80 Sir William Hamilton's Fragments of Philosophy. 



tl)i'Ougliout till the rest of France more than five public courses of pliilo- 

 soplij- in tlie five Faculties of Letters. There is not a German university 

 which docs not ofler almost as many advantages, in this respect, as the 

 whole kingdom. Does the teaching of private individuals offer compen- 

 sation ? If we examine, we shall find that it affords none, absolutely 

 none. Apart from the means of teaching it, we find the same spectacle. 

 Philosophy has no avowed organ in tlic immense machinery of the perio- 

 dical press, and this is a fact of the most significant description. Its only 

 public asylum is the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, where it 

 is, thank God, very worthily represented, but even there it had difficulty 

 in obtaining a portion of the attention and interest which were disputed 

 with it by statistics and political economy. Books still remain, which, 

 by their abundance, may give rise to someillussion, and belie the picture 

 given above ; but it must not be forgotten, as I have already remarked, 

 that the great majority of these publications belong to erudition, philolo- 

 gy, history, criticism, in a word, to general literature rather than to phi- 

 losophy." Preface, p. Ixv — Ixviii. 



It is b}- this interesting discussion, conducted with skill and sagacity, 

 as well as a careful observance of facts, that M. Peisse introduces us, by 

 a natural transition, to the examination of the following fragments, which 

 will afford us a term of comparison between the works of France and 

 those of other countries, and enable us to judge of the character of the 

 metaphysical sciences in Scotland. We shall ourselves select from these 

 fragments what is most new and original. 



The first of them, entitled, Cousin- Sckelling, is an examination of 

 M. Cousin's system of philosoi^hj-, in its relations with the German 

 philosophy, and in particular with that of Professor Schelling. This 

 article was written on the occasion of the opening of M. Cousin's course 

 in 1829. Sir William Hamilton endeavours to seize the prominent points 

 in the Professor's prelections ; he attributes to him in part the introduc- 

 tion of the rational philosophy into France, and tries to demonstrate in 

 what these doctrines, viewed as a whole, consist. 



Going back to the state in whicli philosophy existed in France at the 

 beginning of the centurj^ he indicates at what point INI. Cousin took it 

 up, and in the midst of what influences he announced his own ideas and 

 endeavoured to construct a new rationalism which, making conscience 

 its starting point, derives from conscience, as interrogated by reason, the 

 whole of the scientific edifice. He scrui^ulously analyses the Professor's 

 doctrine ; wc shall briefly refer to it here for the sake of those who may 

 have lost sight of the characteristic features of his doctrine. 



Three elements are found in intelligence, which reciprocally presup- 

 pose each other, all of them essential and inseparable from each other. 

 These elements or principles, recognised by Aristotle and Kant, are the 

 infinite or unconditional, the finite or conditional ; finally, the relation of 

 the finite to the infinite, M'hich forms the integral clement of intelligence. 



