Chapter II (2)

The _cogito, ergo sum_ is, of course, worthless as an argument, as has often been shown; but there is in it an assumption not generally noted; namely, that man suffices for his own thought, and, therefore, that man is God. God alone suffices, or can suffice, for his own thought, and needs nothing but himself for his thought or his science. He knows himself in himself, and is in himself the infinite Intelligibile, and the infinite Intelligens. He knows in himself all his works, from beginning to end, for he has made them, and all events, for he has decreed them. There is for him no medium of science distinguishable from himself; for he is, as the theologians say, the adequate object of his own intelligence. But man being a creature, and therefore dependent for his existence, his life, and all his operations, interior and exterior, on the support and active concurrence of that which is not himself, does not and cannot suffice for his thought, and he does not and cannot think in and of himself alone, in any manner, mode, form, or degree, or without the active presence and concurrence of the object, as Pierre Leroux has well shown in his otherwise very objectionable _Réfutation de l'Eclecticisme._ The object being independent of the subject, and not supplied by the subject, must exist _a parte rei_, since, if it did not, it could not actually concur with the subject in the production of thought. There can arise, therefore, to the true philosopher, no question as to the credibility or trustworthiness of reason, the validity or invalidity of thought. The only question for him is, Do we think? What do we think? He who thinks, knows that he thinks, and what he thinks, for thought is science, and who knows, knows that he knows, and what he knows.

The difficulty which Cousin and the reviewer encounter arises from thus placing the question of method before the question of principles, as we showed in our former article. No such difficulty can arise in the path of him who has settled the question of principles--which are given, not found, or obtained by the action of the subject without them--and follows the method they prescribe. The error, we repeat, arises from the psychological method, which supposes all the activity in thought is in the subject, and supposes reason to be operative in and of itself, or without any objective reality, which reality, on Cousin's system, or by the psychological method, can never be established.

The reviewer concedes that objective reality cannot be established _in a logical way_, but maintains that there is no need of so establishing it; for "men have an unquestioning, an unconquerable _belief_ that the very idea of obligation implies something outside of them." Nobody denies the belief, but its validity is precisely the matter in question. {103} How do you prove the validity of the idea of obligation? But the reviewer forgets that Cousin makes it the precise end of philosophy to legitimate this belief, and all the universal beliefs of mankind, and convert them from beliefs into science. How can philosophy do this, if obliged to support itself on these very beliefs?

The reviewer follows the last passage with a bit of philosophy of his own; but, as it has no relevancy to the matter in hand, and is, withal, a little too transcendental for our taste, he must excuse us for declining to discuss it. We cannot accept it, for we cannot accept what we do not understand, and it professes to be above all understanding. In fact, the reviewer seems to have a very low opinion of understanding, and no little contempt for logic. He reminds us of a friend we once had, who said to us, one day, that if he trusted his understanding and followed his logic he should go to Rome; but, as neither logic nor understanding is trustworthy or of any account, he should join the Anglican Church, which he incontinently did, and since, we doubt not, found himself at home. Can it be that he is the writer of the article criticising us?

The reviewer, in favoring us with this bit of philosophy of his own, tells us, in support of it, that Sir William Hamilton says, "All thinking is negation." So much the worse, then, for Sir William Hamilton. All thinking is affirmative, and pure negation can neither think nor be thought. Every thought is a judgment, and affirms both the subject thinking and the object thought, and their relation to each other. This, at least sometimes, is the doctrine of Cousin, as any one may ascertain by reading his essays, _Du Fait de Conscience_ and _Du Premier et du dernier Fait de Conscience_. [Footnote 35] Though even in these essays the doctrine is mixed up with much that is objectionable, and which leads one, after all, to doubt if the philosopher ever clearly perceived the fact, or the bearing of the fact, he asserted. Cousin often sails along near the coast of truth, sometimes almost rubs his bark against it, without perceiving it. But we hasten on.

[Footnote 35: _Fragments Philosophiques_, t. i. pp. 248,
256.]

4. We are accused of misstating Cousin's doctrine of substance and cause. Here is our statement and the reviewer's charge:

"'M. Cousin,' continues _The Catholic World_, 'professes
to have reduced the categories of Kant and Aristotle to
two--substance and cause; but as he in fact identifies cause
with substance, declaring substance to be substance _only in
so much_ [the italics are ours] as it is cause, and cause to
be cause _only in so much_ as it is substance, he really
reduces them to the single category of substance, which you may
call, indifferently, substance or cause. But, though every
substance is intrinsically and essentially a cause, yet, as it
_may be something more_ than a cause, it is not necessary
to insist on this, and it may be admitted that he recognized
two categories.'

"What is exactly meant by these two contradictory statements it
is not easy to guess; but let Cousin speak for himself:
[Footnote 36]

[Footnote 36: VI. Lecture, Course of 1818, on the Absolute.]

"'Previous to Leibnitz, these two ideas seemed separated in
modern philosophy by an impassable barrier. He, the first to
sound the nature of the idea of substance, brought it back to
the notion of force. This was the foundation of all his
philosophy, and of what afterward became the Monadology. ...
But has Leibnitz, in identifying the notion of substance with
that of cause, presented it with justness? Certainly, substance
is revealed to us by cause; for, suppress all exercise of the
cause and force which is in ourselves, and we do not exist to
ourselves. It is, then, the idea of cause which introduces into
the mind the idea of substance. But is substance nothing more
than cause which manifests it? .... The causative power is the
essential attribute of substance; it is not substance itself.
In a word, it has seemed to us surer to hold to these two
primitive notions; distinct, though inseparably united; one,
which is the sign and manifestation of the other, this, which
is the root and foundation of that.'

{104}

"One would think this sufficiently explicit for all who are not
afflicted with the blindness that will not see." (P. 539.)

We see no self-contradiction in our statement, and no contradiction of M. Cousin. We maintain that M. Cousin really, though probably not intentionally or consciously, reduces the categories of Kant and Aristotle to the single category of substance, and prove it by the words italicized by the reviewer, which are our translation of Cousin's own words. Cousin says, in his own language, in a well-known passage in the first preface of his _Fragments Philosophiques_, "Le Dieu de la conscience n'est pas un Dieu abstrait, un roi solitaire, rélegué pardelà la création sur le trône desert d'une éternité silencieuse, et d'une existence absolue qui ressemble au néant même de l'existence: c'est un Dieu à la fois vrai et réel, à la fois substance et cause, toujours substance et toujours cause, _n'étant substance qu'en tant que cause, et cause qu'en tant que substance_, c'est-à-dire, étant cause absolue, un et plusieurs, éternité et temps, espace et nombre, essence et vie, indivisibilité et totalité, principe, fin, et milieu, au sommet de l'être et à son plus humble degré, infini et fini, tout ensemble, triple enfin, c'est-à-dire, à la fois Dieu, nature, et humanité. En effet, _si Dieu n'est pas tout il n'est rien._" [Footnote 37] This passage justifies our first statement, because Cousin calls God substance, the one, absolute substance, besides which there is no substance. But as our purpose, at the moment, was not so much to show that Cousin made substance and cause identical, as it was to show that he made substance a necessary cause, we allowed, for reasons which he himself gives in the passage cited by the reviewer from his course of 1818 on the Absolute, that he might be said to distinguish them, and to have reduced the categories to two, instead of one only, as he professes to have done. But the reviewer hardly needs to be told that, when it is assumed that substance is cause only on condition of causing, that is, causing from the necessity of its own being, the effect is not substantially distinguishable from the substance causing, and is only a mode or affection of the causative substance itself, or, at best, a phenomenon.

[Footnote 37: _Fragments Philosophiques_, t. i. p. 76.]

5. Accepting substance and cause as two categories, we contend that Cousin requires a third; namely, the creative act of the causative substance, and contingent existences, as asserted in the ideal formula. _Ens creat existentias_. To this the reviewer cites, from Cousin, the following passage in reply:

"In the fifth lecture of the course of 1828, M. Cousin says:

"'The two terms of this so comprehensive formula do not
constitute a dualism, in which the first term is on one side
and the second on the other, without any other connection
between them than that of being perceived at the same time by
the intelligence; so far from this, the tie which binds them is
essential. It is a connection of _generation_ which draws
the second from the first, and constantly carries it back to
it, and which, with the two terms, constitutes the _three_
integrant elements of intelligence. ... Withdraw this relation
which binds variety to unity, and you destroy the necessary
bond of the two terms of every proposition. These three terms,
distinct, but inseparable, constitute at once a triplicity and
an indivisible unity. ... Carried into Theodicy, the theory I
have explained to you is nothing less than the very foundation
of Christianity. The Christians' God is at once triple and one,
and the animadversions which rise against the doctrine I teach
ought to ascend to the Christian Trinity.'" (P. 540.)

{105}

We said in our article, "Under the head of substances he (Cousin) ranges all that is substantial or that pertains to real and necessary being, and under the head of cause the phenomenal or the effects of the causative action of substance. He says he understands, by substance, the universal and absolute substance, the real and necessary being of the theologians; and by phenomena, not mere modes or appearances of substance, but finite and relative substances, and calls them phenomena only in opposition to the one absolute substance. They are created or produced by the causative action of substance. [Footnote 38] If this has any real meaning, he should recognize three categories as in the ideal formula, _Ens creat existentias_, that is, Being, existences, or creatures, and the creative act of being, the real nexus between substance or being and contingent existences, for it is that which places them and binds them to the Creator."

[Footnote 38: _Fragments Philosophiques_, t i. pp. xix.
xx.]

The passage cited by the reviewer from Cousin is brought forward, we suppose, to show that it does recognize this third category; but if so, what becomes of the formal statement that he has reduced the categories to _two_, substance and cause, or, as he sometimes says, substance or being and phenomenon? Besides, the passage cited does not recognize the third term or category of the formula. It asserts not the _creative_ act of being as the _nexus_ between substance and phenomenon, the infinite and the finite, the absolute and the relative, etc.; but _generation_, which is a very different thing, for the generated is consubstantial with the generator.

6. We were arguing against Cousin's doctrine, that God, being intrinsically active, or, as Aristotle and the schoolmen say, _actus purissimus_, most pure act, must therefore necessarily create or produce exteriorly. In prosecuting the argument, we anticipated an objection which, perhaps, some might be disposed to bring from Leibnitz's definition of substance, as a _vis activa_, and endeavored to show that, even accepting that definition, it would make nothing in favor of the doctrine we were refuting, and which Cousin undeniably maintains. We say, "The doctrine that substance is essentially cause, and must, from intrinsic necessity, cause in the sense of creating, is not tenable. We are aware that Leibnitz, a great name in philosophy, defines substance to be an active force, a _vis activa_, but we do not recollect that he anywhere pretends that its activity necessarily extends beyond itself. God is _vis activa_, if you will, in a supereminent degree; he is essentially active, and would be neither being nor substance if he were not; he is, as Aristotle and the schoolmen say, most pure act; ... but nothing in this implies that he must necessarily act _ad extra_, or create. He acts eternally from the necessity of his own divine nature, but not necessarily out of the circle of his infinite being, for he is complete in himself, is in himself the plenitude of being, and always and everywhere suffices for himself, and therefore for his own activity. Creation, or the production of effects exterior to himself, is not necessary to the perfection of his activity, adds nothing to him, as it can take nothing from him. Hence, though we cannot conceive of him without conceiving him as infinitely, eternally, and essentially active, we can conceive of him as absolute substance or being, without conceiving him to be necessarily acting or creating _ad extra_."

{106}

The reviewer says, sneeringly, "This is the most remarkable passage in this remarkable article." He comments on it in this manner:

"Thus appearing to accept the now exploded Leibnitzian theory,
which Cousin has combated both in its original form, and as
maintained by De Biran, our critic tries to escape from it by
this subtle distinction between the southern and south-eastern
sides of the hair. He enlarges upon it. God, according to him,
is indeed _vis activa_ in the most eminent degree, but
this does not imply that he must act _ad extra_, or
create. He acts eternally from the necessity of his nature, but
not necessarily out of the circle of his own infinite being.
Hence, though we cannot conceive of him but as infinitely and
essentially active, we can conceive of him as absolute
substance without conceiving him to be necessarily creating, or
acting _ad extra_. M. Cousin, he says, evidently confounds
the interior acts of the divine being with his exterior or
creative acts.

"We have no wish to deny that he does make such a confusion. To
one who holds that 'to the operation of reason no objective
reality is necessary, and that such reality can never be
established,' this kind of subjective activity of the will,
which seems so nearly to resemble passivity--these pure acts,
or volitions, which never pass out of the sphere of the will
into causation--may be satisfactory; but to one who believes
that God is not a scholastic abstraction--to one who worships
the 'living God' of the Scriptures--it will sound like a
pitiful jugglery with words thinly veiling a lamentable
confusion of ideas. God is a person, and he acts as a person.
The divine will is no otherwise conceivable by us than as of
the same nature as man's will; it differs from it only in the
mode of its operation--for with him this is always immediate,
and no deliberation or choice is possible--and it is as absurd
to speak of the activity of his will, the eminently active
force, never extending 'out of the circle of his own infinite
being,' as it would be to call a man eminently an active person
whose activity was all merely purpose or volition, never
passing into the creative act _ad extra_, or out of the
circle of his own finite being.

"If St. Anselm is right, that, to be _in re_ is greater
than to be _in intellectu_, then has the creature man,
according to the critic, a higher faculty than his Creator
_essentially and necessarily_ has. For his will is by
nature causative, creative, productive _ad extra_, and it
is nothing unless its activity be called forth into act
external to his personality, while the pure acts of the divine
will may remain for ever enclosed in the circle of the divine
consciousness without realizing themselves _ad extra_!"
(Pp. 540, 541.)

We do not like to tell a man to his face, especially when he assumes the lofty airs and makes the large pretensions of our reviewer, that he does not know what he is talking about, or understand the ordinary terms and distinctions of the science he professes to have mastered, for that, in our judgment, would be uncivil; but what better is to be said of the philosopher who sees nothing more in the distinction between the divine act _ad intra_, whence the eternal generation of the Son and the eternal procession of the Holy Ghost, and the divine act _ad extra_, whence man and nature, the universe, and all things visible and invisible, distinguishable from the one necessary, universal, immutable, and eternal being, than in "the distinction between the southern and south-eastern sides of the hair"? The Episcopalian journals were right in calling the _Church Review's_ criticism on us "racy," "rasping," "scathing;" it is certainly astounding, such as no mortal man could foresee, or be prepared to answer to the satisfaction of its author.

In the passage reproduced from ourselves we neither accept nor reject the definition of substance given by Leibnitz, nor do we say that Cousin accepts it, although he certainly favors it in his introduction to the _Posthumous Works of Maine de Biran_, and adduces the fact of his having adopted it in his defence against the charge of pantheism, [Footnote 39] but simply argue that, if any one should adopt it and urge it as an argument for Cousin, it would be of no avail, because Leibnitz does not pretend that substance is or must be active outside of itself, or out of its own interior, that is, must be creative of exterior effects. This is our argument, and it must go for what it is worth.

[Footnote 39: _Fragments Philosophiques_, t i. p. xxi.]

{107}

We admit that in some sense God may be a _vis activa_, but we show almost immediately that it is in the sense that he is most pure act, that is, in the sense opposed to the _potentia nuda_ of the schoolmen, and means that God is _in actu_ most perfect being, and that nothing in his being is potential, in need of being filled up or actualized. When we speak of his activity, within the circle of his own being, we refer to the fact that he is living God, therefore, Triune, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. As all life is active, not passive, we mean to imply that his life is in himself, and that he can and does eternally and necessarily live, and in the very fulness of life in himself; and therefore nothing is wanting to his infinite and perfect activity and beatitude in himself, or without anything but himself. This is so because he is Trinity, three equal persons in one essence, and therefore he has no need of anything but himself; nothing in his being or nature necessitates him to act _ad extra_, that is, create existences distinct from himself. Does the reviewer understand us now? He is an Episcopalian, and believes, or professes to believe, in the Trinity, and, therefore, in the eternal generation of the Son, and the eternal procession of the Holy Ghost. Do not this generation and this procession imply action? Action assuredly and necessarily, and eternal action too, because they are necessary in the very essence or being of God, and he could not be otherwise than three persons in one God, if, _per impossibile_, he would. The unity of essence and trinity of persons do not depend on the divine will, but on the divine nature. Well, is this eternal action of generation and procession _ad intra_, or _ad extra?_ Is the distinction of three persons a distinction _from_ God, or a distinction _in_ God? Are we here making a distinction as frivolous as that "between the southern and south-eastern sides of a hair"? Do you not know the importance of the distinction? Think a moment, my good friend. If you say the distinction is a distinction _from_ God, you deny the divine unity--assert three Gods; if you say it is a distinction in God, you simply assert one God in three persons, or three persons in one God, or one divine essence. If you deny both, your God is a dead unity in himself, not a living God.

The action of God _ad intra_ is necessary, proceeds from the fulness of the divine nature, and the result is the generation of the Son and the procession of the Holy Ghost. Now, can you understand what would be the consequence, if we made the action of God _ad extra_, or creation, proceed from the necessity of the divine nature? The first consequence would be that creation is God, for what proceeds from God by the necessity of his own nature is God, as the Arian controversy long ago taught the world. The second consequence would be that God is incomplete in himself, and has need to operate without, in order to complete himself, which really denies God, and therefore creation, everything, which is really the doctrine of Cousin, namely, God completes himself in his works. Can you understand now, dear reviewer, why we so strenuously deny that God creates or produces existences distinguishable from himself, through necessity? Cousin says that God creates from the intrinsic necessity of his own nature, that creation is necessary. You say he has retracted the expression. Be it so. {108} But, with all deference, we assert that he has not retracted or explained away his doctrine, for it runs through his whole system; and as he nowhere makes the distinction between action _ad intra_ and action _ad extra_, his very assertion that God is substance only in that he is cause, and cause only in that he is substance, implies the doctrine that God, if substance at all, cannot but create, or manifest himself without, or develop externally. What say we? Even the reviewer sneers at the distinction we have made, and at the efforts of theologians to save the freedom of God in creating. Thus, in the paragraph immediately succeeding our last extract, he says, "But all this quibbling comes from an ignorant terror, lest God's free-will should be attacked." The reviewer, on the page following, admits all we asserted, and falls himself, blindfold, as it were, into the very error he contends we falsely charge to the account of Cousin. "The necessity he (Cousin) speaks of is a metaphysical necessity, which no more destroys the free-will of God, than the metaphysical necessity of doing right, that is, obligation, destroys man's free-will." [Footnote 40] (P. 542.)

[Footnote 40: The reviewer, misled by the evasive answer of
Cousin, supposes the objection urged against his doctrine,
that creation is necessary, is, that it destroys the
free-will of God; but that, though a grave objection, is not
the one we insisted on; the real objection is, that if God is
assumed to create from the necessity of his own nature, he is
assumed not to create at all, for what is called his creation
can be only an evolution or development of himself, and
consequently producing nothing distinguishable in substance
from himself, which is pure pantheism. Of course, all
pantheism implies fatalism, for if we deny free-will in the
cause, we must deny it in the effect; but it is not to escape
fatalism, but pantheism that Cousin's doctrine of necessary
Creation is denied, as we pointed out in our former article.]

_Metaphysical_ necessity, according to the reviewer, p. 537, means real necessity, since he says, "Metaphysics is the science of the real," and therefore God is under a real necessity of creating. Yet it is to misrepresent Cousin to say that, according to him, creation is necessary! But assume that, by _metaphysical_, the reviewer means _moral_; then God is under a moral necessity, that is, morally bound to create, and consequently would sin if he did not. But we have more yet, in the same paragraph: "A power essentially creative _cannot but create._" Agreed. But to assert that God is essentially creative, is to assert that he is necessary creator, and that creation is necessary, for God cannot change his essence or belie it in his act. But this assertion of God as essentially creative, is precisely what we objected to in Cousin, and therefore, while asserting that God is infinitely and essentially _active_ in his own being, we denied that he is essentially _creative_. He is free in his own nature to create or not, as he pleases. The reviewer does not seem to make much progress in defending Cousin against our criticisms.

7. That Cousin was knowingly and intentionally a pantheist, we have never pretended, but have given it as our belief that he was not. We do not think that he ever comprehended the essential principle of pantheism, or foresaw all the logical consequences of the principles he himself adopted and defended. But his doctrine, notwithstanding all his protests to the contrary, is undeniably pantheism, if any doctrine ever deserved to be called by that name. It is found not here and there in an incidental phrase, but is integral; enters into the very substance and marrow of his thought, and pervades all his writings. We felt it when we attempted to follow him as our master, and had the greatest difficulty in the world to give him a non-pantheistic sense, and never succeeded to our own satisfaction in doing it.

{109}

Cousin's pantheism follows necessarily from two doctrines that he, from first to last, maintains. First, there is only one substance. Second, Creation is necessary. He says in the _Avertissement_ to the third edition of his _Philosophical Fragments_ that he only in rare passages speaks of substance as one, and one only, and when he does so, he uses the word, not in its ordinary sense, but in the sense of Plato, of the most illustrious doctors of the church, and of the Holy Scripture in that sublime word, I AM that I AM; that is, in the sense of eternal, necessary, and self-existent Being. But this is not the case. The passages in which he asserts there is and can be only one substance, are not rare, but frequent, and to understand it in any of these passages in any but its ordinary sense, would make him write nonsense. He repeats a hundred times that there is, and can be, only one substance, and says, expressly, that substance is one or there is no substance, and that relative substances contradict and destroy the very idea of substance. He is talking, he says in his defence, of absolute substance. Be it so; interpret him accordingly. "Besides the one only absolute substance, there is and can be no substance, that is, no other one only absolute substance." Think you M. Cousin writes in that fashion? But we fully discussed this matter in our former article, and as the reviewer discreetly refrains from even attempting to show that we unjustly accused him of maintaining that there is and can be but one substance, we need not attempt any additional proof. The second doctrine, that creation is necessary, the reviewer concedes and asserts, "In Cousin, as we have attempted to explain, creation is not only possible, but NECESSARY," repeating Cousin's own words.

"As to Cousin's pantheism, if any one is disposed to believe
that the systems of Spinoza and of Cousin have anything in
common, we can only recommend to him a diligent study of both
writers, freedom from prejudice, and a distrust of his own
hastily formed opinions. It is too large a question to enter
upon here, but we would like to ask the critic how he
reconciles the two philosophers on the great question he last
considered--the creation. In Spinoza, there is no creation. The
universe is only the various modes and attributes of substance,
subsisting with it from eternity in a necessary relation. In
Cousin, creation, as we have attempted to explain, is 'not only
possible but necessary.' The relation between the universe and
the supreme Substance is not a necessary relation of substance
and attribute, but a contingent relation of cause and effect,
produced by a creative fiat." (P. 545.)

A necessitated creation is no proper creation at all. And Cousin denies that God does or can create from nothing; says God creates out of his own fulness, that the stuff of creation is his own substance, and time and again resolves what he calls creation into evolution or development, and makes the relation between the infinite and the finite, as we have seen, not that of _creation_, but that of _generation_, which is only development or explication. He also denies that individuals are substances, and says they have their substance in the one absolute substance. Let the reviewer read the preface to the first edition of the _Fragments_, reproduced without change in subsequent editions, and he will find enough more passages to the same effect, two at least in which he asserts that finite substances, not being able to exist in themselves without something beyond themselves, are very much like phenomena; and his very pretension is, that he has reduced the categories of Kant and Aristotle to two, substance or being, and phenomenon.

Now, the essential principle of pantheism is the assertion of one only substance and the denial of all finite substances. {110} It is not necessary, in order to be a pantheist, to maintain that the apparent universe is an eternal mode or attribute of the one only substance, as Spinoza does; for pantheism may even assert the creation of modes and phenomena, which are perishable; its essence is in the assertion of one only substance, which is the ground or reality of all things, as Cousin maintains, and in denying the creation of finite substances, that can act or operate as second causes. Cousin, in his doctrine, does not escape pantheism, and we repeat, that he is as decided a pantheist as was Spinoza, though not precisely of the same school.

The reviewer says, p. 544, "We proceed to another specimen of the critic's accuracy; 'M. Cousin says pantheism is the divinization of nature, taken in its totality as God, But this is sheer atheism.'" Are we wrong? Here is what Cousin says in his own language: "Le panthéism est _proprement_ la divinisation du tout, le grand tout donné comme Dieu, l'universe Dieu de la plupart de mes adversaires, de Saint-Simon, par example. C'est au fond un veritable athéisme." [Footnote 41] If he elsewhere gives a different definition, that is the reviewer's affair, not ours. We never pretended that Cousin never contradicts himself, or undertook to reconcile him with himself; but the reviewer should not be over-hasty in charging inaccuracy, misrepresentation, or ignorance where none is evident. He may be caught himself. The reviewer stares at us for saying Cousin's "exposition of the Alexandrian philosophy is a marvel of misapprehension." Can the reviewer say it is not? Has he studied that philosophy? We repeat, it is a marvel of misapprehension, both of Christian theology and of that philosophy itself. The Neoplatonists were pantheists and emanationists, and Cousin says the creation they asserted was a creation proper. Let that suffice to save us from the scathing lash of the reviewer.

[Footnote 41: _Fragments Philosophiques_, t i. pp. 18,
19.]

8. We said, in our article, "It was a great misfortune for M. Cousin that what little he knew of Catholic theology, caught up, apparently, at second hand, served only to mislead him. The great controversies on Catholic dogmas have enlightened the darkest passages of psychology and ontology, and placed the Catholic theologian on a vantage-ground of which they who know it not are incapable of conceiving. Before him your Descartes, Spinozas, Kants, Fichtes, Hegels, and Cousins dwindle into pigmies." The reviewer replies to this:

"This is something new indeed, and we think the great Gallican
churchmen of the seventeenth century, whom Cousin understood so
intimately, and for whom he had so sincere an admiration, would
be the last to claim an exclusive vantage-ground from their
knowledge of the controversies on Catholic dogma. For these
men, alike of the Oratory and of Port Royal, were Cartesians,
and their faith was interwoven with their philosophy; it was
not in opposition to it. And they knew that that philosophy was
based upon a thorough understanding of the great 'controversies
on Catholic dogma,' which had been carried on in the schools by
laymen as well as by ecclesiastics.

"But who is the Romish theologian the critic refers to, and how
is it he makes so little use of his 'vantage-ground'? Since
Descartes brought modern philosophy into being by its final
secularization, we do not recollect any theologian so eminent
that all the great men he has named dwindle into pigmies before
him. Unless, indeed, this should take place from their being so
far out of the worthy man's sight and comprehension, as to be
'dwarfed by the distance,' as Coleridge says." (Pp. 546, 547.)

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We referred to no _Romish_ theologian in particular; but if the reviewer wants names, we give him the names of St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, St. Anselm, St. Bonaventura, St. Thomas of Aquino, Fonseca, Suarez, Malebranche, even Cardinal Gerdll, and Gioberti, the last, in fact, a contemporary of Cousin, whose _Considerazioni sopra le dottrine del Cousin_ prove his immense superiority over him, and of the others named with him. Cousin may have admired the great Gallican churchmen of the seventeenth century, but intimately understand them as theologians, he did not, if we may judge from his writings; moreover, all the great churchmen of that century were not Frenchmen. As great, if not greater, were found among Italians, Spaniards, Poles, and Germans, though less known to the Protestant world. Has the reviewer forgotten, or has he never known, the great men that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries flourished in the great religious orders, the Dominicans, Franciscans, the Augustinians, and especially the Jesuits--men whose learning, genius, and ability were surpassed only by their humility and sanctity?

But we spoke not of Cousin's little knowledge of churchmen, but of his little knowledge of Catholic theology. The reviewer here, probably, is not a competent judge, not being himself a Catholic theologian, and being comparatively a stranger to Catholic theology; but we will accept even his judgment in the case. Cousin denies that there is anything in his philosophy not in consonance with Christianity and the church; he denies that his philosophy impugns the dogma of the Word or the Trinity, and challenges proof to the contrary. Yet what does the reviewer think of Cousin's resolution of the Trinity, as cited some pages back, in his own language, into God, nature, and humanity? He says God is triple. _"Cest-à-dire, à la fois Dieu, nature, et humanité."_ Is that in consonance with Catholic theology?

Then, of the Word, after having proved in his way that the ideas of the true, the beautiful, and the good are necessary and absolute ideas, and identified them with the impersonal reason, and the impersonal reason with the Logos, he asks what then? Are they God? No, gentlemen, they are not God, he answers, but the Word of God, thus plainly denying the Word of God to be God. Does that prove he knew intimately Catholic theology? What says the reviewer of Cousin's doctrine of inspiration and revelation? That doctrine is, that inspiration and revelation are the spontaneous operations of the impersonal reason as distinguished from the reflective operations of the personal reason, which is pure rationalism. Is that Catholic theology, or does it indicate much knowledge of Catholic theology, to say it is in consonance with that theology?

In his criticism on the Alexandrians or Neoplatonists, he blames them for representing the multiple, the finite, what they call creation, as a fall, and for not placing them on the same line with unity, the infinite, or God considered in himself. Is that in accordance with Catholicity, or is it a proof of his knowledge of Catholic theology to assert that it is, and to challenge the world to prove the contrary? But enough. No Catholic theologian, not dazzled by Cousin's style, or carried away by his glowing eloquence and brilliant generalizations, can read his philosophical works without feeling that he was no Christian believer, and that he neither knew nor respected Catholic faith or theology. In his own mind he reduced Catholic faith to the primitive beliefs of the race, inspired by the impersonal reason, and as he never contradicted these as he understood them, he persuaded himself that his philosophy did not impugn Christianity and the church.

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9. The reviewer says:

"One more extract, by way of capping the climax. Seemingly
ignorant of Cousin's criticism upon De Bonald's now exploded
theory of language, and his exposition of De Biran's, the
critic thinks, 'He would have done well to have studied more
carefully the remarkable work of De Bonald; had he done so, he
might have seen that the reflective reason cannot operate
without language.' Has this man not read what Cousin has
written, on the origin, purpose, uses, and effects of language,
that he represents him as believing that the reflective reason
can operate without language, without signs!" (P. 547.)

If M. Cousin maintains that the reflective reason cannot operate without language, as in some sense he does, it is in a sense different from that in which we implied he had need to learn that fact. We were objecting to the spiritualism--we should say intellectism, or noeticism--which he professed, that it assumed that we can have pure intellections. Cousin's doctrine is that, though we apprehend the intelligible only on the occasion of some sensible affection, yet we do apprehend it without a sensible medium. This doctrine we denied, and maintained, in opposition, that, being the union of soul and body, man has, and can have in this life, no pure intellections, and that we apprehend the intelligible, as distinguished from the sensible, only through the medium of the sensible or of a sensible representation, as taught by Aristotle and St. Thomas. The sensists teach that we can apprehend only the sensible, and that our science is limited to our sensations and inductions therefrom; the pure transcendentalists, or pure spiritualists, assert that we can and do apprehend immediately the noetic, or, as they say, the spiritual; the peripatetics hold that we apprehend it, but only through the medium of sensible representation; Cousin, in his eclecticism, makes the sensation the occasion of the apprehension of the intelligible, but not its medium. On his theory the sensible is no more a medium of noetic apprehension than on that of the transcendentalists; for the occasion of doing a thing is very different from the medium of doing it.

Now, language is for us the sign or sensible representation of the intelligible, and, as every thought includes the apprehension of the intelligible, therefore to every thought language, of some sort, is essential. The reviewer stumbles, and supposes that we are accusing Cousin of being ignorant of what he is not ignorant, because he supposes that we mean by reflective reason the discursive as distinguished from the intuitive faculty of the soul, which, if he had comprehended at all our philosophy, he would have seen is not the case. Intuition with us is ideal, not empirical. It is not our act, whether spontaneous or reflective, but a divine judgment affirmed by the Creator to us, and constituting us capable of intelligence, of reason, and reasoning. Reflective reason is our reason, and the reflex of the divine judgment, or the divine reason, directly and immediately affirmed to us by the Creator in the very act of creating us. Not only discursion, then, but what both Cousin and the reviewer call intuition, or immediate apprehension, is an operation of the reflective reason. Hence, to the operation of reason in the simple, direct apprehension of the _intelligible_, as well as in discursion or reasoning, language of some sort, as a sensible medium, is necessary and indispensable. When the reviewer will prove to us that Cousin held, or in any sense admitted this, he will tell us something of Cousin that we did not know before, and we will then give him leave to abuse us to his heart's content.

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But we have already dwelt too long on this attempt at criticism on us in the _Church Review_--a _Review_ from which, considering the general character of Episcopalians, we expected, if not much profound philosophy or any very rigid logic, at least the courtesy and fairness of the well-bred gentleman, such as we might expect from a cultivated and polished pagan. We regret to say that we have been disappointed. It sets out with a promise to discuss the character of Dr. Brownson as a philosopher, and confines itself to a criticism on an article in our magazine without the slightest allusion to a single one of that gentleman's avowed writings. Even supposing, which the _Review_ has no authority for supposing, that Dr. Brownson wrote the article on Cousin, that article was entitled to be treated gravely and respectfully; for no man in this country can speak with more authority on Cousin's philosophy, for no one in this country has had more intimate relations with the author, or was accounted by him a more trust worthy expositor of his system.

As to the reviewer's own philosophical speculations, which he now and then obtrudes, we have, for the most part, passed them over in silence, for they have not seemed to us to have the stuff to bear refuting. The writer evidently has no occasion to pride himself on his aptitude for philosophical studies, and is very far from understanding either the merits or defects of such a man as Victor Cousin, in every respect so immeasurably above him. We regret that he should have undertaken the defence of the great French philosopher, for he had little qualification for the task. He has provoked us to render more glaring the objectionable features of Cousin's philosophy than we wished. If he sends us a rejoinder, we shall be obliged to render them still more glaring, and to sustain our statements by citation of passages from his works, book and page marked, so express, so explicit, and so numerous, as to render it impossible for the most sceptical to doubt the justice of our criticism.

-----------

The Tears Of Jesus.

"And Martha said: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had
not died. ... Jesus saith to her: Thy brother shall rise again.
... And Mary saith to him: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my
brother had not died. ... And Jesus wept."

DISCIPLE.

"Kind Lord,
Dost Martha's love prefer?
Cheer Mary's heavy heart likewise,
And say to her,
Thy brother once again shall rise.

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"Why fall those voiceless tears
In sad reply
To her, as if thine ears
Heard not her cry?

"What opens sorrow's deep abyss
At Mary's word?
When Martha spoke, no grief like this
Thy spirit stirred."

MASTER.

"My child,
Remember what I said to her--
The elder of the twain,
When she, the busy minister,
Of Mary did complain.

"Know, they who choose the better part
And love but me alone.
Ask only that my loving heart
Shall make their griefs mine own.

"To Martha is the promise given
That Lazarus shall rise from sleep;
But Mary is the bride of heaven--
With her shall not the bridegroom weep?"

DISCIPLE.

"Kind Lord,
When breaks my heart in agony,
Dost ever shed a tear with _me_?"

MASTER.

"My Child,
Wilt all things else for me resign?
Wilt others' love for mine forego
Wilt find thy joy alone in me?
Then will I count thy griefs as mine.
And with thy tears my tears shall flow
In loving sympathy."

---------

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Sister Simplicia.

"What a wet, disagreeable day it is! If papa hadn't bought the tickets last evening, I don't believe I should have come out to-day, even for the sake of hearing Ristori in Marie Antoinette. She can't do better than she does in Mary Stuart, and I already wish ourselves back in your cosy little library again; besides, I haven't half finished looking at those curious old illuminated books of your father's, and, as we go home to-morrow, I fear I shan't have time, for papa has an invitation for us all this evening."

So spoke Anita Hartridge as she and Mary Kenton took their places in the Broadway stage on their way to a matinee at the French Theatre. Anita's father was a Baltimore merchant. He was often in the city buying goods, but this was the first time he had brought his daughter with him. The two girls were warm friends. They had been educated together, and it was not yet a year since they had bidden adieu to the convent walls, the one to thread, motherless, the gay mazes of Baltimore society; the other to come home as a household angel to the father and mother, who were already beginning to grow old. It has been a happy week, a week all too soon coming to an end; and Mary Kenton sits thinking sadly, so wrapped in her reveries that she does not even raise her eyes when the stage stops to take in more passengers.

She is thinking of Anita, of her beauty and brilliancy, her quick, flashing, Southern gayety, and yet deep, true, sympathetic heart; and she wonders what will become of her friend, with no mother to restrain her impulsiveness and a father who thinks only of gratifying her lightest wish. How gladly she would share with her her own mother's tender care; and if she could but be taken from this whirl of amusement for a short time; but no; they return to-morrow. Well, here they are at Union Square, and Anita is speaking softly.

"Mary, did you ever see so beautiful a face? No, not opposite; over there in the corner next the door--that younger Sister of Mercy. She looks like Elizabeth of Hungary. I have been watching her all this time, and she has never looked up once. She seems inspired. Do you believe any one _can_ be so happy as she looks, I mean any one who leads so self-denying a life?"

But there is no time to reply. They leave the omnibus and are soon entranced under the magic power of the great tragedian.

"I wish I were Ristori," said Anita, as they left the theatre. "To have her power and to be admired as she is admired; oh! that were grand. That were a life worth living. What is it to live as we do--to-day as yesterday, and to-morrow as to-day again--no grand purpose; and when we die, have the world go on just the same as before? Such lives are not worth living. I wish I could be great as Madame de Staël, or beautiful as Madame Recamier."

"'O world! so few the years we live,
Would that the life that thou dost give
Were life indeed!'"

repeated Mary slowly; "and yet, there are other lives that I had rather take for my model than any of these."

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"Yes, I know, Mary. You would take rather the life of some saint, St. Elizabeth herself, perhaps; you are always so good and gentle; and Sister Agnes used to say that she knew you would come back to her some time as a sister yourself. But I am not at all so; I love the world, and society, and amusement, and am only dissatisfied because I am neither so brilliant nor beautiful as I should like to be. I feel that your ideal is the better one, but I have not strength of character enough to live anything but a gay, butterfly life. You know my favorite song is, 'I'd be a butterfly,' and indeed I do wish for beauty more than anything else in the world. And yet, after all, that face that I saw under the plain black bonnet was of a heavenly beauty that I cannot forget. Page's copy of the _Madonna della Seggiola_ that we admired so much yesterday is scarcely more beautiful."

"And her life has been as beautiful as her face, they say. But there is our stage. Let us hurry a little; mother will be waiting dinner for us already."

A low rap at Mrs. Kenton's door. It is the hour after dinner, and Dr. Kenton and Mr. Hartridge are in the library, alternately discussing business and their meerschaums. There are two hours yet before the ladies need dress for the evening. Mrs. Kenton is sitting in her large chair before the grate, and the girls come in quietly and draw up two low ottomans at her feet. The gas is not yet lighted, and the twilight throws long, deep shadows from the curtains and the quaint, old-fashioned high bedposts.

"Mother, we have seen Sister Simplicia to-day. Anita very much wishes to hear her history, and you have never told it to me yet. It is just the night to tell a story, just such a night as we read of, 'without, the snow falling thick and fast, but within a bright fire throwing its cheerful light around the room and lighting up the countenance of the narrator,'" said Mary, smiling.

"I imagine the fire you are quoting about was of hickory logs in a great, wide fireplace; and this is only a city grate," said her mother in the same tone; and then more seriously, "but I will tell you the story, since you wish it, and all the more readily as I was thinking of her at the moment you entered.

"Eight years ago Rose Harding was the belle of our circle. I loved her as I would have loved a little sister of my own, had I been blessed with one. She was the younger sister of my dearest friend; and when Rachel died, she left Rose half in my care, for their mother was dead and the father only too indulgent. But Rose was not easily spoiled, and looking back now at this distance, I think that I have never known another that was her equal. Mr. Harding was wealthy, and she had all that heart could wish. Of course she was much sought after and much loved; but few were made unhappy through her, for she was far too generous and too conscientious to be a coquette; and when one evening she came to me, blushing and trembling, and told me that Willis Courtney loved her--"

"Willis Courtney, the son of papa's old partner?" asked Anita.

"You have seen him?"

"Yes; he was my ideal when I was still a very little girl. But then I was sent away to be educated, and never saw him afterward."