reason in the order of their acquisition.-Superiority and priority

of the one over the other in the order of nature.-Necessary coexistence of

the two, and generation of the one by the other.-Recapitulation...... 65

LECTURE V.

FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS OF HISTORY.

Recapitulation. Ideas in human reason.-Ideas in the divine intelligence.

-Of the true character of the intelligence.-Reply to some objections.-

Passage of God into the universe. Of the creation.-Of the universe as a

manifestation of divine intelligence, and of the ideas which constitute it.

That these ideas pass into the world and produce harmony, beauty, and

goodness. Expansion and attraction, etc.-Humanity. Man a microcosm:

psychology universal science abridged.-Fundamental fact of conscious-

ness: three terms again, the finite, the infinite, and their relation.-All

men possess this fact; their only difference arises from the predominance

of such or such an element of this fact, according to the degree of attention

paid to it. That it is the same with the human race. Its identity is that

of the three elements of consciousness of the human race. The differences

arise from the predominance of one of these over the others. These dif-

ferences constitute the different epochs of history..
83

LECTURE VI.

THE GREAT EPOCHS OF HISTORY.

Return to the fundamental fact of consciousness.-Distinction between the

form given to this fact by reflection, and its spontaneous form.-Charac-

ter of spontaneity. It is in the spontaneity of reason that absolute inde-

pendence and the impersonality of rational truths are declared.-Refuta-

tion of Kant.-Identity of the human reason in the spontaneous perception

of truth.-Reflection, element of difference.-Necessity and utility of re-

flection.-History, condition of all development: time, condition of

time: succession, condition of succession: particularity, division, con-

tradiction; necessity and utility of all this.-The end of history.--Of true

perfectibility. That there are three great historical epochs, and that there

can be no more....

LECTURE VII.

THE PLAN OF HISTORY.

125

Return to spontaneity and reflection in the individual and in the human

race.-History: its epochs.-Three epochs, neither more nor less.-Order

of these three epochs.-Order of succession.-Order of generation.-Of

the plan of history, as the manifestation of the plan of Providence.-His-

torical optimism.......

LECTURE VIII.

THE PART OF GEOGRAPHY IN HISTORY.

145

Return to the historic system sketched in the last lecture. Method which

it gave. Beauty of history thus conceived; its morality; its scientific

character. Unjust contempt expressed by philosophers for history. Ref-

utation of Malebranche. Rules of history. Fundamental rule: nothing

is insignificant; every thing has a meaning; every thing is related to

some idea.-Application of this rule to physical geography. Every place,

taken on a great scale, represents an idea, one of the three ideas to which

all ideas must be referred.-General question of the relation of places to

man.-Climates. Defence and explanation of the opinion of Montes-

quieu.-Determination of places and climates which correspond with the

three great epochs of history...

LECTURE IX.

NATIONS.

181

Subject of the lecture: Philosophy of history applied to the study of na-

tions. Discarding the question of a primitive people.-Idea of a nation;

development of this idea in all the constituent elements of a nation, and

first, in industry, laws, art, and religion.-To seize the relations of these

elements to each other, their relations of anteriority or of posteriority, of

superiority or of inferiority, especially their harmony.-Philosophy, re-

flecting all the elements of a nation's civilization, is its last expression.-

The resemblances, and especially the differences of the various nations of

the same epoch.-The idea of war.-Motives for the celebrity of great bat-

tles.-Morality of victory.—Historical importance of war, of the military

regulations of a people, even of the mode of warfare.....
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LECTURE X.

GREAT MEN.

Recapitulation of the last lecture. Subject of this: Great men.-Their ne-

cessity and their proper character.-Great men sum up nations, epochs,

entire humanity, universal order.-History of the great man. He is born

and dies at the proper time. His sign is success.-Theory of power.-

Theory of glory.-Great men considered as individuals in their inten-

tions and personal qualities. Littleness of the greatest men.-What are

the epochs, and what are the species most favorable for the development

of great men ?- Of war and of philosophy. -- Struggle of great men.

Acquittal of the conqueror...

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