h, in a manner analogous to that employed by
Feuerbach or St. Simon, he regarded the collective humanity as the true
God, the proper object of worship and reverence; and marked out a church
and a cult, the caricature of the Catholic church, in which the world's
heroes should receive canonization. The probability of mental derangement
palliates the absurdity of this system in the originator, but throws the
burden of responsibility from the master upon those who are insane enough
to adopt it.

We have traced two of the schools which flourished in the second quarter
of this century. Another remains, which has incurred from opponents the
charge of pantheism, viz. the idealist school, commonly called the
Eclectic; (44) which was especially dominant in France, and in the
university of Paris, during the rule of the Orleans dynasty. Viewed as a
philosophy it is a very noble one. Implying, as its name denotes, an
attempt to reap the harvest of the industry of all preceding schools of
philosophy, it was the chief means of restoring intellectual and spiritual
belief to France, and of creating the great movement of historical study
which marks that period of French literature. Commencing with a reaction
against the materialist and sensationalist school, it sought, by imitating
the mode by which Reid had refuted the philosophical scepticism of Hume,
to find a method for restoring belief in spiritual realities; and
afterwards, when its chief leader Cousin(882) had been exiled to Germany,
he brought back an acquaintance with the successive speculative schools
which existed there.

The results of the preceding efforts are expressed in him. His system
consisted in a psychological analysis of the human consciousness, which
led him to believe, that spiritual truth is revealed to the reason, or
intuitional and impersonal power, apart from the limitations of sense, or
of the ordinary critical faculties; that the true, the beautiful, and the
good, are perceived by it in their absolute, unlimited essence; and that
the revelation of the infinite is the basis of all intellectual truth, of
all moral obligation, and offers the clue to the criticism of religion,
the solution of the problems of history, and the construction of a
philosophy of the universe. Its chief effect on literature, the permanent
contribution which it has made to human improvement, is to encourage the
historic study of every branch of phenomena, and especially to exemplify
it