Editing Victor Cousin (section)

===Influences on Cousin's early philosophical thought===

Cousin wanted to lecture on philosophy and quickly obtained the position of master of conferences (''maître de conférences'') in the school. The second great philosophical impulse of his life was the teaching  of [[Pierre Paul Royer-Collard]]. This teacher, he tells us, "by the severity of his logic, the gravity and weight of his words, turned me by degrees, and not without resistance, from the beaten path of Condillac into the way which has since become so easy, but which was then painful and unfrequented, that of the Scottish philosophy."{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=330}} The "Scottish Philosophy" being the "Common Sense" Philosophy of [[Thomas Reid]] and others{{mdash}}which taught that both the external world and the human mind (introspection proving the existence of "free will" by the fact of consciousness) had an objective existence.{{Citation needed|date=May 2018}} In 1815–1816 Cousin attained the position of ''suppliant'' (assistant) to Royer-Collard in the history of modern philosophy chair of the faculty of letters.  Another thinker who influenced him at this early period was [[Maine de Biran]], whom Cousin regarded as the unequalled psychological observer of his time in France.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=330}}

These men strongly influenced Cousin's philosophical thought. To Laromiguière he attributes the lesson of decomposing thought, even though the reduction of it to sensation was inadequate. Royer-Collard taught him that even sensation is subject to certain internal laws and principles which it does not itself explain, which are superior to analysis and the natural patrimony of the mind. De Biran made a special study of the phenomena of the will. He taught him to distinguish in all cognitions, and especially in the simplest facts of consciousness, the voluntary activity in which our personality is truly revealed. It was through this "triple discipline" that Cousin's philosophical thought was first developed, and that in 1815 he began the public teaching of philosophy in the Normal School and in the faculty of letters.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=330}}

He then took up the study of [[German language|German]], worked at [[Immanuel Kant]] and [[Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi]], and sought to master the ''Philosophy of Nature'' of [[Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling]], which at first greatly attracted him. The influence of Schelling may be observed very markedly in the earlier form of his philosophy. He sympathized with the principle of faith of Jacobi, but regarded it as arbitrary so long as it was not recognized as grounded in reason. In 1817 he went to [[Germany]], and met [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]] at [[Heidelberg University|Heidelberg]].  Hegel's ''Encyclopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften'' appeared the same year, and Cousin had one of the earliest copies. He thought Hegel not particularly amiable, but the two became friends. The following year Cousin went to Munich, where he met Schelling for the first time, and spent a month with him and Jacobi, obtaining a deeper insight into the Philosophy of Nature.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=330}}