Chapter II (1)

The sun had by this time nearly penetrated through the heavy fog, which had hung since early dawn like a vail over the valley; and just as Nellie reached the foot of the path leading straight up to the castle, it fairly broke through every obstacle, and cast a gleam of wintry sunshine on her face. That face, once seen, was not one easily to be forgotten. The features were almost, and yet not quite, classic in their beauty, gaining in expression what they lost in regularity; and the frequent mingling, by intermarriages, of Celtic blood with that of her old Norman race, had given Nellie that most especial characteristic of Irish beauty--hair black and glossy as the raven's wing, with eyes blue as the dark, double violet, and looking even bluer and darker than they were by nature through the abundance of the long, silken lashes, the same color as her hair, which fringed them. She carried her small, beautifully-formed head with the grace and spirit of a young antelope, and there was something of firmness even in the elastic lightness of her movements, which gave an idea of energy and decision not naturally to be looked for in one so young and girlish, both as to form and feature. Her tight-fitting robe of dark and strong material, though evidently merely adopted for the convenience of travelling, rather set off than detracted from the beauty of her form; and over it hung that long, loose mantle of blue cloth which seems, time out of mind, to have been a favorite garment with the Irish. It was fastened at the throat by a brooch of gold, curious and valuable even then for its evident antiquity; and with its broad, graceful folds falling to her feet, and its hood drawn forward over her head, and throwing her sweet, sad face somewhat into shadow, gave her at that moment, as the sun shone down upon her, the very look and expression of a Mater Dolorosa.

Ten minutes' rapid walking up a path, which looked more like an irregular staircase cut through rock and turf-mould than a way worn gradually by the pressure of men's feet, brought her to the platform upon which the castle stood.

Moated and circumvallated toward the south and west, which were easy of access from the flat lands beyond, Netterville was comparatively defenceless on the side from whence Nellie now approached it; its builders and inhabitants having evidently considered the deep stream and valley which lay beneath as a sufficient protection against their enemies.

The great gate stood looking eastward, and Nellie could see from the spot where she halted that all the preparations for her approaching journey were already almost completed. A couple of sorry-looking nags, (garrans, the Irish would have called them,) one with a pillion firmly fixed behind the saddle, were being led slowly up and down in readiness for their riders. {89} Little sorrowful groups of the Irish dependents of the family stood here and there upon the terraces, waiting (faithful to the last as they ever were in those days) to give one parting glance and one sorrowful, long farewell to their deposed chieftain and his heiress; and a little further off, like hawks hovering around their prey, might be seen a band of those iron-handed, iron-hearted men in whose favor the transplantation of the present owners of the soil had been decreed, and who had been set there, half to watch and half to enforce departure, should anything like evasion or resistance be attempted. Something very like an angry frown clouded Nellie's brow as she caught sight of these men for whose benefit she was being robbed of her inheritance; but, unwilling to indulge such evil feelings, she suffered her gaze to pass quietly beyond them until it rested once more on the streamlet and valley as they stretched eastward toward the sea. Just then some one tapped her on the shoulder, and, turning sharply round, Nellie found herself confronted by a woman not many years older, probably, than herself, but with a face upon which, beautiful as it was, the early indulgence of wild passions had stamped a look of premature decay.

"What would you with me?" said Nellie, surprised at the familiarity of the salutation, and not in the least recognizing the person who had been guilty of it. "I know you not. What do you want with me?"

"Oh! little or nothing," said the other, in a harsh and taunting voice; "little or nothing, my fair young mistress--heiress, that has been, of the house of Netterville--only I thought that, may be, you could say if the old mistress will be after going with you into exile. _They_ told me she was," she added, with a gesture toward the soldiers; "and yet, as far as I can see, only one of the garrans has a pillion to its back. But, may be, she'll be for going later--"

"I have already said," Nellie coldly answered, for she neither liked the matter nor the manner of the woman's speech--"I have already said that I know you not, and, in all likelihood, neither does my mother. Why, therefore, do you ask the question?"

"Because I _hope_ it!" said the woman, with such a look of hatred on her face that Nellie involuntarily recoiled a step--"because I hope it; and then perhaps, when she is houseless and hungry herself, she will remember that cold December night when she drove me from her door, to sleep, for all that she cared, under the shelter of the whin-bushes in the valley."

"If my mother, good and gentle as she is to all, ever acted as you say she did, undoubtedly she had wise and sufficient reasons for it," Nellie coldly answered.

"Undoubtedly--good and sufficient reasons had she, and so, for that matter, had I too, when I put my heavy curse upon her and all her breed," retorted the girl, with a coarse and taunting laugh. "And see how it has come to work," she added wildly--"see how it has come to work! Ay, ay--she'll mind it when it is too late, I doubt not; and will think twice before she lets loose her Saxon pride to flout a poor body for only asking a night's shelter under her roof. Roof! she'll soon have no roof for herself, I guess; but if ever she has one again, she'll think better of it, I doubt not."

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"She will think next time just what she thought last time--that, so long as you lead the life you lead at present, you would not, though you were a princess, be fitting company for the lowest scullion in her kitchen."

Thus spoke a grave, sweet voice (not Nellie's) close at the woman's elbow. She started, as if a wasp had stung her, and turned toward the speaker.

A tall lady, dressed in widow's weeds, with a pale face and eyes weary, it almost seemed, with sorrow, had approached quietly from behind, and overhearing the girl's defiant speech, saved Nellie the trouble of an answer by that firm yet most womanly response. Then passing to the front, she put her arm round Nellie's waist, as if to protect her from the very presence of the other, and drew her away, saying:

"Come along, my daughter; the morning wears apace, and these long delays do but embitter partings. Your grandfather is already waiting. Remember, Nellie," she added in a faltering voice, "that he, with his seventy years, will be almost as dependent upon your strength and energy as you can be on his. He is my dead husband's father, and therefore, after a long and bitter struggle with my own heart, I have devoted you, my own and only treasure, to be his best support and help and comfort in the long and unseasonable journey to which the cruelty of our conquerors has compelled him. I trust--I trust in God and his sweet Mother that I shall see no cause later to repent me of this decision!"

Nellie drew a little closer to her mother, and a strange firmness of expression passed over her young face as she answered quietly:

"My own unselfish mother, doubt not that I will be all--son and daughter both in one--to him; and fear not, I do beseech you, for our safety. What though he has seen his seventy winters, and I but barely seventeen! We are strong and healthy, both of us; and with clean consciences (which is more than our foes can boast of) and good wits, I doubt not we shall reach our destination safely. Destination!" she repeated bitterly--"ay, destination; for home, in any sense of the word, it never can be to us."

"Say not so, my Nellie--say not so," said her mother gently. "Home, after all, is only the place where we garner up our treasures; and, therefore, in the spot where I may rejoin you, however wild and desolate it otherwise shall be, _my_ heart, at all events, will acknowledge it has found its home!"

As they thus conferred together, mother and daughter had been moving slowly toward the castle, in absolute forgetfulness of the woman who had originally made a third in the group, and who was still following at a little distance. She stopped, however, on discovering that they had no intention of making her a sharer in their conversation, and, gazing after them with a fearful mingling of hatred and wounded pride on her coarse, handsome features, exclaimed aloud:

"The second time you have flouted me, good madam! Well, well, the third is the charm, and then it will be my turn. See if I do not make you rue it!"

Shaking her fist, as she spoke, savagely in the air, she turned her back upon Netterville towers, and rushed down a path leading directly to the river.

As Mrs. Netterville and her daughter approached the castle-gates, a young man came out to meet them, and, with a look and bearing half-way between that of an intelligent and trusted servant and a petted follower, said hurriedly:

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"My lord grows impatient, madam. He says he is ready to depart at once, and that the sooner it is done the better. And, in troth, I am much of the same way of thinking my own self," he added, with that sort of grim severity which some men seem almost naturally to assume the moment they feel themselves in danger of giving way to grief, in the womanly fashion of tears.

Hamish was of the same age as Nellie, though he looked and felt at least eight years older. He was her foster-brother, as we have already said, and had been her companion in the nursery; but as war and poverty thinned the ranks of followers attached to the house of Netterville, he had been gradually advanced from one post of confidence to another, until, young as he was, he united the various duties of "bailiff" or "steward," as it would be called in Ireland--major-domo or butler, valet, and footman, all in his own proper person.

"True," said Mrs. Netterville, in answer to his communication--"too true. Every moment that he lingers now will be but a fresh barbing of the arrow. Come, my Nellie, let us hasten to your grandfather. Would that I could persuade him to take Hamish with him instead of Mat, who has little strength and less wit to help you in such a journey. I should be far more at ease, both on his account and yours, my daughter."

"Faix, madam, and it was just that same that I was thinking to myself awhile ago," cried Hamish eagerly. "Sure, who has a better right to go with Mistress Nellie than her own foster-brother? And am not I strong enough, and more than willing enough to fight for her--ay, and to die for her too, if any of them black-browed hypocrites should dare for to cast their evil eyes upon her or the old master?"

"Strong enough and brave enough undoubtedly you are," said Nellie, speaking before her mother could reply, "and true-hearted more than enough, my dear foster-brother, are you; but, if only for that very reason, you must stay here to help and comfort my dear mother. Bethink you, Hamish, hers is, in truth, the hardest lot of any. We shall have but to endure the weariness of long travel; she will have to contend with the insolence of men in high places--yes, and perhaps even to dispute with them, day by day, and hour by hour, for that which is her rightful due and ours. This is man's work, not woman's; and a man, moreover, quick-witted and fearing no one. Will you not be that man, Hamish, to stand by her against the tyrant and oppressor, and to act for her whenever and wherever it may be impossible for her to act for herself?"

Hamish would have answered with a fervor equal to her own, but Mistress Netterville prevented him by saying, with a mingling of grief and impatience in her manner:

"It is in vain to talk to you, Nellie! You have all your grandfather's stiff-necked notions on this subject. Nevertheless it would have been far more to my real contentment if he and you had yielded to my wishes, seeing that there is many a one still left among our dependents to whom, on a pinch, I could entrust the care both of cattle and of household gear, and but one (and that is Hamish) to whom willingly I would confide my child."

"Now, may Heaven bless you for that very word, madam," cried Hamish eagerly and gratefully; and then turning to Nellie, he went on: "See now, Mistress Nellie, see now, when her ladyship herself has said it--surely you would never think of going contrary to her wishes!"

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"Listen to me, Hamish," said Nellie, putting her hand on his shoulder and standing still, so that her mother unconsciously moved on without her. "Ever since that weary day when the sheriff came here to inform us of our fate, I have had a strange, uncomfortable foreboding that my mother will soon find herself in even a worse plight than ours. A woman, as she will be, alone and friendless--foemen all around her--foemen domiciled even in her household--foemen, the worst and cruelest of any, with prayer on their lips and hypocrisy in their hearts, and a strong sword at their hips, ready to smite and slay, as they themselves express it, all who oppose that wicked lusting for wealth and power which they so blindly mistake for the promptings of a good spirit! With us, once we have obtained our certificate from the commissioners at Loughrea, it will be far otherwise. Each step we take in our wild journey westward will, if, alas! it leads us further from our friends, set, likewise, a safer distance between us and our oppressors. Promise me, therefore, to ask no more to follow us who go to peace and safety, but to abide quietly here, where alone a real danger threatens. Promise me even more than this, my foster-brother--promise to stay with her so long as ever she may need you; and should aught of evil happen to her, which may God avert! promise to let me know at once, that I may instantly return and take a daughter's proper place beside her. Promise me this, Hamish--nay, said _I promise!_--Hamish, you must swear it!"

"I swear it! by the Mother of Heaven and her blessed Child, I swear it!" said Hamish fervently; for he saw at once that there was much probability in Nellie's view of the subject, though, in his overweening anxiety for the daughter, he had hitherto overlooked the chances of danger to the mother. "But, Christ save us!" he added suddenly, as some wild notes of preparation reached his experienced ear; "Christ save us, if the old women are not going to keen for your departure as if it were a burial!"

"Oh! do not let them--do not let them; bid them stop if they would not break our hearts!" cried Nellie, rushing on to overtake her mother, while Hamish, in obedience to her wishes, struck right across the terrace toward a distant group of women, among whom, judging by their excited looks and gestures, he knew that he should find the keeners. Long, however, ere he could reach them, a wild cry of lamentation, taken up and prolonged until every man, woman, and child within ear-shot had lent their voices to swell the chorus, made him feel that he was too late; and turning to ascertain the cause of this sudden outburst, he saw that Lord Netterville had come forth from the castle, and was standing at the open gates. A fine, soldierly-looking man he was, counting over seventy years, yet in appearance not much more than sixty, and as he stood there, pale and bare-headed, in the presence of his people, a shout of such mingled love and sympathy, grief and execration rent the air, that some of the Cromwellian soldiers made an involuntary step forward, and handled their muskets in expectation of an attack.

"Tell them to stop!" cried the old man, throwing up his arms like one who could bear his agony no longer. "For God's sake, tell them to stop! Let them wait, at least," he added, half bitterly, half sorrowfully, "until, like the dead, I am out of hearing."

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There was no need for Hamish to become the interpreter of his wishes. That sudden cry of a man's irrepressible anguish had reached the hearts of all who heard it, and a silence fell upon the crowd--a silence more expressive of real sympathy than their wildest lamentations could have been.

The old lord bowed, and tried to speak his thanks, but the words died upon his lips, and he turned abruptly to take leave of his daughter-in-law. She knelt to receive his blessing. He laid his hand upon her head, and then, making an effort to command his voice, said tenderly:

"Fare thee well, my best and dearest! It is the way of these canting times to be for ever quoting Scripture, and for once I will follow fashion. May Heaven bless and keep thee, daughter; for a very Ruth hast thou been to me in my old age; yea, and better than seven sons in this the day of my poverty and sorrow!"

He stooped to kiss her brow and to help her to rise, and as he did so, he added in a whisper, meant only for the lady's ear:

"Forgive me. Mary, if I once more allude to that subject we have so much discussed already. Are you still in the mind to send Nellie with me? Think better of it, I entreat you. The daughter's place should ever, to my poor thinking, be beside her mother!"

"I _have_ thought," she answered, "and I _have_ decided. If Nellie is my child, she is your grandchild as well; and the duty which her father is no longer here to tender, it must be her pride and joy to offer you in his stead. Moreover, my good lord," she added, in a still lower tone, "the matter hath another aspect. Nellie will be safer with you! This place and all it contains is even now at the mercy of a lawless soldiery, and therefore it is no place for her. Too well I feel that even I, her mother, am powerless to protect her."

Lord Netterville cast a wistful glance on the fair face of his young granddaughter, and said reluctantly:

"It may be that you are right, sweet Moll, as you ever are. Come, then, if so it must be, give us our good-speed, and let us hasten on our way."

He once more pressed her affectionately in his arms, then walked straight up to his horse, and leaped almost without assistance to the saddle. But his face flushed scarlet, and then grew deadly pale, and as he shook his reins and settled himself in his seat, it was evident to Hamish, who was holding his stirrup for him, that he was struggling with all his might and main to bear himself with a haughty semblance of indifference before the English soldiery. After he was seated to his satisfaction, he ventured a half glance around his people, and lifted his beaver to salute them. But the effort was almost too much; the big tears gathered in his eyes, and his hand shook so violently that he could not replace his hat, which, escaping from his feeble grasp, rolled under his horse's feet. Half a dozen children darted forward to recover it, but Hamish had already picked it up and given it to his master, who instantly put it on his head, saying, in a tone of affected indifference:

"Pest on these trembling fingers which so libel the stout heart within. This comes of wine and wassail, Hamish. Drink thou water all thy life, good youth, if thou wouldst match a sturdy heart with a steady hand, when thy seventy years and odd are on you."

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"Faix, my lord, will I or nill I," said Hamish, trying to fall in with the old man's humor by speaking lightly; "will I or nill I, it seems only too likely that water will be the best part of my wine for some time to come; leastways," he added in a lower voice, "leastways till your honor comes back to your own again, and broaches us a good cask of wine to celebrate the day."

"Back again! back again!" repeated Lord Netterville, shaking his head with a mixture of grief and impatience impossible to describe. "I tell thee, Hamish, that men never come back again when they carry seventy years with them to exile. But where is my granddaughter? Bid her come forth at once, for it's ill lingering here with this weeping crowd around us, and yonder pestilent group of fanatics marking out every mother's son among them, doubtless, for future vengeance."

Mrs. Netterville heard this impatient cry for her only child, and flung her arms for one last passionate embrace round Nellie's neck. Then, firm and unfaltering to the end, she led her to Hamish, who lifted her as reverently as if she had been an empress (as indeed she was in his thoughts) to the pillion behind her grandfather.

Lord Netterville barely waited until she was comfortably settled, ere he stooped to kiss once more his daughter-in-law's uplifted brow, after which, waving his hands toward the weeping people, he dug his spurs deep into his horse's sides, and rode swiftly forward.

Then, as if moved by one common impulse, every man, woman, and child in presence there, fell down upon their knees, mingling prayers and blessings, and howls and imprecations, as only an Irish or an Italian crowd can do; and yet obedient to the last to the wishes of their departing chief, it was not until he was well-nigh out of sight that they broke out into that wild, wailing keen, with which they were known to accompany their loved ones to the grave. But the wind was less considerate, and as it unluckily set that way, it bore one or two of the long, sad notes to him in whose honor they were chanted. As they fell upon the old exile's ears, the stoical calmness which he had hitherto maintained forsook him utterly; the reins fell from his hands, he bowed his head till his white locks mingled with his horse's mane, and, "lifting up his voice," he wept as sadly and unrestrainedly as a woman.

To Be Continued.

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The Church Review and Victor Cousin. [Footnote 31]

[Footnote 31: _The American Quarterly Church Review_.
New York: N. S. Richardson. January, 1868. Art. ii., "O. A.
Brownson as a Philosopher. Victor Cousin and his Philosophy.
_Catholic World_."]

The article in the _Church Review_ promises an estimate of the character of Dr. O. A. Brownson as a philosopher; but what it says has really no relation to that gentleman, and is simply an attempt, not very successful, nor very brilliant indeed, to vindicate M. Cousin's philosophy from the unfavorable judgment we pronounced on it, in the magazine of last June. Dr. Brownson is not the editor, nor one of the editors, of _The Catholic World_; the article in question was signed by no name, was impersonal, and the _Review_ has no authority for charging its authorship to any one but ourselves, or for holding any but ourselves responsible for its merits or demerits. When the name of a writer is signed to an article, he should be held answerable for its contents; but when it is not, the magazine in which it appears is alone responsible. According to this rule, we hold the _Church Review_ answerable for its "rasping" article against ours.

The main purpose of the reviewer seems to be to prove that we wrote in nearly entire ignorance of M. Cousin's philosophy, and to vindicate it from the very grave charges we urged against it. As to our ignorance, as well as his knowledge, that must speak for itself; but we can say sincerely that we should be most happy to be proved to have been in the wrong, and to see Cousin's philosophy cleared from the charge of being unscientific, rationalistic, pantheistic, or repugnant to Christianity and the church. One great name would be erased from the list of our adversaries, and their number would be so much lessened. We should count it a great service to the cause which is so dear to us, if the _Church Review_ could succeed in proving that the errors we laid to his charge are founded only in our ignorance or philosophical ineptness, and that his system is entirely free from them. But though it talks largely against us, assumes a high tone, and makes strong assertions and bold denials, we cannot discover that it has effected anything, except the exhibition of itself in an unenviable light. It has told us nothing of Cousin or his philosophy not to be found in our article, and has not in a single instance convicted us of ignorance, malice, misstatement, misrepresentation, or even inexactness. This we shall proceed now to show, briefly as we can, but at greater length, perhaps, than its crude statements are worth.

The principal charges against us are:
1. We said M. Cousin called his philosophy eclecticism;
2. We wrongly denied scepticism to be a system of philosophy;
3. Showed our ignorance of Cousin's doctrine in saying it
remained in psychology, never attained to the objective, or
rose to ontology;
4. Misstated his doctrine of substance and cause;
5. Falsely denied that he admits a nexus between the creative
substance and the created existence;
6. Falsely asserted that he holds creation
to be necessary;
7. Wrongly and ignorantly accused him of Pantheism;
8. Asserted that he had but little knowledge of Catholic
theology;
9. Accused him of denying the necessity of language to thought.

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In preferring these charges against M. Cousin's philosophy, we have shown our ignorance of his real doctrine, our contempt for his express declarations, and our philosophical incapacity, and the reviewer thinks one may search in vain through any number of magazine articles of equal length, for one more full of errors and fallacies than ours. This is bad, and, if true, not at all to our credit. We shall not say as much of his article, for that would not be courteous, and instead of saying it, prefer to let him prove it. We objected that M. Cousin assuming that to the operation of reason no objective reality is necessary, can never, on his system, establish such reality; the reviewer, p. 541, gravely asserts that we ourselves hold, that to the operations of reason no objective reality is necessary, and can never be established! This is charming. But are these charges true? We propose to take them up _seriatim_, and examine the reviewer's proofs.

1. We said M. Cousin called his philosophical system eclecticism. To this the reviewer replies:

"'Eclecticism can never be a philosophy;' making, among other
arguments, the pertinent inquiry: 'How, if you know not the
truth in its unity and integrity beforehand, are you, in
studying those several systems, to determine which is the part
of truth and which of error?'

"We beg his pardon, but M. Cousin never called his
philosophical system Eclecticism. In the introduction to the
_Vrai, Beau, et Bien_, he writes:

"'One word as to an opinion too much accredited. Some persons
persist in representing eclecticism as the doctrine to which
they would attach my name. I declare, then, that eclecticism
is, undoubtedly, very dear to me, for it is in my eyes the
light of the history of philosophy; but the fire which supplies
this light is elsewhere. Eclecticism is one of the most
important and useful applications of the philosophy I profess,
but it is not its principle. My true doctrine, my true flag, is
spiritualism; that philosophy, as stable as it is generous,
which began with Socrates and Plato, which the gospel spread
abroad in the world, and which Descartes placed under the
severe forms of modern thought'

"And the principles of this philosophy supply the touchstone
with which to try 'those several systems, and to determine
which is the part of truth and which of error.' Eclecticism, in
Cousin's view of it, as one might have discovered who had
'studied his works with some care,' is something more than a
blind syncretism, destitute of principles, or a fumbling among
conflicting systems to pick out such theories as please us."

If M. Cousin never called his philosophical system eclecticism, why did he defend it from the objections brought on against it, that, i. Eclecticism is a syncretism--all systems mingled together; 2. Eclecticism approves of everything, the true and the false, the good and the bad; 3. Eclecticism is fatalism; 4. Eclecticism is the absence of all system? Why did he not say at once that he did not profess eclecticism, instead of saying and endeavoring to prove that the eclectic method is at once philosophical and historical? [Footnote 32]

[Footnote 32: See _Fragments Philosophiques_, t i. pp.
39-42.]

Everybody knows that he professed eclecticism and defended it. As a method, do you say? Be it so. Does he not maintain, from first to last, that a philosopher's whole system is in his method? Does he not say, "Given a philosopher's method, we can foretell his whole system"? And is not his whole course of the history of philosophy based on this assumption? We wrote our article for those who knew Cousin's writings, not for those who knew them not. There is nothing in the passage quoted from the reviewer, quoted from Cousin, that contradicts what we said. We did not say that he always called philosophy eclecticism, or pretend that it was the principle of his system. We said:

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"There is no doubt that all schools, as all sects, have their
part of truth, as well as their part of error; for the human
mind cannot embrace pure, unmixed error any more than the will
can pure, unmixed evil; but the eclectic method is not the
method of constructing true philosophy any more than it is the
method of constructing true Christian theology. The Catholic
acknowledges willingly the truth which the several sects hold;
but he does not derive it from them, nor arrive at it by
studying their systems. He holds it independently of them; and
having it already in its unity and integrity, he is able, in
studying them, to distinguish what they have that is true from
the errors they mix up with it. It must be the same with the
philosopher. _M. Cousin was not unaware of this, and he
finally asserted eclecticism rather as a method of historical
verification, than as the real and original method of
constructing philosophy_. The name was therefore unhappily
chosen, and is now seldom heard." (_Catholic World_, p.
335.)

Had the reviewer read this passage, he would have seen that we were aware of the fact that latterly Cousin ceased to profess eclecticism save as a method of verification; and if he had read our article through, he would have seen that we were aware that he held spiritualism to be the principle of his system, and that we criticised it as such.

2. Cousin counts scepticism as a system of philosophy. We object, and ask very pertinently, since he holds every system has a truth, and truth is always something affirmative, positive, "What, then, is the truth of scepticism, which is a system of pure negation, and not only affirms nothing, but denies that any thing can be affirmed?" Will the reviewer answer the question?

The reviewer, of course, finds us in the wrong. Here is his reply:

"In the history of the progress of the human mind, the phase of
scepticism is not to be overlooked. At different periods it has
occurred, to wield a strong, sometimes a controlling, often a
salutary, influence over the thought of an age. Its work, it is
true, is destructive, and not constructive; but not the less as
a check and restraint upon fanciful speculation, and the
establishment of unsound hypotheses, it has its _raison
d'être_, and contributes, in its way, to the advancement of
truth. Nor can the works of Sextus, Pyrrho, Glanvil, Montaigne,
Gassendi, or Hume be considered less 'systematic' than those of
any dogmatist, merely from their being 'systems of pure
negation.'" (P. 533.)

That it is sometimes reasonable and salutary to doubt, as if the reviewer should doubt his extraordinary genius as a philosopher, we readily admit; but what salutary influence has ever been exerted on science or morals by any so-called system of scepticism, which denies the possibility of science, and renders the binding nature of virtue uncertain, we have never yet been able to ascertain. Moreover, a system of pure negation is simply no system at all, for it has no principle and affirms nothing. A sceptical turn of mind is as undesirable as a credulous mind. That the persons named, of whom only one, Pyrrho, professed universal scepticism, and perhaps even he carried his scepticism no farther than to doubt the reality of matter, may have rendered some service to the cause of truth, as the drunken helotae promoted temperance among the Spartan youth, is possible; but they have done it by the truth they asserted, not by the doubt they disseminated. There is, moreover, a great difference between doubting, or suspending our judgment where we are ignorant or where our knowledge is incomplete, and erecting doubt into the principle of a system which assumes all knowledge to be impossible, and that certainty is nowhere attained or attainable. It seems, we confess, a little odd to find a Church Review taking up the defence of scepticism.

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3. We assert in our article that M. Cousin, though he professes to come out of the sphere of psychology, and to rise legitimately to ontology, remains always there; and, in point of fact, the ontology he asserts is only an abstraction or generalization of psychological facts. The reviewer is almost shocked at this, and is "tempted to think that the time" we claim to have spent in studying the works of Cousin with some care "might have been better employed in the acquisition of some useful knowledge more within the reach of our 'understanding.'" It is possible. But what has he to allege against what we asserted, and think we proved? Nothing that we can find except that Cousin professes to attain, and perhaps believes he does attain, to real objective existence, and, scientifically, to real ontology. But, my good friend, that is nothing to the purpose. The question is not as to what Cousin professes to have done, or what he has really attempted to do, but what he has actually done. When we allege that the being, the God asserted by Cousin, is, on his system, his principles, and method, only an abstraction or a generalization; you do not prove us wrong by reiterating his assertion that it is real being, that it is the living God, for it is, though you seem not to be aware of it, that very assertion that is denied. We readily concede that Cousin does not _profess_ to rise to ontology by induction from his psychology, but we maintain that the only ontology he attains to is simply an induction from his psychology, and therefore is, and can be, only an abstraction or a generalization. We must here reproduce a passage from our own article.

"What is certain, and this is all the ontologist need assert,
or, in fact, can assert, is, that ontology is neither an
induction nor a deduction from psychological data. God is not,
and cannot be, the generalization of our own souls. But it does
not follow from this that we do not think that which is God,
and that it is from thought we do and must take it. We take it
from thought and by thinking. What is objected to in the
psychologists is the assumption that thought is a purely
psychological or subjective fact, and that from this
psychological or subjective fact we can, by way of induction,
attain to ontological truth. But as we understand M. Cousin,
and we studied his works with some care thirty or thirty-five
years ago, and had the honor of his private correspondence,
this he never pretends to do. What he claims is, that in the
analysis of consciousness we detect a class of facts or ideas
which are not psychological or subjective, but really
ontological, and do actually carry us out of the region of
psychology into that of ontology. That his account of these
facts or ideas is to be accepted as correct or adequate we do
not pretend, but that he _professes_ to recognize them and
distinguish them from purely psychological facts is undeniable.

"The defect or error of M. Cousin on this point was in failing,
as we have already observed, to identify the absolute or
necessary ideas he detects and asserts with God, the only
_ens necessarium et reale_, and in failing to assert them
in their objectivity to the whole subject, and in presenting
them only as objective to the human personality. He never
succeeded in cutting himself wholly loose from the German
nonsense of a subjective-object or objective-subject, and when
he had clearly proved an idea to be objective to the reflective
reason and the human personality, he did not dare assert it to
be objective in relation to the whole subject. It was
impersonal, but might be in a certain sense subjective, as Kant
maintained with regard to the categories." (_Catholic
World_, PP. 335, 336.)

The reviewer, after snubbing us for our ignorance and ineptness, which are very great, as we are well aware and humbly confess, replies to us in this manner:

"And yet nothing in Cousin is clearer or more positive than
that this 'pure and sublime degree of the reason, when will,
reflection, and personality are as yet absent'--this
'intuition and spontaneous revelation, which is the primitive
mode of reason'--is objective to the whole subject in every
_possible_ sense, and is, consequently, conformed to the
objective, and a revelation of it.

"Can the critic have read Cousin's Lectures on Kant, 'thirty or
thirty-five years ago'? If so, we advise him to refresh his
memory by a re-perusal, and perhaps he may withdraw the strange
assertion that Cousin held an 'absolute idea to be impersonal,
but that it might be in a certain sense subjective, _as Kant
maintained with regard to the categories_.' 'The scepticism
of Kant,' says Cousin, [Footnote 33] 'rests on his finding the
laws of the reason to be subjective, personal to man; but here
is a mode of the reason where these same laws are, as it were,
deprived of all subjectivity--where the reason shows itself
almost entirely impersonal.

{99}

"How the critic would wish this impersonal activity to be
objective to the 'whole subject,' and not to the 'personal
only,' as if there was any greater degree of objectivity in one
case than in the other, it is not easy to see. It looks like a
distinction without a difference. The abstract and logical
distinction is apparent, but though distinct, the 'whole
subject,' and the 'human personality,' cannot be separated, so
that what is objective to one, shall not be so to the other
also. The 'whole subject' is, simply, the thinking, feeling,
willing being, which we are, as distinguished from the world
external to us. If an idea, then, is revealed to us by what is
completely foreign to us--if an act of the reason is
spontaneous and unreflective, +hat is, impersonal--what is
there that can be more objective to the subject?

"We have said, that such an act is objective to the subject in
every _possible_ sense. For we are not to forget the
conditions of the case. 'Does one wish,' says Cousin, 'in order
to believe in the objectivity and validity of the reason, that
it should cease to make its appearance in a particular
subject--in man, for instance? But then, if reason is outside
of the subject, that is, of myself, it is nothing to me. For me
to have consciousness of it, it must descend into me, it must
make itself mine, and become in this sense subjective. A reason
which is not mine, which, in itself being entirely universal,
does not incarnate itself in some manner in my consciousness,
is for me as though it did not exist. [Footnote 34]
Consequently, to wish that the reason, in order to be
trustworthy, should cease entirely to be subjective, is to
demand an impossibility.'" (Pp. 534, 535.)

[Footnote 33: Lecture viii.]

[Footnote 34: Lectures on Kant, viii.]

We have introduced this long extract in order to give our readers a fair specimen of the reviewer's style and capacity as a reasoner. It will be seen that the reviewer alleges, as proof against us, what is in question--the very thing that he is to prove. We have read Cousin's Lectures on Kant, and we know well, and have never thought of denying, that he criticises Kant sharply, says many admirable things against him, and professes to reject his subjectivism; we know, also, that he holds what he calls the impersonal reason to be objective, operating independently of us; all this we know and so stated, we thought, clearly enough, in our article; but we, nevertheless, maintain that he does not make this impersonal reason really objective, but simply independent in its operations of our personality. He holds that reason has two modes of activity--the one personal, the other impersonal; but he recognizes only a distinction of modes, sometimes only a difference of degrees, making, as we have seen, as quoted by the reviewer, the impersonal reason a sublimer "degree" of reason than the personal. He calls the impersonal reason the spontaneous reason, sometimes simply spontaneity. All this is evident enough to any one at all familiar with Cousin's philosophical writings.

But what is this reason which operates in these two modes, impersonal and spontaneous in the one, personal and reflective in the other? As the distinction between the personal and impersonal is, by Cousin's own avowal, a difference simply of modes or degrees, there can be no entitative or substantial difference between them. They are not two different or distinct reasons, but one and the same reason, operating in two different modes or degrees. Now, we demand, what is this one substantive reason operating in these two different degrees or modes? It certainly is not an abstraction, for abstractions are nullities and cannot operate or act at all. What, then, is it? Is it God, or is it man? If you say it is God, then you deny reason to man, make him a brute, unless you identify man with God. {100} If you say it is man, that it is a faculty of the human soul, as Cousin certainly does say--for he makes it our faculty and only faculty of intelligence--then you make it subjective, since nothing is more subjective than one's own faculties. They are the subject itself. Consequently the impersonal reason belongs as truly to man, the subject, as the personal reason, and therefore is not objective, as we said, to the whole subject, but at best only to the will and the personality--what Cousin calls _le moi_. The most distinguished of the disciples of Cousin was Theodore Jouffroy, who, in his confessions, nearly curses Cousin for having seduced him from his Christian faith, whose loss he so bitterly regretted on his dying-bed, and who was, in Cousin's judgment, as expressed in a letter to the writer of this article, "a true philosopher." This true philosopher and favorite disciple of Cousin illustrates the difference between the impersonal reason and the personal by the difference between _seeing_ and _looking_, _hearing_ and _listening_, which corresponds precisely to the difference noted by Leibnitz between what he calls simple _perception_ and _apperception_. In both cases it is the man who sees, hears, or perceives; but in the latter case, the will intervenes and we not only see, but look, not only perceive, but apperceive.

Now, it is very clear, such being the case, that Cousin does not get out of the sphere of the subject any more than does Kant, and all the arguments he adduces against Kant, apply equally against himself; for he recognizes no actor in thought, or what he calls the fact of consciousness, but the subject. The fact which he alleges, that the impersonal reason necessitates the mind, irresistibly controls it, is no more than Kant says of his categories, which he resolutely maintains are forms of the subject. Hence, as Cousin charges Kant very justly with subjectivism and scepticism, we are equally justified in preferring the same charges against himself. This is what we showed in the article the reviewer is criticising, and to this he should have replied, but, unhappily, has not. He only quotes Cousin to the effect that, "to wish the reason, in order to be trustworthy, should cease entirely to be subjective, is to demand an impossibility," which only confirms what we have said.

We pursue in our article the argument still further, and add:

"Reduced to its proper character as asserted by M. Cousin,
intuition is empirical, and stands opposed not to reflection,
but to discursion, and is simply the immediate and direct
perception of the object without the intervention of any
process, more or less elaborate, of reasoning. This is, indeed,
not an unusual sense of the word, perhaps its more common
sense, but it is a sense that renders the distinction between
intuition and reflection of no importance to M. Cousin, for it
does not carry him out of the sphere of the subject, or afford
him any basis for his ontological inductions. He has still the
question as to the objectivity and reality of the ideal to
solve, and no recognized means of solving it. His ontological
conclusions, therefore, as a writer in the _Christian
Examiner_ told him as long ago as 1836, rest simply on the
credibility of reason or faith in its trustworthiness, which
can never be established, because it is assumed that, to the
operation of reason, no objective reality is necessary, since
the object, if impersonal, may, for aught that appears, be
included in the subject." (_Catholic World_, p. 338.)

We quote the reply of the reviewer to this at full length, for no mortal man can abridge or condense it without losing its essence.

{101}

"If a man speaks thus, after a careful study of Cousin, it is
almost useless to argue with him. He either has not understood
the philosopher, or his scepticism is hopelessly obstinate.
Intuition, as asserted by Cousin, is not reduced to its proper
character, but simply misrepresented, when it is called
empirical; for it is the primitive mode of reason, and prior to
all experience. It is a revelation of the objective to the
subject, and to be a revelation must, of course, come into the
consciousness of the subject. Cousin has carefully and
repeatedly established the true character of intuition as a
disclosure to the understanding in the reason, and free from
any touch of subjectivity. _Of course, his ontological
conclusions rest on a belief in the credibility of reason, and,
of course, this credibility can never be established in a
logical way, although, metaphysically, it is abundantly
established_. One may 'assume,' to the end of time, that 'to
the operation of reason no objective reality is necessary,
since the object may, for aught that appears, be included in
the subject,' but the universal and invincible opinion of the
human race has been, and will be, to the contrary of such an
assumption.

"As firmly as Reid and Hamilton have established the doctrine
of sensible perception, and the objective existence of the
material world, has Cousin that of the objective existence of
the absolute, and, on the very same ground, the veracity of
consciousness. And the mass of mankind have lived in happy
ignorance of any necessity for such arguments. When they sowed
and reaped, and bought and sold, they never questioned the real
existence of the objects they dealt with; _nor did they, when
the idea of duty or obligation made itself felt in their souls,
dream that, 'for such an operation of reason, no objective
reality was necessary_.'

"Men have an unquestioning but unconquerable belief, that the
very idea of obligation implies _something outside of
them_, that obliges. Something other than itself it must be,
that commands the soul. Right is a reality, and duty a fact.
The philosophy, that does not come round to an enlightened and
intelligent holding of the unreflecting belief of mankind, but
separates itself from it, is worse than useless. In such wisdom
it is indeed 'folly to be wise.' And this philosophic folly
comes from insisting on a logical demonstration of what is
logically undemonstrable--of what is superior, because anterior
to reasoning. We cannot _prove_ to the understanding
truths which are the very basis and groundwork of that
understanding itself." (Pp. 536, 537.)

This speaks for itself, and concedes, virtually, all we alleged against Cousin's system; at least it convicts us of no misapprehension or misrepresentation of that system; and the reviewer's sneer at our ignorance and incapacity, however much they may enliven his style and strengthen his argument, do not seem to have been specially called for. Yet we think both he and M. Cousin are mistaken when they assume that to demand any other basis for science than the credibility or faith in the trustworthiness of reason, is to demand an impossibility, for a science founded on faith is simply no science at all. There is science only where the mind grasps, and appropriates, not its own faculties only, but the object itself. The reason, personal or impersonal, is the faculty by which we grasp it, or the light by which we behold it; not the object in which the mental action terminates, but the medium by which we attain to the object. If it were otherwise, there might be faith, but not science, and though reason might search for the object, yet it would always be pertinent to ask, Who or what vouches for reason? Descartes answered, The veracity of God, which, in one sense, is true, but not in the sense alleged; for on the Cartesian theory we might ask, what vouches for the veracity of God? The only possible answer would be, it is reason, and we should simply traverse a circle without making the slightest advance.

The difficulty arises from adopting the psychological method of philosophizing, or assuming, as Descartes does in his famous _cogito, ergo sum_, I think, therefore, I exist, that man can think in and of himself, or without the presence and active concurrence of that which is not himself, and which we call the object. Intuition, on Cousin's theory, is the spontaneous operation of reason as opposed to discursion, which is its reflex or reflective operation, but supposes that reason suffices for its own operation. {102} In his course of philosophy professed at the Faculty of Letters in 1818, he says, in the consciousness, that is, in thought, there are two elements, the subject and object; or, in his barbarous dialect, _le moi et le non-moi_; but he is careful to assert the subject as active and the object as passive. Now, a passive object is as if it were not, and can concur in nothing with the activity of the subject. Then, as all the activity is on the side of the subject, the subject must be able to think in and of itself alone. The fact that I think an existence other than myself, on this theory, is no proof that there is really any other existence than myself till my thought is validated, and I have nothing but thought with which to validate thought.