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Back to article: ELME MARIE CARO (1826-1887)

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CARO, ELME MARIE (1826-1887), French philosopher, was born on the 4th of March 1826 at Poitiers. His father, a professor of philosophy, gave him an excellent education at the Stanislas College and the Ecole Normale, where he graduated in 1848. After being professor of philosophy at several provincial universities, he received the degree of doctor, and came to Paris in x858 as master of conferences at the Icole Normale. In 1861 he became inspector of the Academy of Paris, in 1864 professor of philosophy to the Faculty of Letters, and in 1874 a member of the French Academy. He married Pauline Cassin, the authoress of the Peche de Madeleine and other well-known novels. He died in Paris on the 13th of July 1887. In his philosophy he was mainly concerned to defend Christianity against modern Positivism. The philosophy of Cousin influenced him strongly, but his strength lay in exposition and criticism rather than in original thought. Besides important contributions to La France and the Revue des deux mondes, he wrote Le Mysticisme au X V III' siecle (1852-1854), L'Idee de Dieu( 1864), LeMaterialisme et la science (1868), Le Pessimisme au XIX° siecle (1878), Jours d'epreuaes (1872), M. Littre et le positivisme (1883), George Sand (1887), Melanges et portraits (1888), La Philosophie de Goethe (2nd ed., 188o).