The principal charges against us are:
1. We said M. Cousin called his philosophy eclecticism;
2. We wrongly denied scepticism to be a system of philosophy;
3. Showed our ignorance of Cousin's doctrine in saying it remained in psychology, never attained to the objective, or rose to ontology;
4. Misstated his doctrine of substance and cause;
5. Falsely denied that he admits a nexus between the creative substance and the created existence;
6. Falsely asserted that he holds creation to be necessary;
7. Wrongly and ignorantly accused him of Pantheism;
8. Asserted that he had but little knowledge of Catholic theology;
9. Accused him of denying the necessity of language to thought.
In preferring these charges against M. Cousin's philosophy, we have shown our ignorance of his real doctrine, our contempt for his express declarations, and our philosophical incapacity, and the reviewer thinks one may search in vain through any number of magazine articles of equal length, for one more full of errors and fallacies than ours. This is bad, and, if true, not at all to our credit. We shall not say as much of his article, for that would not be courteous, and instead of saying it, prefer to let him prove it. We objected that M. Cousin assuming that to the operation of reason no objective reality is necessary, can never, on his system, establish such reality; the reviewer, p. 541, gravely asserts that we ourselves hold, that to the operations of reason no objective reality is necessary, and can never be established! This is charming. But are these charges true? We propose to take them up seriatim, and examine the reviewer's proofs.
1. We said M. Cousin called his philosophical system eclecticism. To this the reviewer replies:
"'Eclecticism can never be a philosophy;' making, among other arguments, the pertinent inquiry: 'How, if you know not the truth in its unity and integrity beforehand, are you, in studying those several systems, to determine which is the part of truth and which of error?'
"We beg his pardon, but M. Cousin never called his philosophical system Eclecticism. In the introduction to the Vrai, Beau, et Bien, he writes:
"'One word as to an opinion too much accredited. Some persons persist in representing eclecticism as the doctrine to which they would attach my name. I declare, then, that eclecticism is, undoubtedly, very dear to me, for it is in my eyes the light of the history of philosophy; but the fire which supplies this light is elsewhere. Eclecticism is one of the most important and useful applications of the philosophy I profess, but it is not its principle. My true doctrine, my true flag, is spiritualism; that philosophy, as stable as it is generous, which began with Socrates and Plato, which the gospel spread abroad in the world, and which Descartes placed under the severe forms of modern thought'
"And the principles of this philosophy supply the touchstone with which to try 'those several systems, and to determine which is the part of truth and which of error.' Eclecticism, in Cousin's view of it, as one might have discovered who had 'studied his works with some care,' is something more than a blind syncretism, destitute of principles, or a fumbling among conflicting systems to pick out such theories as please us."
If M. Cousin never called his philosophical system eclecticism, why did he defend it from the objections brought on against it, that, i. Eclecticism is a syncretism—all systems mingled together; 2. Eclecticism approves of everything, the true and the false, the good and the bad; 3. Eclecticism is fatalism; 4. Eclecticism is the absence of all system? Why did he not say at once that he did not profess eclecticism, instead of saying and endeavoring to prove that the eclectic method is at once philosophical and historical? [Footnote 32]
[Footnote 32: See Fragments Philosophiques, t i. pp. 39-42.]
Everybody knows that he professed eclecticism and defended it. As a method, do you say? Be it so. Does he not maintain, from first to last, that a philosopher's whole system is in his method? Does he not say, "Given a philosopher's method, we can foretell his whole system"? And is not his whole course of the history of philosophy based on this assumption? We wrote our article for those who knew Cousin's writings, not for those who knew them not. There is nothing in the passage quoted from the reviewer, quoted from Cousin, that contradicts what we said. We did not say that he always called philosophy eclecticism, or pretend that it was the principle of his system. We said: