It would seem, however, that in their last analysis, all finite causes, and even our own individual productive wills may be resolved, at least in thought, into the one infinite and eternal Cause or Will, where we lose ourselves. Here, therefore, we are saved, and so restored to ourselves and to God, by acknowledging our mental incompetence. The matter is "too high," we can not "attain unto it."

It is possible that the defect which we feel in the application of Sir W. Hamilton's principle to the primary conviction of cause, may arise from our imperfect conception of his views, or from his own inadequate, perhaps imperfect statement of it. For we would respectfully inquire, whether the particular position which he takes for its defense and elucidation may not fairly and logically be run into pantheism. (See Discussions pp. 575-583.) It is true indeed that something can never come from nothing; for that would contradict our very idea of cause. Ultimately God must be conceived of as Cause of all that exists; so that when he creates, he does not create out of nothing, but out of himself. That is to say, for the language must not be understood grossly and figuratively, he creates by his essential productive power. How, we know not, and can not know.

By what means then do we save ourselves from pantheism? By falling back upon our personal consciousness-and so recognizing the fundamental conviction of personal causality, as well as the distinction between subject and object, the me and the not me, which Sir William Hamilton has demonstrated. In our consciousness, we are free Productive Wills, all reasoning to the contrary notwithstanding; and God himself must be a free Productive Will; as Sir W. Hamilton, in his very explanation of this matter, frankly acknowledges. So that if there is any difficulty here, we shall cite Sir W. Hamilton against himself. For on the ground of "mental incompetence," or the impossibility of conceiving two contradictories, he asserts that "there is no ground for inferring a certain fact to be impossible, merely from our inability to conceive it possible." So that, he adds, "if the causal judgment be not an express affirmation of the mind, the unconditional testimony of consciousness, that we are, though we know not how, the true and responsible authors of our actions"-(conscious then of being productive wills, or causes)—"not merely the worthless links in an adamantine series of effects and causes."1

Thus, on the same ground, though we find it impossible to conceive how matter can spring from spirit; or how the universe of finite minds, or finite forms, can be created by Jehovah, we feel assured, that as we are free Productive Wills, he too must be a free Productive Will. If we

1 And again, "How, therefore, I repeat, moral liberty is possible in man or God, we are utterly unable, speculatively to understand. But practically, the fact that we are free is given to us in the consciousness of an uncompromising law of duty, in the consciousness of our moral accountability." Appendix A, p. 587.

are separated, by our personality, from the not me, or the finite world without us, he too by his personality (that is, his free causative will), is separated from the finite universe which he has made. He may be in it, as a presence or a power, but he is above it, as a free creative spirit, who controls it with the supreme and eternal dominion of Proprietor and Lord. If we say, that potentially the sum of being or existence is not increased by the creation; or rather if we say, that we are incompetent to conceive how the sum of being is increased; no matter; the incompetence is the same in both cases. We exist we are free-we are conscious personalities; that is enough. And so it is enough to say, that God exists-is free-is an infinite yet conscious personality, who creates all things "by the word of his power," or, which is the same thing, by his inherent creative energy. "God said, Let there be light, and there was light!"

Here then we reverently unite with our author, in adoring, with profound humility, the ineffable Jehovah, the father of our spirits, who is "above all, through all, and in all." In conclusion also, we commend to thoughtful minds the cultivation of a philosophy so humble and trustful, and yet so profound and comprehensive. "For I may indeed say," is the testimony of our author, "with Chrysostom, The foundation of our philosophy is humility. (Homil. de Perf. Evang.) For it is professedly a demonstration of the impossibility of that wisdom in high matters, which the apostle prohibits us even to attempt; and it proposes, from the limitation of the human powers, from our impotence to comprehend, what however we must admit, to show articulately why the secret things of God can not but be to man past finding out.' Humility thus becomes the cardinal virtue, not only of revelation, but of reason.

"1

1 The whole passage is worthy of careful study as indicating the true relations of reason and faith, of philosophy and theology. See Appendix A, p. 588.

HARTFORD, CONN., May, 1853.

PHILOSOPHY.

I.-PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNCONDITIONED.

IN REFERENCE TO COUSIN'S DOCTRINE

OF THE INFINITO-ABSOLUTE.1

(OCTOBER, 1829.)

Cours de Philosophie. Par M. VICTOR COUSIN, Professeur de Philosophie à la Faculté des Lettres de Paris.-Introduction à l'Histoire de la Philosophie. 8vo. Paris, 1828.

THE delivery of these Lectures excited an unparalleled sensation in Paris. Condemned to silence during the reign of Jesuit ascendency, M. Cousin, after eight years of honorable retirement, not exempt from persecution, had again ascended the Chair of

1 [Translated into French, by M. Peisse; into Italian, by S. Lo Gatto: also in Cross's Selections from the Edinburgh Review.

This article did not originate with myself. I was requested to write it by my friend, the late accomplished Editor of the Review, Professor Napier. Personally, I felt averse from the task. I was not unaware, that a discussion of the leading doctrine of the book would prove unintelligible, not only to "the general reader," but, with few exceptions, to our British metaphysicians at large. But, moreover, I was still farther disinclined to the undertaking, because it would behove me to come forward in overt opposition to a certain theory, which, however powerfully advocated, I felt altogether unable to admit while its author, M. Cousin, was a philosopher for whose genius and character I already had the warmest admiration-an admiration which every succeeding year has only augmented, justified, and confirmed. Nor, in saying this, need I make any reservation. For I admire, even where I dissent; and were M. Cousin's speculations on the Absolute utterly abolished, to him would still remain the honor, of doing more himself, and of contributing more to what has been done by others, in the furtherance of an enlightened philosophy, than any other living individual in France-I might say in Europe. Mr. Napier, however, was resolute; it was the first number of the Review under his direction; and the criticism was hastily written. In this country the reasonings were of course not understood, and naturally, for a season, declared incomprehensible. Abroad, in France, Germany, Italy, and latterly in America, the article has been rated higher than it deserves. The illustrious thinker, against one of whose doctrines its argument is directed, was the first to A *

Philosophy; and the splendor with which he recommenced his academical career, more than justified the expectation which his recent celebrity as a writer, and the memory of his earlier prelections, had inspired. Two thousand auditors listened, all with admiration, many with enthusiasm, to the eloquent exposition of doctrines intelligible only to the few; and the oral discussion of philosophy awakened in Paris, and in France, an interest unexampled since the days of Abelard. The daily journals found it necessary to gratify, by their earlier summaries, the impatient curiosity of the public; and the lectures themselves, taken in short-hand, and corrected by the Professor, propagated weekly the influence of his instruction to the remotest provinces of the kingdom.

Nor are the pretensions of this doctrine disproportioned to the attention which it has engaged. It professes nothing less than to be the complement and conciliation of all philosophical opinion; and its author claims the glory of placing the key-stone in the arch of science, by the discovery of elements hitherto unobserved among the facts of consciousness.

Before proceeding to consider the claims of M. Cousin to originality, and of his doctrine to truth, it is necessary to say a few words touching the state and relations of philosophy in France.

After the philosophy of Descartes and Malebranche had sunk into oblivion, and from the time that Condillac, exaggerating the too partial principles of Locke, had analyzed all knowledge into sensation, Sensualism (or more correctly, Sensuism), as a psychological theory of the origin of our cognitions, became, in France, not only the dominant, but almost the one exclusive opinion. It was believed that reality and truth were limited to experience, and experience was limited to the sphere of sense; while the very highest faculties of mind were deemed adequately explained when recalled to perceptions, elaborated, purified, sublimated, and transspeak of it in terms which, though I feel their generosity, I am ashamed to quote. I may, however, state, that maintaining always his opinion, M. Cousin (what is rare, especially in metaphysical discussions), declared, that it was neither unfairly combated nor imperfectly understood.-In connection with this criticism, the reader should compare what M. Cousin has subsequently stated in defense and illustration of his system, in his Preface to the new edition of the Introduction à l'Histoire de la Philosophie, and Appendix to the fifth lecture (Euvres, Serie II. Tome i. pp. vii., ix., and pp. 112– 129);-in his Preface to the second edition, and his Advertisement to the third edition of the Fragments Philosophiques (Œuvres, S. III. T. iv.)—and in his Prefatory Notice to the Pensées de Pascal (Œuvres, S. IV. T. i.)-On the other hand, M. Peisse has ably advocated the counterview, in his Preface and Appendix to the Fragments de Philosophie, &c.]

formed. From the mechanical relations of sense with its object, it was attempted to solve the mysteries of will and intelligence; the philosophy of mind was soon viewed as correlative to the phys iology of organization. The moral nature of man was at last formally abolished, in its identification with his physical; mind became a reflex of matter; thought a secretion of the brain.

A doctrine so melancholy in its consequences, and founded on principles thus partial and exaggerated, could not be permanent: a reaction was inevitable. The recoil, which began about twenty years ago, has been gradually increasing; and now it is perhaps even to be apprehended, that its intensity may become excessive. As the poison was of foreign growth, so also has been the antidote. The doctrine of Condillac was, if not a corruption, a development of the doctrine of Locke; and, in returning to a better philosophy, the French are still obeying an impulsion communicated from without.

This impulsion may be traced to two different sources-to the philosophy of Scotland, and to the philosophy of Germany.

In Scotland, a philosophy had sprung up, which, though professing, equally with the doctrine of Condillac, to build only on experience, did not, like that doctrine, limit experience to the relations of sense and its objects. Without vindicating to man more than a relative knowledge of existence, and restricting the science of mind to an observation of the fact of consciousness, it, however, analyzed that fact into a greater number of more important elements than had been recognized in the school of Condillac. It showed that phenomena were revealed in thought which could not be resolved into any modification of sense-external or internal. It proved that intelligence supposed principles, which, as the conditions of its activity, can not be the results of its operation; that the mind contained knowledges, which, as primitive, universal, necessary, are not to be explained as generalizations from the contingent and individual, about which alone all experience is conversant. The phenomena of mind were thus distinguished from the phenomena of matter; and if the impossibility of materialism were not demonstrated, there was, at least, demonstrated the impossibility of its proof.

This philosophy, and still more the spirit of this philosophy, was calculated to exert a salutary influence on the French. And such an influence it did exert. For a time, indeed, the truth operated in silence; and Reid and Stewart had already modified the philosophy of France, before the French were content to ac