duced, and impressively taught in the chair of the Ecole Nor'male,' the philosophy of Reid and of Stewart; and at the present day, M. Cousin has acquired high reputation, as the head of a new school, equally of foreign parentage.

This very eminent writer professes a system of impartial and universal Eclecticism. But it is obvious that his mind has received its main impulse and bias from the philosophical systems of Germany, and especially from that of Schelling and Hegel. He has the merit of having rendered intelligible and popular in France the 'obscura reperta' of these profound thinkers, methodized by his own clear and vigorous understanding. His public discourses have been received with signal and well-merited favour, and have proved most instrumental in reviving the national interest in the long neglected topics of metaphysical enquiry. Gifted with a rich and persuasive eloquence, M. Cousin has succeeded in clothing abstract truth in warm and imaginative diction, without, however, sacrificing the essential qualities of method and logical exposition. Indeed, the Ideal philosophy has intrinsically more power to move the deeper and nobler sensibilities of our nature than the philosophy of Sensation; and were it necessary to adopt exclusively either creed, that of the idealists would recommend itself by the more exalted conceptions of human perfectibility, and by the loftier hopes and aspirations which it tends to kindle and to sustain. The translator of Plato, and the personal friend of Hegel, could not fail to imbibe a strong predilection for those sublime speculations, which scem better fitted to nurture right and honourable affections, to elevate the moral taste, and to breathe over the conduct of life somewhat of the higher poetry of thought and feeling, than a philosophy which addresses itself exclusively to the colder principles of reason.

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The most important of M. Cousin's original works is his Course of Lectures on the History of Philosophy.' These have been published in the form in which they were originally delivered. It therefore becomes the part of liberal criticism to make a large allowance for the redundancy of ornament, and repetition of argument, inseparable from such addresses, as well as for the seductive influence of the station of a public teacher declaiming in presence of large assemblies. Stimulated by the honourable desire of applause, and roused to the highest degree of mental excitement by the eager attention and manifest sympathies of numerous hearers, the Lecturer may reasonably claim a large measure of indulgence, if he is sometimes tempted to minister to national prejudices, or if he even aim at present effect by gathering the materials of criticism from partial and contradictory passages, rather than from a comprehensive and candid survey of an entire work.

In a previous Introductory Course,' M. Cousin defined the method and general principles, which were to guide his public instructions. It is one of these principles that the philosophy of an age is the collective expression of all the elements of which that age is composed, and must be studied in the general civilisation from which it emanates. In final analysis, the historic. developement of mental science must be traced to the fundamental laws of human thought; and as these laws are universal and immutable, the same great systems, or elementary forms of thought, must be evolved in each epoch of intellectual culture. According to M. Cousin, there exist four of these primitive systems. They are discoverable in the infancy of speculative science, and reappear successively in every age and country in which it has been since cultivated. These four systems are the philosophy of Sensation, Idealism, Scepticism, and Mysticism; and they are said to observe a uniform order of succession. We shall shortly have to examine this principle in its application to different schools and systems. At present, it is sufficient to remark, that there is some truth in the principle of this classification, and that many philosophical systems tend naturally to fall within its lines of division. But it is no less true, that the history of philosophy presents rather tendencies to one or other of these forms than their perfect and exclusive manifestation. M. Cousin has therefore often been obliged to neglect the secondary elements of systems, and to curtail their just symmetry and proportions, in order to adapt them to his artificial arrangement. His procedure in this kind of adaptation has been strongly exemplified in his view of the philosophy of Locke.

It is in the primitive and unchanging forms of Oriental civilisation that M. Cousin has sought for the earliest traces of his systems. The great question, whether Egypt or India is to be regarded as the first parent of science and letters, is perhaps still undetermined. There seems, however, an increasing weight of evidence in favour of India. Professor Heeren has rendered it probable, that Egyptian civilisation is at least subsequent to Ethiopian. The gradual descent of priestly settlements down the valley of the Nile, each having a temple for its nucleus, and a progressive filiation of colonies along the course of that river, tracing their parentage to Meroe, and bearing with them the architecture and advanced knowledge of the mother country, seems as clearly established as any conclusion can be that is anterior to positive historical records. Dr von Bohlen of Königsberg, in a late elaborate work, has still more powerfully advocated the secondary and derivative civilisation of Egypt, and has pointed to India as the sole and

primeval fountain of ancient wisdom, and of Egyptian as well as of Hellenic culture. Indeed, a comparative survey of the literary monuments of the two nations, so far as that is practicable, would lead to the same conclusion. In Egypt, there is no reason to believe that mental philosophy ever unfolded itself. The human intellect seems to have lain prostrate in terris, obpressa gravi sub religione.' In the words of our author, En Egypte 'la pensée s'était arrêtú à son envellope religieuse, et n'était pas arrivée à sa forme philosophique.' But in India the researches of Mr Colebrooke have disclosed an advanced state of psychological knowledge; and here, M. Cousin has discovered his four elementary systems fully manifested.

It has been profoundly remarked by Mr Mill, that the agitation of the dark and subtle questions of abstract metaphysics is by no means to be regarded as a symbol of high general culture. Such enquiries stand at the very threshold of human knowledge; inasmuch as they naturally arise out of the rudest conceptions of primitive religion. The nature of the percipient principle, its relations to the body, its future existence, and retrospective responsibility, are questions which may be traced to the earliest recorded periods; and are there found interwoven with what is held most sacred in belief, and in ceremonial observance. In India, as elsewhere, philosophy is first found closely incorporated with the popu lar religion. Its earliest developement was the illustration and interpretation of the Vedas, esteemed by the Hindoos as the revealed precepts and will of the Divinity. Thus infant philosophy was consecrated to the service of those altars, which, in its maturer form, it was destined to violate and overturn. The two systems of Mimansa,—the latter of which is more commonly called Vedantà, are emphatically orthodox.' They contain nothing that is not strictly consistent with the theology and metaphysics of the Vedas. This cannot be asserted of the two Sanc'hyas, especially of that branch which is generally ascribed to Capila; though that supposed sage is conjectured by Mr Colebrooke to be a merely mythological personage. The Sanc'hyas are regarded as partly heterodox, and such portions as disagree with the Vedas are rejected by Indian orthodoxy. In the Sanc'hya of Capila, M. Cousin discovers the first of his four systems, the philosophy of Sensation, exclusively developed; and there certainly does appear, in Mr Colebrooke's luminous exposition of the doctrines of Capila, some groundwork for such a conclusion. For though three sources of knowledge (perception, inference, and affirmation) are recognised in the Sanc'hya, yet inference is, in all the examples recorded, confined to the relations subsisting between external objects; and affirmation is subjoined simply as a prudent

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concession of the authority of the Vedas. Re tollit, oratione relinquit Deos. Moreover, the first principle of all things is eternal uncreated matter; and intelligence is only second to matter, being produced or evolved from matter. The existence of a deity is also expressly denied by Capila, at least in the sense of an infinite being, creator and guide of the universe, by volition. Yet M. Cousin's view, though in the main correct, must not be received without some exception. For the soul is by Capila defined to be eternal, unalterable, immaterial;—an admission which is incompatible with the entire exclusion of idealism from his system of philosophy. The prevailing character of the Sanc'hya doctrine has, however, been faithfully represented by M. Cousin.

The first indistinct gleams of the ideal philosophy are perceived in the doctrine Nyaya, ascribed to Gotama. The Nyaya is essentially a system of Dialectics, and exhibits the syllogistic mode of reasoning, as well as six positive and one negative category. In its earliest form the Indian syllogism consisted of five members, two of which, being superfluous, were afterwards omitted by the followers of the Mimansa; and the syllogism assumed the shape invented or adopted by the early Stoics, and received into the Aristotelian logic, together with the categories of Archytas. It is most remarkable that not only the syllogism but the categories of the Nyaya should precisely correspond with those of Aristotle. The similarity is so perfect, as clearly to indicate their transmission from the one country to the other; but sufficient historical data are wanting to determine whether India or Greece is entitled to the honour of the discovery. Mr Colebrooke is disposed to decide in favour of India. The Nyaya is more than a system of logic: it inculcates a refined psychology. The first and most important of the objects of evidence is soul: it is distinct from body-infinite, eternal, and demonstrated by its peculiar attributes. Body occupies only a second place.

The traces of a Spiritual philosophy, perceptible in the Nyaya, are most distinctly marked in the Vèdantà. Mr Colebrooke's memoir on this doctrine has been published since the delivery of M. Cousin's lectures on this branch of his subject, and fully confirms the view entertained by the latter of the general tendency of that system. The Sutras of the Vèdantà inculcate the doctrine of Pantheism in its widest acceptation. They treat of God as of the universal soul of the world; and they extract from the Vedas a subtle psychology, which ascends even to the entire denial of a material world. The individual soul is an emanation from the anima mundi; but the various affections and emotions by which it is agitated no more disturb the supreme mind, than the trembling of the sun's image on the surface of agitated water affects

the serenity of that luminary. We cannot, then, hesitate to admit the existence of pure idealism in ancient India.

There does not appear, in Mr Colebrooke's successive memoirs in the Asiatic Transactions,' any indication of a distinct school of Scepticism in India. Indeed, sceptical opinions are the growth only of an advanced state of metaphysical knowledge; since they presuppose as their basis some preexisting dogmatism. In the Sanc'hya of Capila there are not, however, wanting signs of a decidedly sceptical spirit. Thus the Carica declares, that by attainment of spiritual knowledge, the conclusive, incontrovertible, single truth is learned, that neither I am, nor is aught mine, nor do I ' exist.' It would be difficult to express more universal and unconditional doubt than is embodied in these few words. But we must avoid the error of raising a single unsupported sentence to the dignity of a system; and must conclude that the sceptical spirit had not manifested itself with sufficient vigour in India to give birth to an independent sect.

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Mysticism, the fourth and last of M. Cousin's philosophical systems, attained maturity of form, and a widely prevailing influence, in the Oriental world. Indeed, the habits of dreamy, passive contemplation which it inculcates, seem singularly congenial with the feelings of lassitude and indolence inspired by a tropical climate; and the close affinity of mysticism in philosophy with mysticism in religion, must have strongly recommended such a system to the favour of a people who were addicted to ceremonial observances, and governed by an ecclesiastical caste. The Yogasastra of Patanjali is little more than a system of mystical doctrine. It inculcates intensely profound meditation, accompanied by suppression of breath, restraint of the senses, and the maintaining prescribed postures. It teaches that the promptest mode of attaining beatitude consists in absorbed contemplation of God, and in repeatedly muttering his mystical name (the syllable' om'), at the same time meditating its signification. The Bhagavad Gità is, according to M. Cousin, the most interesting monument of mysticism in ancient India. It is an episode in the great national epic Mahabharata, in which the deity Khrisna unfolds to the young Ardjouna the mysterious principles that preside over human destinies. It enforces the supremacy of contemplation, of a state of absolute inaction, and an indifference to all the relations of country and kindred. The true devotee reposes in undisturbed tranquillity, like a solitary lamp, which burns peaceably, sheltered from all agitation of the air.' He endeavours to annihilate all emotions, all thought having self for its object; to suppress every act of consciousness and of memory; and thus to arrive at ecstasy, or the identification of self with Divinity. This state, like the mo

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