five or six centuries ago, when they knew nothing about
public affairs except from roving minstrels, when they
passed the evening twilight not over stupid books but in
rustic games, and when with simple faith in God and their
king they did not generally consider themselves responsible



WILLIAM LAW SYMONDS 467

for the course of their country and did not ask what was
going to become of the universe.

History is but the play of two principles — one of cen-
tralization and one of individualism. Our government, by
its national and state departments, adopts both and har-
monizes them. In the vast sweep of our dominion we rival
the greatest empires, in the buoyancy of our rule, the flexi-
bility of the rod, we rival the most turbulent oligarchies.
W r e have the fixity of central predominance and the mo-
bility of state rights, imperial strength and republican vi-
tality in every part — Ghibelline splendor and Guelph inde-
pendence — the charm of Catholicism and the charm of pro-
test. With this constitution we have obtained a territorv in
the North, the South, and the territories, more than ten
times that of the original thirteen states, and more than
twenty times that of the British Islands. Five of our West-
ern territories are, on the average, each as large as France.
As nearly as I can calculate, our whole domain is about
three times as large as that held by Alexander when he had
conquered the world, and about twice as large as the Roman
Empire under the mightiest Caesar. Theorists had just an-
nounced the formula that a small democracy might flourish,
but a large one must go to pieces, when the application of
steam to locomotives brought the extremest parts of our
territory practically as near together as the Piraeus and Eleu-
sis in ancient Attica — and, moreover, the Cabinet at Wash-
ington might hear by the telegraph a report from every state
in the Union every morning after breakfast as comfortably
as an English country gentleman listens to the report of his
steward.

Thus one characteristic of our political liberty is that it is
liberty combined with the prestige of empire, it is liberty
without disintegration and order without despotism. It is
popular government, but popular government on the scale
of kings — every element which enters into the national prob-
lem being an organized State. This balance of opposing



468 WILLIAM LAW S\ MONDS

principles is very delicate, and unless it is completely suc-
cessful probably would not succeed at all. Let secession
once be recognized and there would be no end to it. Con-
stant and repeated disintegration would follow, and would
hurry us into mediaeval and Mexican disorder, till we de-
served a place only in the annals of barbarism. There would
be wars within wars, wars of states, of races, of sections, of
interests, of religions, of reckless ambitions, all blending to-
gether in the tragedy of the times till chaos and old night
had fully returned upon us. The twentieth century would
mark a new downfall of the world, as the fifth did of old.
So that with all our liberty, we have got to be imperial
or barbarous. We are to be the dominant power on this
continent, or this continent is going to illustrate anything
but the harmony of the spheres for the next 1,000 years.



VICTOR COUSIN.

Victor Cousin, eminent philospher, born in Paris, Nov.
28, 1792, died at Cannes, Jan. 15, 1867. His father was a
clock-maker, a disciple of Jean Jacques Rousseau and a
revolutionist. The first public school that he attended was
the lycee Charlemagne, where he gained the highest prizes.
Especially interested in rhetoric, the imitative arts and
music, he determined to make literature his vocation, and
as a distinguished student his name was in 181 1 placed first
on the list of pupils admitted into the newly organized nor-
mal school. He became assistant Greek professor in this
school in 1812, master of the conferences in 1814, held a
chair in the lycee Napoleon (soon after called College Bour-
bon), and during the hundred days was enrolled in the elite
corps of royal volunteers. " Meantime his attention had been
diverted from belles-lettres to philosophy. The attractive
lectures of Laromiguiere, one of the society of Auteuil, and
the most graceful of the followers of Condillac, first inter-
ested him in sensationalism or ideology, the reigning philoso-
phy of the 18th century. The first who openly revolted
from the authority of Condillac was Royer-Collard, who de-
veloped in France the theories of the Scottish school, and
of whom Cousin was the favorite pupil. When at the close
of 181 5 Royer-Collard was raised to civil office under the
restoration, Cousin became his successor as deputy 7 profes-
sor of philosophy in the Sorbonne, and for five years he
lectured both at the university and the normal school. From
the speculations of Maine de Biran concerning the will he
derived the germs of his ideas of personality, causality and
liberty ; and his earliest courses followed the system of Reid,
and were devoted in general to an exposition of ideal truth.

469



470 WILLIAM LAW SYMONDS

He spent the vacations of 1817 and 1818 in Germany, ac-
quainting- himself with the literature and thinkers of that
country ; and the metaphysics of Kant tinged the lectures de-
livered after his return. In 1821, in consequence of the
royalist reaction in the state, his views of free agency were
thought to have a political intent, and his course was in-
definitely suspended. The next year the normal school was
closed by a royal ordinance. The leisure thus afforded he
occupied in prosecuting his editions of Proclus (6 vols.,
Paris, i820-'27) and Descartes (11 vols., 1826), and his
translation of Plato, with summaries, on which he employed,
like Raphael, the labor of his pupils subject to his own re-
vision (13 vols., 1825-40). He also took charge of the edu-
cation of a son of Marshal Lannes, and in 1824 visited Ger-
many with his pupil. He was arrested at Dresden, on sus-
picion of being an accomplice of the Carbonari, was taken
to Berlin, where he suffered a captivity of six months, and
was visited in prison by Hegel, whose philosophy was then
predominant in Germany. He also became intimately ac-
quainted with Schleiermacher and Schelling. Returning to
Paris, he published in 1826 the first series of his Fragments
phi'losophiques (followed by a series of Nouveaux frag-
ments in 1828), and favored the increasing liberal party.
In 1827 the Villele ministry was supplanted by that of Mar-
tignac, and he was restored to the chair of philosophy in the
Sorbonne, with Guizot and Villemain for colleagues. The
successful triumvirate at once attracted audiences to the uni-
versity unexampled in numbers and enthusiasm since the
time of Abelard. Stenographic reports of their lectures
were distributed throughout France. Cousin had already
unfurled the banner of eclecticism in the preface to his
Fragments philosophiqnes, and he now fully developed the
theory that four systems of philosophy have alternately pre-
vailed, each of which is a partial truth, and that the human
mind can escape from past error only by uniting the ele-
ments of truth contained in each system, so as to form a



WILLIAM LAW SYMONDS 471

composite and complete philosophy. He found in the East,
in Greece, in mediaeval scholasticism, and in all modern
speculations, only different phases of sensualism, idealism,
skepticism, and mysticism. His forte lay in developing a
system from its central principle till it took in the universe
in its consequences. His eloquence was at once impetuous
and grave, and his style and splendid language recalled the
stateliness of the old French classics. The students, accus-
tomed to the calm dissertations of the sensationalists, fol-
lowed with admiration his adventurous flight. He was the
first to unfold to French audiences the speculations and
strange technology of the German philosophical develop-
ment from Kant to Hegel, giving popular expression to
theories of the absolute. His lectures derived additional
interest from the political temper of the time, a liberal audi-
ence gladly discovering political allusions in the words of a
liberal professor. At this period Cousin enjoyed his highest
reputation. He took no part in the revolution of 1830, but
immediately after dedicated a volume of Plato to the mem-
ory of one of his pupils who had fallen in the fight. He
soon became councillor of state, member of the royal council
of public instruction, officer of the legion of honor, titular
professor in the Sorbonne, member of the French academy,
to succeed Baron Fourier (1830), and of the academy of
moral and political sciences at its foundation, director of
the re-established normal school, and peer of France (1832).
He reorganized the system of primary instruction in France,
arranged the plan of studies which is still retained in the
normal school, and visited Prussia (1833) and Holland
(1837) to observe the institutions of public instruction, con-
cerning which he published full and valuable reports, which
were translated into English by Mrs. Austin. He urged
that national instruction should be associated with religion
and founded on the Christian principle, and maintained that
education which is not specially religious is likely to be
hurtful rather than beneficial, illustrating this view in



472 WILLIAM LAW SYMONDS

speeches delivered In the chamber of peers. In 1S40 he be-
came- minister of public instruction iii the cabinet of Thiers,
which lasted but eight m< nths. In [844 he gained his great-
est parliamentary distinction by his speech in the chamber
of peers in defence of the university and of philosophy.
Though surprised by the revolution of [848, he gave it his
aid, and began the series of publications undertaken by the
institute- at the request of Gen. Cavaignac in behalf of popu-
lar morality. He issued an edition of Rousseau's Profession
de foi du vicaire Savoyard, and in short treatises entitled
Philosophic populairc and Justice ct char it e combated the
doctrines of socialism. He had become after 1830 one of
the writers for the Journal des Savants and the Revue des
Deux Mondes, in which many of the articles composing his
volumes of Fragments de philosophic ancicuuc, frag-
ments de philosophic scholastique, Fragments de philosophic
moderne, Fragments litteraires, and other collections,, first
appeared. His other chief philosophical publications are, an
introduction to the history of philosophy (1828), a history
of philosophy in the 18th century (1829), a translation of
Tennemann's history of philosophy (1829), a treatise on the
metaphysics of Aristotle (1838), lectures on the philosophy
of Kant (1842), lectures on moral philosophy delivered be-
tween 1816 and 1820 (i840- , 4i), a work entiled Du vrai,
du beau, et du bien (1853), and editions of the Sic et Non
of Abelard (1836), of the works of Maine de Biran (1834-
'41), of the Pensees of Pascal (1842), of the works of An-
dre (1843), an d of the works of Abelard (1849). One of
the most acceptable fruits of his research is the recovery of
the original MS. of the Pensees sur la religion of Pascal.
The biography of Jacqueline Pascal (1849) 1S founded chief-
ly on inedited or unknown documents. — As a philospher,
the plan of Cousin was to publish systems, and from sys-
tems to deduce an eclectic philosophy. The reason, in his
view, has spontaneous consciousness of absolute truths, and
furnishes to the mind ideas of infinite objects which could



WILLIAM LAW SYMONDS 473

not be formed by any power of abstraction from observation
of particular, finite and contingent things ; to know these
ideas is the aim of philosophy, and the reason would be per-
fectly cognizant of them if it were not misled by the senses,
passions and imagination. There is something true in
every system of philosophy, since error can never reach to
utter extravagance ; this element of truth exists in the rea-
son, and may be found by impartial examination of the con-
sciousness and of the history of humanity. From the
drama of changing systems, which is the history of philoso-
phy, let the truth which constitutes the positive side of every
system be taken, exclusive of whatever constitutes its nega-
tive and false side ; the ideas thus obtained will furnish a
spectacle of the universal consciousness, and will be the
sum of eclectic philosophy. If the question be raised con-
cerning the authority of the reason, and the certainty that
its ideas are universal truths, Cousin, in order to answer,
passes from psychology to ontology. Human reason, he
says, is not a part of the human personality, but in its nature
impersonal, absolute and infallible, the logos of Pythagoras
and Plato, a mediator between God and man ; its qualities
are those precisely opposed to individuality, namely, uni-
versality and necessity ; and its spontaneous ideas rightly
understood are revelations of a world unknown to man.
This theory finds its completion in theodicy. As every
phenomenon implies a substance, as our faculties, volitions
and sensations imply a person to whom they belong, so ab-
solute truths have their last foundation in an absolute being,
and ideal truth, beauty and goodness are not mere abstrac-
tions, but are the attributes of the infinite Being whom we
call God. Electicism is rightly regarded bv Cousin in his
work on the true, the beautiful, and the good, the last ex-
pression of his opinions, less as a doctrine than as a banner,
as less an instrument of philosophy than of morality ;
as less effective to discover truth than to advance virtue.
He has suppressed the words in his Fragments philoso-



474 WILLIAM LAW SVMONDS

phiques in which he affirmed the system of Schelling to be
true, though Schelling had then declared for "cither Bruno
or absolute unity" ; and with less reliance upon metaphysics,
he maintains the spirit and tendency of all his speculations
to promote that philosophy which began with Socrates and
Flato ; which the gospel spread through the world; which
Descartes subordinated to the severe forms of modern
genius, and which always contributes to subject the senses
of the mind, and to elevate and ennoble man. — His latest
publications have been histories and biographies illustrat-
ing French society in the seventeenth century. In the
stately proprieties and careful speaking and writing which
distinguished the period of the Fronde and of the hotel de
Rambouillet he finds admirable examples of conversation,
festive entertainments, heroic actions, noble sentiments,
and great characters. His series of studies on Madame de
Longueville (1853), Madame de Sable (1854), Madame
de Chevreuse and Madame de Hautefort (1856), and that
entitled La societe Francaise au XVII e siecle, d'apres le
Grand Cyrus de Mile, de Scudery (1858), have the same
elevation of thought and sentiment, the same poetical and
eloquent style, which mark his discussions and histories of
philosophy ; and like many of these, also, they abound in
dates, citations, documents, and annotations.



Note. — In a revised edition of the American Cyclopaedia,
published after the death of Mr. Symonds, the passage
closing his article on Cousin, above printed, was, by another
hand, presumably that of Dr. Ripley, changed, partly para-
phrased, and, as to details, augmented, so as to read as
follows :

Cousin was more learned than original. He was al-
ternately under the influence of the Scotch and the Ger-
man schools of philosophy, and did not found any well de-
fined school of his own. His eclecticism does not survive



WILLIAM LAW SYMONDS 475

him. Yet he gave to abstruse subjects the charm of his
vivid and eloquent style, and will always be remembered as
a metaphysician and psychologist. The last 15 years of his
life were devoted to histories and biographies illustrating
French society in the 17th century. His series of studies
on Mme. de Longueville (1853), Mme. de Sable (1854),
Mme. de Chevreuse and Mme. de Hautefort (1856), and
that entitled La societe francaise an XVII e Steele, d'apres
le Grand Cyrus de Mile, de Scudcry (1858), have the same
elevation of thought and sentiment, the same poetical and
eloquent style, which mark his discussions and histories of
philosophy. His later works are: Histoire generate de phil-
osophie (1864), La jeunessc de Mme. de Longueville (4th
ed., enlarged, 1864), and La jeunesse de Mazarin (1865).
A complete edition of his works up to that time was pub-
lished in 1847, in 22 vols. Cousin was economical even to
parsimony, and accumulated a considerable fortune. His
library, containing 14,000 volumes, especially rich in memo-
rials of the 17th century, was bequeathed to the college of
the Sorbonne, with a fund for its preservation. A monu-
ment to his memory was erected in the courtyard of the Sor-
bonne, March 1, 1873.



COLERIDGE.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet and philoso-
pher, born at Ottery St. Alary, Devonshire, Oetober 21,
1772, died at Highgate, London, July 25, 1834. He was
the youngest child of a learned and singularly amiable
clergyman, and became an orphan at the age of nine years.
By the kindness of a friend he was presented to Christ's
hospital, in London, where he received the principal part
of his education, and began a lifelong intimacy with Charles
Lamb, who was one of his school-fellows. His juvenile
character prefigured his future career. He was a playless
day-dreamer, solitary and uninterested in the ordinary
amusements of childhood; yet he made great advances in
classical knowledge, and was early distinguished by rare
powers of discourse. Charles Lamb speaks of him as "the
inspired charity boy, to whom the casual passer through the
cloisters listened entranced with admiration, as he unfolded
in deep and sweet intonations the mysteries of Iamblichus
or Pindar." Before his fifteenth year he had read through
a London circulating library, catalogues, folios, and all,
and had bewildered himself in metaphysical studies and in
meditating on the problems of theology. So great was his
pleasure in abstract speculations that he describes himself
as having lost all interest in particular facts, in history or
romance, and even poetry seemed insipid to him. With-
out ambition or worldly wisdom, he at one time proposed
apprenticing himself to a shoemaker whose shop was near
the school. In his seventeenth year the sonnets of William
Lisle Bowles were presented to him, and such was his ad-
miration of them that he used frequently to transcribe them
for presents to the friends for whom he had most regard.

476



WILLIAM LAW SYMONDS 477

These simple poems recalled his idealizing mind to a juster
estimate and love of realities, and having in 1791 become
deputy Grecian, or head scholar, at Christ's hospital, he ob-
tained a presentation thence to Jesus College, Cambridge.
He remained in the university but two years, during which
he paid no attention to mathematics, but gained the prize
for a Greek ode. At the outbreak of the French revolution
he became obnoxious to his superiors from his acceptance
of the revolutionary principles. With an enthusiastic and
hopeful view of human nature, and an impetuous zeal in the
cause of freedom, he hailed the early events of that epoch
of continental history as the promise of a new era. His
feelings at this period form the theme of one of his odes,
entitled "France," and pronounced by Shelley the finest ode
of modern times. Suddenly leaving Cambridge in the midst
of his university career, he wandered about for a day or two
in London, gave his last penny to a beggar, and enlisted in
a regiment of cavalry under the assumed name of Comber-
back. The poet, however, made but an awkward dragoon,
and wrote letters for his comrades while they attended to
his horse and accoutrements. After four months' service,
a Latin sentence which he had inscribed on the stable wall
under his saddle revealed his scholarship, and the captain
of his troop, having succeeded in learning his real history,
restored him to his friends. He now became associated at
Bristol with two other poetical enthusiasts, Southey, a stu-
dent from Oxford, and Lovell, a young Quaker. Southey,
like Coleridge, was an ardent republican and Unitarian,
and for his faith had just forfeited the honors of Oxford.
These three conceived a splendid scheme of emigration.
They determined to found amid the wilds of the Susque-
hanna a commonwealth which was to be free from the evils
and turmoils which then agitated the world, in which a com-
munity of goods was to be enjoyed, and from which selfish-
ness was to be proscribed. But this scheme of pantisocracy,
as it was termed, failed from want of money and from other



478 WILLIAM LAW SYMONDS

practical difficulties; and the three pantisocratists, having
married in 1795 three sisters, the Misses Fricker of Bristol,
began to turn their attention to the reformation of England.
Coleridge had already collected a small volume of his juve-
nile poems, for which he had received thirty guineas from a
benevolent and appreciative publisher, Mr. Joseph Cottle;
and he now entered upon an undertaking from which he
expected great results, namely, the establishment of a peri-
odical in prose and verse to be entitled "The Watchman,"
and to advocate liberal opinions. He himself canvassed the
northern manufacturing towns for subscribers, preaching
wherever he stayed on Sunday in Unitarian chapels, and
returned with a subscription list full of promise. Yet the
periodical, owing partly to a want of punctuality in its issue,
partly to its learned philosophical contents, and partly to the
fact that its opinions were not those which its supporters had
expected, was dropped at the tenth number with a loss. In
1796 Coleridge took a cottage at Nether Stowey, in Somer-
setshire, where his means were increased by receiving into
his family a Cambridge friend and poet, Charles Lloyd, the
son of a wealthy banker, who, merely from love and admi-
ration, had proposed living with him. He published in 1796,
in connection with Charles Lamb, a small volume of poems,
the greater number of his own contributions to which had
been written at earlier periods ; and to a second edition in
the next year verses were added by Lloyd. Wordsworth
having moved to Allfoxden, about two miles from Stowey,
the kindred feelings of the two poets united them in the
closest friendship. They rambled together over the Somer-
set hills, discussing the principles of poetry and planning
their famous lyrical ballads. It was in this happiest period
of Coleridge's life that he wrote his most beautiful poetry,
the first part of "Christabel," the "Ancient Mariner," and
the "Ode to the Departing Year" ; and a mutual resolution
of the poets to write a play produced his tragedy of "Re-
morse." He received in 1798 an invitation to become a



WILLIAM LAW SYMONDS 479

Unitarian minister in Shrewsbury, and preached his proba-
tion sermon there, the great impression produced by which
has been recorded by Hazlitt, who was one of his audience ;
but he did not preach again. The munificence of Josiah
Wedgwood enabled him to visit Germany, and immediately
after the publication of the "Lyrical Ballads" he and
Wordsworth set out upon the journey together. He at-
tended the lectures of Blumenbach and Eichhorn at Got-
tingen, formed an acquaintance with Tieck, and obtained a
familiarity with German literature and philosophy. At no
other period of his life did he work so industriously as
during his residence in Germany ; and on his return in 1800
he brought back, in addition to his mental acquisitions, a
large collection of materials for a life of Lessing. He
passed six months in London engaged in translating Schil-
ler's "Wallenstein," and in writing for the Morning Post;
after which he joined Southey, who had settled at Keswick,
amid the lakes and mountains of the north of England, in
the neighborhood of Wordsworth, who resided at Grasmere.
His opinions had now changed ; the republican had become
a royalist, and the Unitarian a devoted champion of the
established church. In 1804 he went to Malta, hoping to im-
prove his health, and acted as secretary to Sir Alexander
Ball, the governor. He returned in 1806 by the way of
Sicily and Italy, his health not improved ; nor was improve-
ment to be expected, since he went to Malta an opium eater
and returned with the habit growing upon him. His nom-
inal residence from this time till 18 10 was at Keswick, but
his absences were frequent, and his returns, according to