320 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



prizes for ambition, and a career open in any direction for talents and 

 character have stimulated youthful effort at Paris ever since the 

 Revolution of '89. Cousin entered upon the stage at the right time, 

 and with the right temperament, to profit by these advantages. He 

 was the son of a watchmaker at Paris, where he was born November 

 28, 1792. He finished the earlier part of his education at the Lycee 

 Charlemagne, obtaining a number of prizes at the competitive exami- 

 nation, and the first honors in the department of rhetoric. Then he 

 became a pupil in the Normal School, where, under the tuition of 

 Laromiguiere, Royer-Collard, and Maine de Biran, he completed his 

 elementary training in philosophical studies with so much promise that 

 he was placed in the way of rapid promotion as a teacher. He became 

 Tutor of Greek in this school in 1812, and Master of Conferences in 

 Philosophy only two. years afterwards, acting at the same time as a 

 Professor in this department in the Lycee Napoleon. In 1815, at the 

 early age of twenty-three, he was appointed Adjunct Professor to 

 Royer-Collard in the chair of Philosophy at the Faculty of Letters in 

 the Sorbonne, taking upon himself, as is usual in such cases, the entire 

 performance of the duties of the office, his principal then virtually 

 quitting philosophical for political pursuits, and retaining the Pro- 

 fessorship only as a sinecure. Never was rapid advancement in a high 

 profession more fairly earned, or better justified by the result. With 

 great facility of acquisition, and an immense capacity for labor. Cousin 

 had also the ardent temperament, the unflagging interest in his voca- 

 tion, and the rhetorical power which are needed to attract and animate 

 a band of zealous young disciples. With such he soon found himself 

 surrounded ; and ten years afterwards he was able to allude with ex- 

 cusable pride to the fact, that the three most distinguished graduates 

 of his first class in philosophy at the Normal School, in 1816, were 

 Bautain, Jouffroy, and Damiron. Indeed, it may fairly be said of him, 

 that his best works at this early period were his pupils. 



Yet his pen was by no means idle ; he fed the press with a succes- 

 sion of voluminous publications, any one of which would have cost 

 most men many laborious years. Before 1827, he had completed an 

 edition of Proclus, edited from the MSS., with notes, in six octavo vol- 

 umes ; about the same time appeared his edition of Descartes, in eleven 

 volumes ; and while these were passing through the printer's hands, he 

 was also occupied on a translation of all the works of Plato, with 

 elaborately prepared arguments, in thirteen volumes ; which was not 



