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 transformed. 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 physiology of organisation. 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, analysed that fact into a greater number of more important elements than had been recognised in the school of Condillac. It showed that phænomena 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, cannot be the results of its operation; that the mind contained knowledges, which, as primitive, universal, necessary, are not to be explained as generalisations from the contingent and individual, about

which alone all experience is conversant. The phænomena of mind were thus distinguished from the phænomena 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 acknowledge themselves their disciples. In the works of Degerando and Laromiguière, may be traced the influence of Scottish speculation; but it is to Royer-Collard, and, more recently, to Jouffroy, that our countrymen are indebted for a full acknowledgment of their merits, and for the high and increasing estimation in which their doctrines are now held in France. M. RoyerCollard, whose authority has, in every relation, been exerted only for the benefit of his country, and who, once great as a professor, is now not less illustrious as a statesman, in his lectures, advocated with distinguished ability the principles of the Scottish school; modestly content to follow, while no one was more entitled to lead. M. Jouffroy, by his recent translation of the works of Reid, and by the excellent preface to his version of Dugald Stewart's "Outlines of Moral Philosophy," has likewise powerfully co-operated to the establishment, in France, of a philosophy equally opposed to the exclusive Sensualism of Condillac, and to the exclusive Rationalism of the new German School.

Germany may be regarded, latterly at least, as the metaphysical antipodes of France. The comprehensive and original genius of Leibnitz, itself the ideal abstract of the Teutonic character, had reacted powerfully on the minds of his countrymen; and Rationalism, (more properly Intellectualism,*) has, from his

This

[On the modern commutation of Intellect or Intelligence (Noûs, Mens, Intellectus, Verstand), and Reason (Aoyos, Ratio, Vernunft), see Dissertations on Reid, pp. 668, 669, 693. (This has nothing to do with the confusion of Reason and Reasoning.) Protesting, therefore, against the abuse, I historically employ the terms as they were employed by the philosophers here commemorated. unfortunate reversal has been propagated to the French philosophy, and also adopted in England by Coleridge, and his followers.-I may here notice that I use the term Understanding, not for the noetic faculty, intellect proper, or place of principles, but for the dianoetic or discursive faculty, in its widest signification, for the faculty of relations or comparison; and thus in the meaning in which Verstand is now employed by the Germans. In this sense I have been able to be uniformly consistent.]

time, always remained the favourite philosophy of the Germans. On the principle of this doctrine, it is in Reason alone that truth and reality are to be found. Experience affords only the occasions on which intelligence reveals to us the necessary and universal notions of which it is the complement; and these notions constitute at once the foundation of all reasoning, and the guarantee of our whole knowledge of reality. Kant, indeed, pronounced the philosophy of Rationalism to be a mere fabric of delusion. He declared, that a science of existence was beyond the compass of our faculties; that pure reason, as purely subjective, and conscious of nothing but itself, was therefore

In the philosophy of mind, subjective denotes what is to be referred to the thinking subject, the Ego; objective what belongs to the object of thought, the Non-Ego. It may be safe, perhaps, to say a few words in vindication of our employment of these terms. By the Greeks the word úñokeiμevov was equivocally employed to express either the object of knowledge, (the materia circa quam,) or the subject of existence, (the materia in qua.) The exact distinction of subject and object was first made by the schoolmen; and to the schoolmen the vulgar languages are principally indebted for what precision and analytic subtlety they possess. These correlative terms correspond to the first and most important distinction in philosophy; they embody the original antithesis in consciousness of self and not-self,-a distinction which, in fact, involves the whole science of mind; for psychology is nothing more than a determination of the Subjective and the Objective, in themselves, and in their reciprocal relations. Thus significant of the primary and most extensive analysis in philosophy, these terms, in their substantive and adjective forms, passed from the schools into the scientific language of Telesius, Campanella, Berigardus, Gassendi, Descartes, Spinosa, Leibnitz, Wolf, &c. Deprived of these terms, the Critical philosophy, indeed the whole philosophy of Germany, would be a blank. In this country, though familiarly employed in scientific language, even subsequently to the time of Locke, the adjective form seems at length to have dropt out of the English tongue. That these words waxed obsolete was perhaps caused by the ambiguity which had gradually crept into the signification of the substantives. Object, besides its proper signification, came to be abusively applied to denote motive, end final cause, a meaning not recognised by Johnson. This innovation was probably borrowed from the French, in whose language the word had been similarly corrupted after the commencement of the last century (Dict. de Trevoux, voce Objet.) Subject in English, as sujet in French, had been also perverted into a synonym for object, taken in its proper meaning, and had thus returned to the original ambiguity of the corresponding term in Greek. It is probable that the logical application of the word (subject of attribution or predication) facilitated or occasioned this confusion. In using the terms, therefore, we think that an explanation, but no apology, is required. The distinction is of paramount importance, and of infinite application, not only in philosophy proper, but in grammar, rhetoric, criticism, ethics, politics, jurisprudence, theology. It is adequately expressed by no other terms; and if these do not already enjoy a prescriptive right, as denizens of the language, it cannot be denied, that, as strictly analogical, they would be well entitled to sue out their naturalisation.— Not that these terms were formerly always employed in the same signification

unable to evince the reality of aught beyond the phænomena of its personal modifications. But scarcely had the critical philosopher accomplished the recognition of this important principle, the result of which was to circumscribe the field of speculation by narrow bounds; than from the very disciples of his school there arose philosophers, who, despising the contracted limits, and humble results, of a philosophy of observation, re-established, as the predominant opinion, a bolder and more uncompromising Rationalism than any that had ever previously obtained for their countrymen the character of philosophic visionaries;— "Gens ratione ferox, et mentem pasta chimæris." ("Minds fierce from reason, and on fancies fed.")

Founded by Fichte, but evolved by Schelling, this doctrine regards experience as unworthy of the name of science: because, as only of the phænomenal, the transitory, the dependent, it is only of that which, having no reality in itself, cannot be established as a valid basis of certainty and knowledge. Philosophy must therefore either be abandoned, or we must be able to seize the One, the Absolute, the Unconditioned, immediately, and in itself. And this they profess to do by a kind of intellectual vision. In this act, reason, soaring not only above the world of

and contrast which they now obtain. For a history of these variations, see 'Dissertations on Reid,' p. 806, sq.-Since this article was written, the words have in this country re-entered on their ancient rights; they are now in common use.] * [This line, which was quoted from memory, has, I find, in the original, "furens;" therefore translated-"Minds mad with reasoning-and fancy-fed." The Author certainly had in his eye the "ratione insanias" of Terence. It is from a satire by Abraham Remi, who, in the former half of the seventeenth century, was Professor Royal of Eloquence in the University of Paris; and it referred to the disputants of the Irish College in that illustrious school. The "Hibernian Logicians" were, indeed, long famed over the continent of Europe for their acuteness, pugnacity, and barbarism; as is recorded by Patin, Bayle, Le Sage, and many others. The learned Menage was so delighted with the verse, as to declare that he would give his best benefice (and he enjoyed some fat ones) to have written it. It applies not only with real, but with verbal, accuracy to the German Rationalists; who in Philosophy (as Aristotle has it), " in making reason omnipotent, show their own impotence of reason," and in Theology (as Charles II. said of Isaac Vossius), "believe everything but the Bible."]

+["Intellectuelle Anschauung."-This is doubly wrong.-1°, In grammati cal rigour, the word in German ought to have been "intellectuale." 2°, In philosophical consistency the intuition ought not to have been called by its authors (Fichte and Schelling) intellectual. For, though this be, in fact, absolutely more correct, yet relatively it is a blunder; for the Intuition, as intended by them, is of the higher faculty, the Reason (Vernunft), and not of their lower, the Understanding or Intellect (Verstand). In modern German Philosophy, Verstand is always translated by Intellectus; and this again corresponds to Noûs.]

sense, but beyond the sphere of personal consciousness, boldly places itself at the very centre of absolute being, with which it claims to be, in fact, identified; and thence surveying existence in itself, and in its relations, unveils to us the nature of the Deity, and explains, from first to last, the derivation of all created things.

M. Cousin is the Apostle of Rationalism in France; and we are willing to admit that the doctrine could not have obtained a more eloquent or devoted advocate. For philosophy he has suffered; to her ministry he has consecrated himself— devoted without reserve his life and labours. Neither has he approached

the sanctuary with unwashed hands. The editor of Proclus and Descartes, the translator and interpreter of Plato, and the promised expositor of Kant, will not be accused of partiality in the choice of his pursuits; while his two works, under the title of Philosophical Fragments, bear ample evidence to the learning, elegance, and distinguished ability of their author. Taking him all in all, in France M. Cousin stands alone: nor can we contemplate his character and accomplishments without the sincerest admiration, even while we dissent from the most prominent principle of his philosophy. The development of his system, in all its points, betrays the influence of German speculation on his opinions. His theory is not, however, a scheme of exclusive Rationalism; on the contrary, the peculiarity of his doctrine consists in the attempt to combine the philosophy of Experience, and the philosophy of Reason, into one.-The following is a concise statement of the fundamental positions of his system:

Reason, or intelligence, has three integrant elements, affording three regulative principles, which at once constitute its nature, and govern its manifestations. These three Ideas severally suppose each other, and, as inseparable, are equally essential and equally primitive. They are recognised by Aristotle and by Kant in their several attempts to analyse intelligence into its principles; but though the Categories of both philosophers comprise all the elements of thought, in neither list are these elements naturally co-arranged, or reduced to an ultimate simplicity.

The first of these Ideas, elements, or laws, though fundamentally one, our author variously expresses, by the terms unity, identity, substance, absolute cause, the infinite, pure thought, &c.; (we would briefly call it the Unconditioned.)-The second, he denominates plurality, difference, phænomenon, relative cause, the