and must be so called, or we by necessity deny the creation and imply the eternal existence of what we as Christians have been taught to believe to be the work of an intelligent and bountiful Creator.

66

We had designed to give some extracts from the writings of Cousin asserting doctrines most directly contradictory of those which the Reviewer attributes to him. But, on opening the volumes before us, we know neither where to begin or where to end. We might quote Cousin's disclaimer of those doctrines, but we have seen that the Reviewer admits the fact of such disclaimers, and how he disposes of them. We might also quote passages in abundance in which Cousin discusses and enforces doctrines of opposite character to those ascribed to him in the Review. But the existence of such passages is also admitted, and thought to imply that Cousin "was not sure of his own ground," [however sure the Reviewer may have been of it,] and had not given fully his own consent to the system which he had embraced;"" and he had a wholesome and praiseworthy apprehension that the public mind in France was not prepared for the full development and inculcation of German Pantheism. Hence the vacillations, the saying and unsaying, the inculcations of Pantheism, and the avowals of theism, with which his writings abound." If such passages are abundant, there is no possibility of quoting them in the present article in any such numbers, or at such length, as to present a fair view of the whole subject, when compared with those of the opposite character, which are accumulated in the article of something over fifty pages in the Princeton Review. Nor, in fact, could we give a just and adequate impression from any extracts that we could quote. Such an impression, we apprehend, could be made only by the whole of Cousin's works, or any one of them taken as a whole, and read through with a constant view to its aim and design. Pregnant, pithy sentences we can find in abundance, everywhere; for example: "The God of humanity is no more separated from, than He is concentrated in, the world." We cannot imagine a more pointed and terse denial of the precise form of Pantheism attributed to him by the Reviewer than in this antithetic declaration, "GOD IS NOT CONCENTRATED IN THE WORLD, but separated from it." Again Cousin asks, "What is Pantheism? It is not a disguised atheism, as it has been called. No; it is avowed atheism. To say, in the presence of this universe, vast, beautiful, magnificent as it is, God is there entire, behold God, there is no other-this is to say, as clearly as possible, that there is no God, for it is to that the universe has not a cause essentially different from

say

its effects." God not in the universe entirely, but a cause ESSENTIALLY DIFFERENT FROM THE UNIVERSE, His effect! And yet this same author is a Pantheist, and teaches unmitigated Pantheism of the worst kind!

Our explanation of Cousin's language, and exposition of his theism are not materially different from those given by Dr. Henry himself,* as will appear from the following passages from his preface, in reply to the first attack of the Princeton Review:

"Now, Cousin not only does not teach Pantheism in either of these forms, but, on the contrary, clearly and abundantly exposes and confutes them all. He maintains the substantial existence of God, and the substantial existence of the universe of mind and matter; of God as distinct from the universe; of God as the cause and the universe the effect; of God as superior to the universe by all the superiority of an infinite uncreated substance and cause over all finite and created substances and causes. Yet all that Cousin says expressly and directly on this subject is kept out of view by the writer of the article, and some speculations respecting the relation of the creation to God, and some expressions concerning the all-pervading presence and energy of God, are paraded as proof of Pantheism.

"As to the speculations about the creation considered as the necessary product of the divine activity: I should suppose it would be readily admitted by any thinker, that if God had never created any thing he would never have exerted his power out of himself, never have manifested himself. I should suppose it would be equally admitted to be natural to the human mind to conceive that God, as an infinite personal cause, a free potential activity, would put forth or actualize His power in some determinate, and therefore finite production, that is to say, would create. I do not understand Cousin as asserting that creation is necessary in any other sense than this, relative, namely, to our conception of an infinite cause personal and free. If he intended the assertion as absolute, I should not adopt it; but certainly I should never dream of considering it Pantheism; it has no more to do with Pantheism than with Polytheism; and as to the rest is perfectly harmless.

"And as to the expressions relating to the all-pervading presence and energy of God in the universe: they are the same sort of expressions as those in which all elevated meditation on the Divine Being naturally utters itself; and the charge of Pantheism would lie equally against nine-tenths of the most accredited devotional poetry, and against the Holy Scriptures themselves, which speak of God as all in all,' and of creatures as 'living, moving, and having their BEING IN HIM," etc., etc.-pp. xix-xxi.

Again, says Dr. Henry:

"It may be readily admitted, that in the passages quoted in this connection, there are some expressions which a person predetermined to make out a point,

The final and deliberate conclusion of the "competent" Reviewer is thus expressed:-"We honestly think that Dr. Henry is the most incompetent man in this whole sphere whom we have ever encountered, in print or out of it." If this is what he “honestly" thinks, we would be obliged to him if he would just give us notice when he is expressing what he dishonestly thinks. Or are we to infer that the honest thinking, being the exception, alone needs notifica tion !

might plausibly put forward as Pantheistic, and which a reader predisposed to believe the charge, and not thoroughly acquainted with the author's writings, might naturally receive as such. And the same may be said of numerous pasBages of Holy Scripture. But to any candid and competent thinker, who proceeds upon the only fair rule of interpretation in the case of ambiguous or unguarded expressions-namely, that of explaining what an author says by its special purpose, and by what he says more officially and expressly in other places, it will be evident that these expressions, occuring where they do, are directed against the Scholastic way of considering God, which tends to make him but an abstraction instead of the living God; and so in the unguarded fervor with which he repudiates the "dead God" of the Schoolmen, he may seem to set forth" the grosser God of Pantheism."—p. xli.

After citing several passages, in which Cousin expressly denounces Pantheism "as atheism at bottom," as a "denying of God," as "saying there is no God," Dr. Henry proceeds:

"Cousin, then, is no Pantheist. We have his explicit condemnation of it. He does not confound God with the universe. And to say that he is a Pantheist in the improper sense in which the word is sometimes used, [the “Monism” of the Princeton Reviewer.] to say, that is, that he confounds the universe with God, is equally at variance with hundreds of explicit utterances of his. It would be suicidal to his system; it would be in palpable contradiction with the numerous critical confutations he has constructed against every form of resolving the universe of mind and matter into mere phenomena, [taken in the popular sense of the word used above, and which is the only one that the Princetown Reviewer even seems to have thought of] It is the very scope of his philosophy to establish the objective reality and the substantial existence of the universe of mind and matter, as distinct from God.

"The candid thinker will, therefore, see that the expressions quoted by the reviewer, whatever they may mean, must not be taken to mean pantheism, in the intention of their author. The attempt to harmonize them with his manifold explicit declarations, is required by the simplest rule of justice. And the candid thinker will, I apprehend, find no more difficulty in considering them as fervid, exaggerated expressions of the all-pervading presence and energy of the living God in the universe, than he does in putting the like interpretation upon many similar passages of Holy Scripture. Yet it is in keeping with the characteristic spirit of the article under consideration, that the writer should speak of Cousin as not permitting the shadow of a doubt to rest upon the pantheistical tendency of his philosophy,' and of his attempting to forestall the charge of Pantheism,' by the not very creditable artifice of pronouncing it the bugbear of feeble imaginations'-thereby intimating to his readers that Cousin speaks as one having taken Pantheism under his protection, and so wishing to discredit the intelligence of those who dislike it; whereas, the very reverse (as may be seen above) is the case, and Cousin, disliking it as much as they, only wishes to guard his readers from the folly of seeing Pantheism in everything, and not knowing when it is uttered or when it is combated."―pp. xliii, xliv.

Finally, we assure our readers we entirely concur in the truth of the following passage, in which Dr. Henry sums up his remarks upon all the charges made against Cousin by the Princeton Review in its first attack, and which in the second attack are all treated as included in the charge of Pantheistic "Monism:"

"I repeat, then, summarily, that the person who wrote the article in question has imputed to Cousin doctrines directly the opposite of those which he ex

plicitly and positively teaches, doctrines which he distinctly and strenuously opposes and the mode in which he endeavors to justify his imputations involves a perversion of thought and language scarcely less incredible. A parallel argument equally valid might be constructed to prove Cudworth an Atheist, Bishop Butler an Infidel, and Mr. Thomas Paine a Christian believer!"—p. xxi. This is strongly said, but it is true in the utmost strictness of the language used.

But

It is certainly quite possible that Cousin is inconsistent with himself, affirming at one time what he denies at another. For inconsistency is possible with all minds but the Infinite. not every charge of inconsistency proves its reality. The charge is quite as likely to proceed from the incapacity of him who makes it, as from any ground in the subject matter concerning which it is made. The parts of any whole appear inconsistent to any one who does not comprehend the whole to which they belong, and them as parts of that whole. What more inconsistent than veins and arteries?-the one carrying the blood from the heart, the other all the while bringing it back, and yet the inconsistency is reconciled and disappears in the unity of the circulation as a whole. Hence the charge of inconsistency and contradiction is made most frequently only by the weakest, and least comprehending minds; they can see inconsistency and contradiction anywhere, and it is about all they can see. The cognition of the unity and the harmony implies a higher and more comprehensive grasp than they are accustomed to.

We are, then, quite willing to leave the charge of inconsistency and self-contradiction, which is the only plea that the Princeton Reviewer, and such as agree with him, can set up after the recognition of the fact that Cousin does in some places, at least, teach the most unexceptionable theism, to those who find any comfort or advantage in using it. We see no inconsistency in his system. We see absurd and innocent expressions, we see every where statements that will not bear to be taken and expanded by themselves, we see doctrines that we do not like, and which are not, that we can see, essential or fundamental to his system.. Nor do we believe he has built up a system which, as such, will ever be universally received. But we do believe that he has contributed more than any man living towards the progress of metaphysical science to higher attainments, and to the inculcation of sounder and more wholesome views of man, his position, his duties, and his destiny. And we believe that there is no man living, and no man that has lived in the flesh, whose writings in the department of intellectual philosophy can be read by those who have both the taste and the talent for metaphysics, with so much profit as those of Victor Cousin.

ART. IV. PEWS AND FREE SEATS.

Ir is the ordinary effect of controversy to push men farther apart than they need to be, and, by widening the seeming difference between them, render their antagonism sharper and more direct than the interests of truth, whether it lie on the one side or the other, or, as is very apt to be the case, partly on both sides, require or warrant. Something of this effect we think we see in the Article in the last Review, headed "Free Seats?— or Pews?" It seems even to have impressed itself on the wording of the title. And it is simply with a view to rebuke this extravagant assumption, and put the parties on what we believe to be a juster as well as more tolerant footing, that, with the change of the warlike disjunctive into the amicable copulative, the abatement of the fiercely defiant interrogation points, and the reversal of the order of the terms, we adopt the substance of the title and make it our own. We propose to write on Pews and Free Seats.

Whether our opponent will tolerate any such neighborly companionship, may, however, well be doubted. He is hardly cool enough yet. It may reasonably be supposed to require more than three months, dog-days included too, to cool off the fever of Quixotic rage into which he has worked himself up. But we think he will cool in time. And then, as he is the valorous knight, and we aspire to be no more than the humble squire, and as Sancho's sense, what he has, is common sense, a quality in which his more illustrious companion may perhaps be deficient, we hope to be of some use to him by keeping him awake to the real world around him, and persuading him not to break his sword upon the fans of a wind-mill, or put a pewter basin on his head for a helmet. Our adversary must excuse us, if we say that his warmth has considerably amused us. To the more thoughtful portion of the Church, we believe, he is his own best answer; and it would be unwise to add another, if there were not so many with whom vehemence goes for strength, assertion for evidence, and declamation for argument. His whole Article seems to us, indeed, little else. but a string of false issues, a series of propositions which nobody, so far as we know, except as relates to facts, has ever dreamed of disputing, and which may all be as true as he asserts them to be, and leave the question in dispute just as it was. So that, on the whole, we may fairly enough claim him as