MARIE JOSEPH, one of the most distinguished ethical and metaphysical philosophers of France, was born at Lyons, February 29, 1772. When that city was besieged in 1793 by the armies of the republic, the young Degeurando took up arms in defense of his native place, was made prisoner, and with difficulty escaped with his life. He first took refuge in Switzerland, whence he afterwards fled to Naples. In 1796, after an exile of three years, the establishment of the directory allowed him to return to France. Finding himself, at the age of twenty-five, without a profession, he resolved to embrace the career of arms, and enlisted as a private in a cavalry regiment. About this time the class of moral and political sciences had proposed as a subject for an essay this question,—“What is the influence of symbols on the faculty of thought?” Degeurando gained the prize, and heard of his success after the battle of Zurich, in which he had distinguished himself. This literary triumph was the first step in his upward career.

In 1799 he was attached to the ministry of the interior by Lucien Bonaparte; in 1804 he became general secretary under Champagny; in 1805 he accompanied Napoleon into Italy; was nominated maître des Requêtes; in 1811 received the title of councillor of state; and in the following year was appointed governor of Catalonia. On the overthrow of the empire, Degeurando was allowed to retain this office; but having been sent during the hundred days into the department of the Moselle to organize the defense of that district, he was punished at the second Restoration by a few months of neglect. He was soon after, however, re-admitted into the council of state, where he distinguished himself by the prudence and conciliatory tendency of his views. In 1819 he opened at the law-school of Paris a class of public and administrative law, which in 1822 was suppressed by government, but re-opened six years later under the Martignac ministry. In 1837 the government acknowledged the long and important services which Degeurando had rendered to his country by raising him to the peerage. He died November 9, 1842, at the age of seventy.

Degeurando’s works are very numerous. That by which he is best known now, and which constitutes his chief title to posthumous fame, is his Histoire Comparée des Systèmes de Philosophie relativement aux principes des Connaissances Humaines, of which the first edition appeared at Paris in 1804, in 3 vols. 8vo. The germ of this work had already appeared in the author’s Mémoire de la Génération des Connaissances Humaines, published at Berlin in 1 vol. 8vo, 1802. In this work Degeurando, after a rapid review of ancient and modern speculations on the origin of our ideas, singles out the theory of primary ideas, which he endeavors to combat under all its forms. The latter half of the work, devoted to the analysis of the intellectual faculties, is intended to show how all human knowledge is the result of experience; and reflection is assumed as the source of our ideas of substance, of unity, and identity.

Degeurando’s great work is divided into two parts, the first of which is purely historical, and devoted to an exposition of various philosophical systems; in the second, which comprises fourteen chapters of the entire work, the distinctive characters and value of these systems are compared and discussed. Great fault has been found with this plan, and justly, as it is impossible to separate advantageously the history and critical examination of any doctrine in the arbitrary manner which Degeurando has chosen for himself. Despite these disadvantages, however, the work has great merits. It brought back the minds of men to a due veneration for the great names in philosophical science,—a point which had been utterly neglected by Condillac and his school. In correctness of detail and comprehensiveness of view it is greatly superior to every work of the same kind that has hitherto appeared in France, Deslandes’ Degradation not excepted. During the Empire and the first years of the Restoration, Degeurando found time, despite his many political avocations, to recast the first edition of his Histoire Comparée, of which a second edition appeared at Paris in 1823, in 4 vols. 8vo. The plan and method of this edition are the same as in the first; but it is enriched with so many additions that it may pass for an entirely new work. It is greatly to be regretted that the author did not live to bring down his great work to his own times. His last chapter ends with the revival of letters and the philosophy of the fifteenth century.

The next valuable work of Degeurando was his essay Du Perfectionnement moral et l’éducation de soi-même, rewarded by the French Academy in 1825. The fundamental idea of this work, in which the speculative and the practical mingle in nearly equal proportions, is, that human life is in reality only a great education of which perfection is the aim.

Besides the works already mentioned, Degeurando left many others of which we may indicate the following:—Considérations sur diverses méthodes d’observation des peuples sauvages, 8vo, Paris, 1801; Éloge de Descartes; discours qui a remporté le prix proposé par la seconde classe de l’Institut National, 8vo, Paris, 1805; Le Vicaire, 8vo, Paris, 1820; Institutes du Droit Administratif, 4 vols., 8vo, Paris, 1829; Cours normales des instituteurs primaires ou Directions relatives à l’éducation physique, morale, et intellectuelle dans les écoles primaires, 8vo, Paris, 1830; De l’éducation des Sourds-Muets, 2 vols, Paris, 1832; De la Bibliothèque publique, 4 vols., 8vo, 1838. A detailed analysis of the Histoire Comparée des Systèmes will be found in the Fragments Philosophiques of M. Cousin.