Cousin, the chief luminary in the sphere of pure philosophy in France in the first half of the nineteenth century, drew his inspiration from Germany.  He was professedly an eclectic, but in the main his philosophy was Hegelian.  He might endow God with consciousness and speak of Providence, but he regarded the world-process as a necessary evolution of thought, and he saw, not in religion but in philosophy, the highest expression of civilisation.  In 1828 he delivered a course of lectures on the philosophy of history.  He divided history into three periods, each governed by a master idea:  the first by the idea of the infinite (the Orient); the second by that of the finite (classical antiquity); the third by that of the relation of finite to infinite (the modern age).  As with Hegel, the future is ignored, progress is confined within a closed system, the highest circle has already been reached.  As an opponent of the ideologists and the sensational philosophy on which they founded their speculations, Cousin appealed to the orthodox and all those to whom Voltairianism was an accursed thing, and for a generation he exercised a considerable influence.  But his work—­and this is the important point for us—­helped to diffuse the idea, which the ideologists were diffusing on very different lines—­that human history has been a progressive development.

Progressive development was also the theme of Jouffroy in his slight but suggestive introduction to the philosophy of history (1825), [Footnote:  “Reflexions sur la philosophie de l’histoire,” in Melanges philosophiques, 2nd edition, 1838.] in which he posed the same problem which, as we shall see, Saint-Simon and Comte were simultaneously attempting to solve.  He had not fallen under the glamour of German idealism, and his results have more affinity with Vico’s than with Hegel’s.

He begins with some simple considerations which conduct to the doubtful conclusion that all the historical changes in man’s condition are due to the operation of his intelligence.  The historian’s business is to trace the succession of the actual changes.  The business of the philosopher of history is to trace the succession of ideas and study the correspondence between the two developments.  This is the true philosophy of history:  “the glory of our age is to understand it.”

Now it is admitted to-day, he says, that the human intelligence obeys invariable laws, so that a further problem remains.  The actual succession of ideas has to be deduced from these necessary laws.  When that deduction is effected—­a long time hence—­history will disappear; it will be merged in science.

Jouffroy then presented the world with what he calls the fatality of intellectual development, to take the place of Providence or Destiny.  It is a fatality, he is careful to explain, which, so far from compromising, presupposes individual liberty.  For it is not like the fatality of sensual impulse which guides the brute creation.  What it implies is this:  if a thousand men have the same idea of what is good, this idea will govern their conduct in spite of their passions, because, being reasonable and free, they are not blindly submissive to passion, but can deliberate and choose.