In 1828 he was restored to his post and from then on had an influential career as lecturer. He became a spokesman for the
juste milieu, as he called it, which in philosophy meant eclecticism. Cousin's power increased when in 1840 he became minister of public instruction, director of the École Normale, and a member of the Institut de France. He was not only the most famous French philosopher of his time but also supreme dictator of who should teach philosophy and what should be taught. He had become, moreover, a power in the whole educational system of France when he published a report on Prussian education (1833). (This report was later translated into English in 1834 and distributed to the schools of Massachusetts by an act of the legislature.) At the advent to power of Louis Napoleon in 1848 Cousin retired from active teaching and spent his time in literary studies.
Eclecticism
Though Cousin started his career as a pupil of Laromiguière, it was the commonsense philosophy of Thomas Reid, as interpreted by Royer-Collard, that was the source of his own doctrine. To Cousin common sense was a fusion of the best that had been done in philosophy, combining the empiricism of sensationalism in epistemology with the spiritualism of religion.
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