which he names self and not-self. Immediate spontaneous apperception may seize this supreme reality; but to vindicate it by reflection as an inference on the principle of causality is impossible. This is a mere paralogism ; we can
never infer either absolute or infinite from relative or finite.The truth is that M. Cousin s doctrine of the spontaneous apperception of impersonal truth amounts to little more than a presentment in philosophical language of the ordinary convictions and beliefs of mankind. This is important as a preliminary stage, but philosophy properly begins when it attempts to co-ordinate or systematize those convictions in harmony, to conciliate apparent contradiction and opposition, as between the correlative notions of finite and infinite, the apparently conflicting notions of personality and infinitude, self and not-self ; in a word, to reconcile the various sides of consciousness with each other. And whether the laws of our reason are the laws of all intelli gence and being, whether and how we are to relate our fundamental, intellectual, and moral conceptions to what is beyond our experience, or to an infinite being, are problems which Cousin cannot be regarded as having solved. These are in truth the outstanding problems of modern philosophy.
Cousin s doctrine of spontaneity in volition can hardly be said to be more successful than his impersonality of the reason through spontaneous apperception. Sudden, unpre meditated volition may be the earliest and the most artistic, but it is not the best. Volition is essentially a free choice between alternatives, and that is best which is most deliberate, because it is most rational. Aristotle long ago touched this point in his distinction between ftovX-fja^ and Trpoatpecrts. The sudden and unpremeditated wish repre sented by the former is wholly inferior in character to the free choice of the latter, guided and illumined by intel ligence. In this we can deliberately resolve upon what is in our power ; in that we are subject to the vain impulse of wishing the impossible. Spontaneity is pleasing, sometimes beautiful, but it is not in this instance the highest quality of the thing to be obtained. That is to be found in a guiding and illumining reflective activity.
Eclecticism is not open to the superficial objection of proceeding without a system or test in determining the complete or incomplete. But it is open to the objection of assuming that a particular analysis of consciousness has reached all the possible elements in humanity and in history, and all their combinations. It may be asked, Can history have that ^ which is no.t in the individual co n- sciousness ] In a sense not ; but our analysis may not give all that is there, and we ought not at once to impose that analysis or any formula on history. History is as likely to reveal to us in the first place true and original elements, and combinations of elements in man, as a study of consciousness. Besides, the tendency of applying a formula of this sort to history is to assume that the elements are developed in a certain regular or necessary order, whereas this may not at all be the case ; but we may find at any epoch the whole mixed, either crossing or co-operative, as in the consciousness of the individual himself. Further, the question as to how these elements may possibly have grown up in the general consciousness of mankind is assumed to be non-existent or impossible.
It was the tendency of the philosophy of Cousin to out line things and to fill up the details in an artistic and imaginative interest. This is necessarily the case, especially in the application to history of all formulas sup posed to be derived either from an analysis of conscious ness, or from an abstraction called pure thought. Cousin was observational and generalizing rather than analytic and His search into principles was not profound, and his power of rigorous consecutive development was not remarkable. These qualities are essential to the formation of a lasting body of philosophic knowledge. He has left no distinctive principle of philosophy which is likely to be permanent. But he has left very interesting psychological analyses, and several new, just, and true expositions of philo sophical systems, especially that of Locke and the philo sophers of Scotland. He was at the same time a man of impressive power, of rare and wide culture, and of lofty aim, far above priestly conception and Philistine narrow ness. He was familiar with the broad lines of nearly every system of philosophy ancient and modern. His eclecticism was the proof of a reverential sympathy with the struggles of human thought to attain to certainty in the highest pro blems of speculation. It was eminently a doctrine of comprehension and of toleration. In these respects it formed a marked and valuable contrast to the arrogance of absolutism, which really means a supreme egoism, to the narrow dogmatism of sensationalism, and to the not less narrow doctrine of church authority, preached by the theo logical school of his day. His spirit, while it influenced the youth of France, saved them from the effects of all these lowering influences. As an earnest educational reformer, as a man of letters and learning, who trode " the large and impartial ways of knowledge," and who swayed others to the same paths, as a thinker influential alike in the action and the reaction to which he led, in some cases the petulant detraction which may pass as a tribute to power, Cousin stands out conspicuously among the memorable Frenchmen of the 19th century.
We might be inclined to modify the strength of some of the following expressions, but we cannot help feeling that they are in the main true : " A profound and original thinker, a lucid and eloquent writer, a scholar equally at home in ancient and in modern learning, a philosopher superior to all prejudices of age or country, party or profession, and whose lofty eclecticism, seeking truth under every form of opinion, traces its unity even through the most hostile systems." Such was the estimate of Victor Cousin by the acutest critic and most resolute opponent of his philosophy in this century.[1]
(j. v.)
COUSTOU, the name of a famous family of French sculptors. Nicholas Coustou (1658-1733) was the son of a wood-carver at Lyons, where he was born. At eighteen he removed to Paris, to study under Coysevox, his uncle, who presided over the recently-established Academy of Painting and Sculpture ; and at three-and-twenty he gained the Colbert prize, which entitled him to four years education at the French Academy at Rome. He afterwards became rector and chancellor of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture. He was remarkable for his facility; and though he was specially influenced by Michelangelo and Algardi, his numerous works are among the most typical specimens of his age now extant. The most famous are the Union of the Seine and Marne and the Berger Chasseur in the gardens of the Tuileries, and the Descent from the Cross placed behind the choir altar of Notre Dame ; he also supplied a large number of statues to Versailles and Marly.
was a sculptor of still greater merit. He also gained the Colbert prize ; but refusing to submit to the rules of the Academy, he soon left it, and for some time wandered houseless through the streets of Rome. At length he was befriended by the sculptor Legros, under whom he studied for some time. Returning to Paris, ha was in 1704 admitted into the Academy of Painting and
Sculpture, of which he afterwards became director ; and,
- ↑ Sir W. Hamilton, Discussions, p. 541.
