to the effect. Sensation might arise, for aught we know, so far as causality leads us, not from a world of forces at all, but from a will like our own, though infinitely more powerful, acting upon us, partly furthering and partly thwarting us. And indeed such a supposition is, with the principle of causality at work, within the limits of probability, as we are already supposed to know such a reality—a will—in our own consciousness. When Cousin thus set himself to vindicate those points by reflection, he gave up the obvious advantage of his other position that the realities in question are given us in immediate and spontaneous apprehension. The same criticism applies equally to the inference of an absolute cause from the two limited forces which he names self and not-self. Immediate spontaneous apperception may seize this supreme reality; but to vindicate it by reflection as an inference on the principle of causality is impossible. This is a mere paralogism; we can never infer either absolute or infinite from relative or finite.
The truth is that Cousin’s doctrine of the spontaneous apperception of impersonal truth amounts to little more than a presentment in philosophical language of the ordinary convictions and beliefs of mankind. This is important as a preliminary stage, but philosophy properly begins when it attempts to co-ordinate or systematize those convictions in harmony, to conciliate apparent contradiction and opposition, as between the correlative notions of finite and infinite, the apparently conflicting notions of personality and infinitude, self and not-self; in a word, to reconcile the various sides of consciousness with each other. And whether the laws of our reason are the laws of all intelligence and being—whether and how we are to relate our fundamental, intellectual and moral conceptions to what is beyond our experience, or to an infinite being—are problems which Cousin cannot be regarded as having solved. These are in truth the outstanding problems of modern philosophy.
Cousin’s doctrine of spontaneity in volition can hardly be said to be more successful than his impersonality of the reason through spontaneous apperception. Sudden, unpremeditated volition may be the earliest and the most artistic, but it is not the best. Volition is essentially a free choice between Volition. alternatives, and that is best which is most deliberate, because it is most rational. Aristotle touched this point in his distinction between βούλησις and προαίρεσις. The sudden and unpremeditated wish represented by the former is wholly inferior in character to the free choice of the latter, guided and illumined by intelligence. In this we can deliberately resolve upon what is in our power; in that we are subject to the vain impulse of wishing the impossible. Spontaneity is pleasing, sometimes beautiful, but it is not in this instance the highest quality of the thing to be obtained. That is to be found in a guiding and illumining reflective activity.
Eclecticism is not open to the superficial objection of proceeding without a system or test in determining the complete or incomplete. But it is open to the objection of assuming that a particular analysis of consciousness has reached all the possible elements in humanity and in General estimate. history, and all their combinations. It may be asked, Can history have that which is not in the individual consciousness? In a sense not; but our analysis may not give all that is there, and we ought not at once to impose that analysis or any formula on history. History is as likely to reveal to us in the first place true and original elements, and combinations of elements in man, as a study of consciousness. Besides, the tendency of applying a formula of this sort to history is to assume that the elements are developed in a certain regular or necessary order, whereas this may not at all be the case; but we may find at any epoch the whole mixed, either crossing or co-operative, as in the consciousness of the individual himself. Further, the question as to how these elements may possibly have grown up in the general consciousness of mankind is assumed to be non-existent or impossible.
It was the tendency of the philosophy of Cousin to outline things and to fill up the details in an artistic and imaginative interest. This is necessarily the case, especially in the application to history of all formulas supposed to be derived either from an analysis of consciousness, or from an abstraction called pure thought. Cousin was observational and generalizing rather than analytic and discriminating. His search into principles was not profound, and his power of rigorous consecutive development was not remarkable. He left no distinctive permanent principle of philosophy. But he left very interesting psychological analyses, and several new, just, and true expositions of philosophical systems, especially that of Locke and the philosophers of Scotland. He was at the same time a man of impressive power, of rare and wide culture, and of lofty aim,—far above priestly conception and Philistine narrowness. He was familiar with the broad lines of nearly every system of philosophy ancient and modern. His eclecticism was the proof of a reverential sympathy with the struggles of human thought to attain to certainty in the highest problems of speculation. It was eminently a doctrine of comprehension and of toleration. In these respects it formed a marked and valuable contrast to the arrogance of absolutism, to the dogmatism of sensationalism, and to the doctrine of church authority, preached by the theological school of his day. His spirit, while it influenced the youth of France, saved them from these influences. As an educational reformer, as a man of letters and learning, who trod “the large and impartial ways of knowledge,” and who swayed others to the same paths, as a thinker influential alike in the action and the reaction to which he led, Cousin stands out conspicuously among the memorable Frenchmen of the 19th century.
Sir W. Hamilton (Discussions, p. 541), one of his most resolute opponents, described Cousin as “A profound and original thinker, a lucid and eloquent writer, a scholar equally at home in ancient and in modern learning, a philosopher superior to all prejudices of age or country, party or profession, and whose lofty eclecticism, seeking truth under every form of opinion, traces its unity even through the most hostile systems.”
Bibliography.—J. Barthélemy St Hilaire, V. Cousin, sa vie et sa correspondence (3 vols., Paris, 1895); H. Höffding, Hist. of Mod. Phil. ii. 311 (Eng. trans., 1900); C. E. Fuchs, Die Philosophie Victor Cousins (Berlin, 1847); J. Alaux, La Philos. de M. Cousin (Paris, 1864); P. Janet, Victor Cousin et son œuvre (Paris, 1885); Jules Simon, V. Cousin (1887); Adolphe Franck, Moralistes et philosophes (1872); J. P. Damiron, Souvenirs de vingt ans d’enseignement (Paris, 1859); H. Taine in Les Philosophes (Paris, 1868), pp. 79-202. (J. V.; X.)
COUSIN (Fr. cousin, Ital. cugino, Late Lat. cosinus, perhaps
a popular and familiar abbreviation of consobrinus, which has the
same sense in classical Latin), a term of relationship. Children
of brothers and sisters are to each other first cousins, or cousins-german;
the children of first cousins are to each other second
cousins, and so on; the child of a first cousin is to the first cousin
of his father or mother a first cousin once removed.
The word cousin has also, since the 16th century, been used by sovereigns as an honorific style in addressing persons of exalted, but not equal sovereign, rank, the term “brother” being reserved as the style used by one sovereign in addressing another. Thus, in Great Britain, dukes, marquesses and earls are addressed by the sovereign in royal writs, &c., as “cousin.” In France the kings thus addressed princes of the blood royal, cardinals and archbishops, dukes and peers, the marshals of France, the grand officers of the crown and certain foreign princes. In Spain the right to be thus addressed is a privilege of the grandees.
COUSINS, SAMUEL (1801–1887), English mezzotint engraver, was born at Exeter on the 9th of May 1801. He was preeminently the interpreter of Sir Thomas Lawrence, his contemporary. During his apprenticeship to S. W. Reynolds he engraved many of the best amongst the three hundred and sixty little mezzotints illustrating the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds which his master issued in his own name. In the finest of his numerous transcripts of Lawrence, such as “Lady Acland and her Sons,” “Pope Pius VII.” and “Master Lambton,” the distinguishing characteristics of the engraver’s work, brilliancy and force of effect in a high key, corresponded exactly with similar qualities in the painter. After the introduction of steel
