t men of
incontestable eminence as metaphysical philosophers may hold and profess
boldly their faith in doctrines, which many who affect to guide the
religious opinions of our youth would teach them to despise as the
heritage of narrow minds, and to cast away as incompatible with the
highest intellectual cultivation. Such doctrines are those of the fall
and ruin of man by nature, the necessity for Divine agency in his
recovery, his need of propitiation by the sacrifice of the
God-Man--_l'Homme-Dieu_. These truths are explicitly stated by the
Author in his former course of lectures--_La Vie Eternelle_,[1] in
which, while discoursing eloquently on that eternal life which is the
portion of the righteous, he does not shrink from declaring his belief
in its awful counterpart, the eternal condemnation of the wicked.

"The offence of the Cross" has not "ceased," and many finding that these
are the opinions of this Author, will perhaps lay down his book as
unworthy of their attention: yet the editor, biographer, and expositor
of the great French thinker, Maine de Biran, will not need introduction
to the intellectual magnates of our own or of any country. The
translator will be thankful, if some of those,--the youth more
especially,--of his own country, who have been dazzled by the glare of
false science, shall find in this work a help to the reassuring of their
faith, while they learn in a fresh example that there are men quite
competent to deal with the profoundest problems which can exercise our
thoughts, who at the same time have come to a conviction,--compatible as
they believe with principles of the clearest reason,--of the truth of
those very doctrines which form the substance of evangelical
Christianity. In saying this, the translator is far from claiming the
Author as belonging to the same school of theology with himself: but
differing with him on some important points, he has yet believed that
this volume is calculated to be of much use in the present condition of
religious thought in England, and in this hope and prayer he commends it
to the blessing of Him, whose being and attributes, as our God and
Father in Jesus Christ, are therein asserted and defended.

GENEVA, _November, 1865_.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] A translation of this work, by an English lady, has been published
by Mr. Dalton, 28, Cockspur street.

CONTENTS.

LECTURE I.
PAGE
OUR IDEA OF GOD 1

LECTU