Excerpt from The English and Foreign Philosophical Library, Vol. 21 N 0 one was more alive to the corruptions of Christianity than Edgar Quinet in his more purely historical works he has traced the development of a Catholic Brahminism and a Catholic Buddhism in Europe, and their blighting effects on the countries which have remained influenced by Romanism; and in one of his latest works he has signalled the rising in Europe, in our own day, of a Brahminism and a Buddhism more thoroughly Oriental than that of the Middle Ages. I should extend this preface indefinitely were I to attempt any delineation of Quinet as a man, a philosopher, a poet, and a patriot. I will only refer to one point which springs out of what has just been said, and which to my mind constitutes his highest claim to attention. It is the possession of what he called philosophic intuition, but which I cannot distinguish from what both the Hebrew and Christian Churches have always understood by the gift of prophecy. Dr. Edward Dowden, in his essay on Edgar Quinet, has said most happily that Quinet was one of those men that made the conscience of a nation; may we not say that he was one of those men that make part of the conscience of Humanity, and are not such its true prophets 2 if there be any meaning in the word. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.