A Strange Story — Complete

A Strange Story — Complete

Of the many illustrious thinkers whom the schools of France have contributed to the intellectual philosophy of our age, Victor Cousin, the most accomplished, assigns to Maine de Biran the rank of the most original. In the successive developments of his own mind, Maine de Biran may, indeed, be said to represent the change that has been silently at work throughout the general mind of Europe since the close of the last century. He begins his career of philosopher with blind faith in Condillac and Materialism. As an intellect severely conscientious in the pursuit of truth expands amidst the perplexities it revolves, phenomena which cannot be accounted for by Condillacs sensuous theories open to his eye. To the first rudimentary life of man, the animal life, characterized by impressions, appetites, movements, organic in their origin and ruled by the Law of Necessity, (1) he is compelled to add, the second, or human life, from which Free-will and Self-consciousness emerge. He thus arrives at the union of mind and matter; but still a something is wanted,some key to the marvels which neither of these conditions of vital being suffices to explain. And at last the grand self-completing Thinker attains to the Third Life of Man in Mans Soul. Now, as Philosophy and Romance both take their origin in the Principle of Wonder, so in the Strange Story submitted to the Public it will be seen that Romance, through the freest exercise of its wildest vagaries, conducts its bewildered hero towards the same goal to which Philosophy leads its luminous Student, through far grander portents of Nature, far higher visions of Supernatural Power, than Fable can yield to Fancy. That goal is defined in these noble words: ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 7701
Author: Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton
Release Date: Nov 26, 2004
Format: eBook
Language: English