tion to its cause, is the real, the actual, the ovτws ov. It would also be the divine, but that divinity supposes also the notion of cause, while the universe, ex hypothesi, is only an effect.

It is no answer to these difficulties for M. Cousin to say, that the Deity, though a cause which cannot choose but create, is not, however, exhausted in the act; and though passing with all the elements of his being into the universe, that he remains entire in his essence, and with all the superiority of the cause over the effect. The dilemma is unavoidable-either the Deity is independent of the universe for his being or his perfection; on which alternative our author must abandon his theory of God and the creation : or the Deity is dependant on his manifestation in the universe for his existence or his perfection; on which alternative his doctrine is assailed by the difficulties previously stated.

The length to which the preceding observations have extended, prevents us from adverting to many other opinions of our author, which we conceive to be equally unfounded. For example, to say nothing of his proof of the impersonality of intelligence, because, forsooth, truth is not subject to our will, what can be conceived more self-contradictory than his theory of liberty? Divorcing liberty from intelligence, but connecting it with personality, he defines it to be a cause which is determined to act only by its proper energy. But (to say nothing of remoter difficulties) how liberty can be conceived (supposing always a plurality of modes of activity) without a knowledge of that plurality,-how a faculty can resolve to act by preference in a particular manner, and not determine itself by final causes,how intelligence can influence a blind power without operating as an efficient cause,—or how, in fine, morality can be founded on a liberty which, at best, only escapes necessity by taking refuge with chance,-these are problems which M. Cousin, in none of his works, has stated, and which we are confident he is unable to solve.

After the tenor of our previous observations, it is needless to say that we regard M. Cousin's attempt to establish a general peace among philosophers, by the promulgation of his Eclectic Theory, as a signal failure. But though no converts to his philosophy, and viewing with regret what we must regard as the misapplication of his distinguished talents, we cannot disown a strong feeling of interest and admiration for those qualities, even in their excess, which have betrayed him, with so many other aspiring philosophers, into a pursuit which could end only in disappointment-we mean his love of truth, and his reliance on the powers of man. Not to despair of philosophy is a "last infirmity of noble minds." The stronger the intellect, the stronger the confidence in its force; the more ardent the appetite for knowledge, the less are we prepared to canvass the uncertainty of the fruition. The wish is parent to the thought." Loath to admit that our science is at best the reflection of a reality we cannot know, we strive to penetrate to existence in itself; and what we have laboured intensely to attain, we at last fondly believe we have accomplished. But, like Ixion, we embrace a cloud for a divinity. Conscious only of limitation, we think to comprehend the infinite, and dream of establishing our human science on an identity with the omniscient God. It is this powerful tendency of the most vigorous minds to transcend the sphere of our faculties, that makes a "learned ignorance" the most difficult acquirement of knowledge. In the words of a forgotten, but acute philosoper,-magna, immo maxima, pars sapientiæ, est quædam æquo animo nescire velle.

PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION.-REID AND BROWN.*

We rejoice in the publication of this work,-and for two reasons. We hail it as another sign of the convalescence of philosophy in a great and influential nation; and prize it as a seasonable testimony by intelligent foreigners, to the merits of a philosopher, whose reputation is, for the moment, under an eclipse at home.

We are pleased by the appearance of this translation of the works of Reid -in Paris-and under the auspices of so distinguished an editor as M. Jouffroy, less, certainly, as indicating the triumph of any particular system or school, than as a pledge, among many others, of the zealous, yet liberal and unexclusive, spirit with which the science of mind has of late been cultivated in France. The contrast which the present philosophical enthusiasm of France exhibits to the speculative apathy of Britain, is any thing, indeed, but flattering to ourselves. The new spirit of metaphysical enquiry, which the French imbibed from Germany and Scotland, arose with them precisely at the time when the popularity of psychological researches began to decline with us; and now, when all interest in these speculations seems here to be extinct, they are there seen flourishing in public favour, with a universality and vigour corresponding to their encouragement.

The only example that can be adduced of any interest in such subjects, recently exhibited in this country, is the favourable reception of Dr. Brown's Lectures on the Philosophy of the Mind. This work, however, we regard as a concurrent cause of the very indifference we lament, and as a striking proof of its reality.

As a cause; these lectures have certainly done much to justify the general neglect of the study they were intended to promote. Dr. Brown's high reputation for metaphysical acuteness gave a presumptive authority to any doctrine he might promulgate; and the personal relations in which he stood to Mr. Stewart, afforded every assurance, that he would not revolt against that philosopher's opinions, rashly, or except on grounds that would fully vindicate his dissent. In these circumstances, what was the impression on the public mind, when all that was deemed best established,—all that was claimed as original and most important in the philosophy of Reid and Stewart, was proclaimed by their disciple and successor to be "nought but a series of misconceptions, only less wonderful in their commission than in the general acquiescence in their truth?" Confidence was at once withdrawn from a pursuit, in which the most sagacious enquirers were thus at fault; and the few who did not relinquish the study in despair, clung with implicit faith to the revelation of the new apostle.

As a proof;-these lectures afford evidence of how greatly talent has, of late, been withdrawn from the field of metaphysical discussion. This work has now been before the world for ten years. In itself it combines many of the qualities calculated to attract public, and even popular attention; while its admirers have exhausted hyperbole in its praise, and disparaged every philosophic name to exalt the reputation of its author. Yet, though attention has been thus concentred on these lectures for so long a period, and though the high ability, and higher authority, of Dr. Brown, deserved,

*

Euvres Complètes de Thomas Reid, chef de l'Ecole Ecossaise. Publiées par M. Th. Jouffroy, avec des Fragmens de M. Royer-Collard, et une Introduction de l'Editeur. -VI. Svo. Paris, 1828 9. (Not completed )--Vol. lii. page 158. October, 1830.

Tomes II.

and would have recompensed, the labour, we are not aware that, with one exception, any adequate attempt has yet been made to subject them, in whole or in part, to an enlightened and impartial criticism. The radical inconsistencies which they involve, in every branch of their subject, remain undeveloped; their unacknowledged appropriations are still lauded as original; their endless mistakes in the history of philosophy stand yet uncorrected; and their frequent misrepresentations of other philosophers continue to mislead. In particular, nothing has more convinced us of the general neglect, in this country, of psychological science, than that Dr. Brown's unmerited attack on Reid, and through Reid, confessedly on Stewart, has not long since been repelled; except, indeed, the general belief that it was triumphant.

In these circumstances we felt gratified, as we said, with the present honourable testimony to the value of Dr. Reid's speculations in a foreign country; and have deemed this a seasonable opportunity of expressing our own opinion on the subject, and of again vindicating, we trust, to that philosopher, the well-earned reputation of which he has been too long defrauded in his own. If we are not mistaken in our view, we shall, in fact, reverse the marvel, and retort the accusation, in proving that Dr. Brown himself is guilty of that "series of wonderful misconceptions" of which he so confidently arraigns his predecessors.

"Turpe est doctori, cum culpa redarguit ipsum."

This, however, let it be recollected, is no point of merely personal concernment. It is true, indeed, that either Reid accomplished nothing, or the science has retrograded under Brown. But the question itself regards the cardinal point of metaphysical philosophy; and its determination involves the proof or the refutation of scepticism.

The subject we have undertaken can, with difficulty, be compressed within the limits of a single article. This must stand our excuse for not, at present, noticing the valuable accompaniment to Reid's "Essays on the Intellectual Powers," in the "Fragments of M. Royer-Collard's Lectures," which are appended to the third and fourth volumes of the translation. A more appropriate occasion for considering these may, however, occur, when the first volume, containing M. Jouffroy's Introduction, appears; of which, from other specimens of his ability, we entertain no humble expectations.

"Reid," says Dr. Brown, "considers his confutation of the ideal system as involving almost every thing which is truly his. Yet there are few circumstances connected with the fortune of modern philosophy that appear to

* We refer to Sir James Mackintosh's chapter on Dr. Brown, in his late admirable Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, prefixed to the new edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

We shall, in the sequel, afford a sample of these "inconsistencies," "mistakes," and "misrepresentations," of Dr. Brown: to complete the cycle, and vindicate our assertion, we here adduce one specimen of the way in which discoveries have been lavished on him, in consequence of his omission (excusable in the circumstances) to advertise the reader when he was not original. Brown's doctrine of Generalisation is identical with that commonly taught by philosophersnot Scottish; and, among these, by authors, with whose works his lectures prove him to have been well acquainted. But if a writer, one of the best informed of those who, in this country, have of late cultivated this branch of philosophy, could, among other expressions equally encomiastic, speak of his return to the vulgar opinion, on such a point, as of "a discovery, etc. which will, in all future ages, be regarded as one of the most important steps ever made in metaphysical science;" how incompetent must ordinary readers be to place Brown on his proper level?-how desirable would have been a critical examination of his Lectures, to distribute to him his own, and to estimate his property at its true value?

me more wonderful, than that a mind like Dr. Reid's, so learned in the history of metaphysical science, should have conceived, that on this point any great merit, at least any merit of originality, was justly referable to him particularly. Indeed, the only circumstance which appears to me wonderful, is, that the claim thus made by him should have been so readily and generally admitted."-Lect. xxv. p. 155.

Dr. Brown then proceeds at great length to show, 1. That Reid, in his attempt to overthrow what he conceived "the common theory of ideas," wholly misunderstood the catholic opinion, which was, in fact, identical with his own; and actually attributed to all philosophers "a theory which had been universally, or, at least, almost universally, abandoned at the time he wrote;" and, 2. That the doctrine of perception, which Reid so absurdly fancies he had first established, affords, in truth, no better evidence of the existence of an external world, than even the long-abandoned hypothesis which he had taken such idle labour to refute.

In every particular of this statement, Dr. Brown is completely, and even curiously, wrong. He is out in his prelusive flourish,-out in his serious assault. Reid is neither "so learned in the history of metaphysical science" as he verbally proclaims, nor so sheer an ignorant as he would really demonstrate. Estimated by aught above a very vulgar standard, Reid's knowledge of philosophical opinions was neither extensive nor exact; and Mr. Stewart was himself too competent and candid a judge, not fully to acknowledge the deficiency.* But Reid's merits as thinker are too high, and too securely established, to make it necessary to claim for his reputation an erudition to which he himself advances no pretension. And, be is learning what it may, his critic, at least, has not been able to convict him of a single error; while Dr. Brown himself rarely opens his mouth upon the older authors, without betraying his absolute unacquaintance with the matters on which he so intrepidly discourses. Nor, as a speculator, does Reid's superiority admit, we conceive, of doubt. With all our admiration of Brown's general talent, we do not hesitate to assert, that, in the points at issue between the two philosophers, to say nothing of others, he has completely misapprehended Reid's philosophy, even in its fundamental position,-the import of the sceptical reasoning, and the significance of the only argument by which that reasoning is resisted. But, on the other hand, as Reid can only be defended on the ground of misconception, the very fact, that his great doctrine of perception could actually be reversed by so acute an intellect as Brown's, would prove that there must exist some confusion and obscurity in his own development of that doctrine, to render such a misinterpretation possible. Nor is this presumption wrong. In truth, Reid did not generalise to himself an adequate notion of the various possible theories of perception, some of which he has accordingly confounded: while his error of commission in discriminating consciousness as a special faculty, and his error of omission in not discriminating intuitive from representative knowledge,—a distinction without which his peculiar philosophy is naught,-have contributed to render his doctrine of the intellectual faculties prolix, vacillating, perplexed, and sometimes even contradictory.

Before proceeding to consider the doctrine of perception in relation to the points at issue between Reid and his antagonist, it is therefore necessary

* Dissertation on the History of Metaphysical Philosophy, Part ii. p. 197.

to disintricate the question, by relieving it of these two errors, bad in themselves, but worse in the confusion which they occasion; for as Bacon truly observes, citius emergit veritas ex errore quam ex confusione." And, first, of consciousness.

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Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, and philosophers in general, have regarded consciousness, not as a particular faculty, but as the universal condition of intelligence. Reid, on the contrary, following probably Hutcheson, and followed by Stewart, Royer-Collard, and others, has classed consciousness as a co-ordinate faculty with the other intellectual powers; distinguished from them, not as the species from the individual, but as the individual from the individual. And as the particular faculties have each their peculiar object, so the peculiar object of consciousness is, the operations of the other faculties themselves, to the exclusion of the objects about which these operations are conversant.

This analysis we regard as false. For it is impossible, in the first place, to discriminate consciousness from all the other faculties, or to discriminate any one of these from consciousness; and, in the second, to conceive a faculty cognizant of the various mental operations, without being also cognizant of their several objects.

We know, and We know that we know: these propositions, logically distinct, are really identical; each implies the other. We know ( i. e. feel, perceive, imagine, remember, etc.) only as we know that we thus know; and we know that we know, only as we know in some particular manner, (i. e, feel, perceive, etc.) So true is the scholastic brocard, "Non sentimus nisi sentiamus nos sentire; non sentimus nos sentire nisi sentiamus." The attempt to analyse the cognition I know, and the cognition I know that I know, into the separate energies of distinct faculties, is therefore vain. But this is the analysis of Reid. Consciousness, which the formula I know that I know adequately expresses, he views as a power specifically distinct from the various cognitive faculties comprehended under the formula I know, precisely as these faculties are severally contradistinguished from each other. But here the parallel does not hold. I can feel without perceiving, I can perceive without imagining, I can imagine without remembering, I can remember without judging, I can judge without willing. One of these acts does not immediately suppose the other. Though modes merely of the same indivisible subject, they are modes in relation to each other, really distinct, and admit, therefore, of psychological discrimination. But can I feel without being conscious that I feel?—can I remember without being conscious that I remember? or, can I be conscious without being conscious that I perceive, or imagine, or reason,-that I energise, in short, in some determinate mode, which Reid would view as the act of a faculty specifically different from consciousness. That this is impossible, Reid himself admits. "Unde, says Tertullian,-" unde ista tormenta cruciandæ simplicitatis et suspendendæ veritatis ?-Quis mihi exhibebit sensum non intelligentem se sentire?" But if, on the one hand, consciousness be only realised under specific modes, and cannot therefore exist apart from the several faculties in cumulo; and if, on the other, these faculties can all and each only be exerted under the condition of consciousness; consciousness, consequently, is not one of the special modes into which our mental activity may be resolved, but the fundamental form, the generic condition, of them all. Every intelligent act is thus a modified consciousness; and consciousness a comprehensive term for the complement of our intellectual energies.