The nature of this publication is sufficiently explained in the preface of M. Cousin.

We have attempted to render his book, without comment, faithfully into English. Not only have we endeavored to give his thought without increase or diminution, but have also tried to preserve the main characteristics of his style. On the one hand, we have carefully shunned idioms peculiar to the French; on the other, when permitted by the laws of structure common to both languages, we have followed the general order of sentences, even the succession of words. It has been our aim to make this work wholly Cousin's in substance, and in form as nearly his as possible, with a total change of dress. That, however, we may have nowhere missed a shade of meaning, nowhere introduced a gallicism, is too much to be hoped for, too much to be demanded.

M. Cousin, in his Philosophical Discussions, defines the terms that he uses. In the translation of these we have maintained uniformity, so that in this regard no farther explanation is necessary.

This is, perhaps, in a philosophical point of view, the most important of all M. Cousin's works, for it contains a complete summary and lucid exposition of the various parts of his system. It is now the last word of European philosophy, and merits serious and thoughtful attention.

This and many more like it, are needed in these times, when noisy and pretentious demagogues are speaking of metaphysics with idiotic laughter, when utilitarian statesmen are sneering at philosophy, when undisciplined sectarians of every kind are decrying it; when, too, earnest men, in state and church, men on whose shoulders the social world really rests, are invoking philosophy, not only as the best instrument of the highest culture and the severest mental discipline, but also as the best human means of guiding politics towards the eternally true and the eternally just, of preserving theology from the aberrations of a zeal without knowledge, and from the perversion of the interested and the cunning; when many an artist, who feels the nobility of his calling, who would address the mind of man rather than his senses, is asking a generous philosophy to explain to him that ravishing and torturing Ideal which is ever eluding his grasp, which often discourages unless understood; when, above all, devout and tender souls are learning to prize philosophy, since, in harmony with Revelation, it strengthens their belief in God, freedom, immortality.

Grateful to an indulgent public, on both sides of the ocean, for a kindly and very favorable reception of our version of M. Cousin's "Course of the History of Modern Philosophy," we add this translation of his "Lectures on the True, the Beautiful, and the Good," hoping that his explanation of human nature will aid some in solving the grave problem of life,—for there are always those, and the most gifted, too, who feel the need of understanding themselves,—believing that his eloquence, his elevated sentiment, and elevated thought, will afford gratification to a refined taste, a chaste imagination, and a disciplined mind.

O. W. WIGHT.

London, Dec. 21, 1853