528 



COUET-PLASTER 



COUSINS 



missioners of Justiciary, but by the Criminal Pro- 

 cedure ( Scotland ) Act of that year all the judges 

 are now members of that court. Since the Union 

 in 1707, several courts which had a separate exist- 

 ence, and in some cases an exclusive jurisdiction, 

 have been merged in the Court of Session. These 

 are the Court or Commission of Teinds (though this 

 still sits nominally as a separate court ), in which 

 questions relating to the law of teinds or church 

 tithes were decided ; the High Court of Admi- 

 ralty, dealing with maritime cases ; the Court of 

 Exchequer, having jurisdiction in all matters re- 

 lating to crown rents, customs, &c. ; and the Com- 

 missary Court of Edinburgh, which had to do with 

 wills. The judges of the Court of Session are 

 appointed by the crown from the bar, and hold 

 their offices ad vitam aut culpam. See APPEAL, 

 JUSTICIARY COURT. 



Court-plaster. See PLASTERS. 



Courtrai (Flem. Kortrijk], a town of Belgium, 

 in the province of West Flanders, 54 miles 

 SW. of Brussels by rail, and 6 miles from the 

 French frontier. Courtrai, which is built on both 

 sides of the Lys, is surrounded with ancient 

 walls, and has a fine old bridge flanked with 

 Flemish towers, a noble town-hall (1526), belfry, 

 and a beautiful Gothic church, founded in 1238 

 by Baldwin, Count of Flanders. Table damask, 

 linen, and lace are the principal articles of manu- 

 facture, and employ 5400 hand-looms and several 

 large factories. There are extensive bleaching- 

 grounds in the vicinity, and the neighbouring 

 plains supply fine flax in large quantities to many 

 European markets. Pop. (1875) 27,076; (1893) 

 31,319. In 1302 the Flemings, citizens of Ghent 

 and Bruges chiefly, won a splendid victory over the 

 chivalry of France beneath the walls of Courtrai, 

 called ' Battle of the Spurs,' from the number of 

 gilt spurs afterwards gathered from the dead by 

 the victors. Henry VIII. 's 'Battle of the Spurs' 

 was fought at Guinegate (q.v.) in 1513. 



Courts of Law. See COMMON LAW, CHAN- 

 CERY, EQUITY, APPEAL, HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE, 

 COURT OF SESSION, COUNTY COURTS, ADMIRALTY 

 COURTS, DIVORCE, &c. 



Cousin (Fr., from Low Lat. cosinus ; for Lat. 

 consobrinus), a kinsman ; more specifically the son 

 or daughter of an uncle or aunt. The children 

 of brothers or sisters are cousins- german (german 

 being the Lat. germanus, 'brother'). The children 

 of cousins-german are second cousins; and if A 

 and B are cousins, A is a, first cousin once removed 

 to the children of B, as B is to the children of A. 

 See CONSANGUINITY. 



Cousin, VICTOR, the founder of systematic 

 eclecticism in modern philosophy, was born in 

 Paris, November 28, 1792. He studied with 

 brilliant success at the Lycee Charlemagne and the 

 Ecole Normale. He was attracted to the study of 

 philosophy by Laromiguiere, a disciple of Locke and 

 Condillac ; but appointed in 1815 assistant-professor 

 to Royer-Collard at the Faculty of Letters, he threw 

 himself heartily into the reaction against the 

 eensualistic philosophy and literature of the 18th 

 Lentury. Following the path of his senior, he 

 became an exponent of the doctrines of the Scottish 

 metaphysicians, but exhibited far more brilliancy 

 than the original authors of these doctrines. In 

 1817 Cousin visited Germany, and already intro- 

 duced to its bolder speculative systems, he now 

 zealously studied Kant, Jacobi, Fichte, Schelling, 

 and Hegel. For his liberalism he was in 1821 

 deprived of his offices ; and in a second visit to 

 Germany in 1824-1825, suspected of carbonarism, 

 he was arrested at Dresden, presumably at the 

 instigation of the French police, and sent to 

 Berlin, where he was detained for six months. 



He took advantage of his compulsory residence in 

 the capital of Prussia further to study the philo- 

 sophy of Hegel. On his return to France he took 

 a decided stand against the reactionary policy of 

 Charles X., and in 1827 was reinstated in his 

 chair at the Sorbonne. Meanwhile he had ap- 

 peared as an author. During 1820-27 he published 

 his editions of Proclus and Descartes and part of 

 his celebrated translation of Plato. It has been 

 said that to find an audience as numerous and 

 as passionately interested as were those of Cousin, 

 it would be necessary to go back to the days of 

 Abelard. Cousin threw great moral earnestness 

 into his work ; his doctrines were for the most part 

 new to his hearers, bold, and in harmony with the 

 spirit of the time. The finest qualities of the 

 national genius appeared in his lectures, a wonder- 

 ful lucidity of exposition, a beauty of style such 

 as few philosophers have equalled, and a power 

 of co-ordinating the facts of history and philosophy 

 in such a manner as to make each illustrate the 

 other. At this period Cousin was one of the most 

 influential leaders of opinion in Paris ; and conse- 

 quently, after the revolution of 1830, when his 

 friend Guizot became prime-minister, Cousin was 

 made a member of the Council of Public Instruction ; 

 in 1832 a peer of France ; and later, Director of 

 the Ecole Normale. The great success of his efforts 

 for the organisation of primary instruction was 

 largely a consequence of those valuable reports 

 which he drew up, from personal observation, on 

 the state of public education in Germany and 

 Holland. In 1840 he was elected a member of the 

 Academic des Sciences Morales et Politiques, and in 

 the same year became Minister of Public Instruc- 

 tion in the cabinet of Thiers. The revolution of 



1848 found in Cousin a friend rather than an enemy, 

 and he aided the government of Cavaignac. After 



1849 he disappeared from public life. In his last 

 years he lived in a suite of rooms in the Sorbonne, 

 and he died at Cannes, 13th January 1867. 



His philosophy is eclecticism, but not mere 

 syncretism. He has a definite criterion of truth, 

 and a definite method of observation, analysis, 

 and induction ; his system comprises psychology, 

 ontology, and an eclectic history of philosophy. 

 Psychological observation gives three great factors 

 sensibility, activity or liberty, and reason, the 

 latter being impersonal. Cousin repudiates pan- 

 theism, with which he has often been charged ; and 

 criticising the opposing systems of sensationalism, 

 idealism, scepticism, and mysticism as incomplete 

 rather than false, he holds that each expresses a 

 real order of phenomena and ideas. Cousin's 

 influence revived the study of philosophy in France, 

 and especially renewed interest in the history of 

 philosophy. Amongst his pupils more or less 

 influenced by his teaching are Jouffroy, Remusat, 

 Barthelemy St Hilaire, Jules Simon, and Janet. 



Cousin's chief works (besides those already 

 mentioned) are Fragmens Philosophiques (1826), 

 Cours de VHistoire de la Philosophic (1827), Cours 

 d'Histoire de la Philosophic Moderne (1841 ), Cours 

 d'Histoire de la Philosophic Morale au XV III' Siecle 

 (1840-41), Leg ons de Philosophic s^lr A ant (1842), 

 jStudes sur les Femmes et la ISociete du XVII' Siecle 

 (1853), his famous Du Vrai, du Beau, et du Bien 

 (1854; 23d ed. 1881), works on Aristotle, Locke, 

 Kant, and Pascal, and his editions of Abelard and 

 Pascal's Pensees. See Sir W. Hamilton's critique 

 in the Discussions; Janet, Victor Cousin et son 

 (Euvre (1885); Jules Simon's Monograph (1887; 

 trans, by Masson, 1888); and Bartlielemy St 

 Hilaire, Victor Cousin, sa Vie et Correspondance 

 (3 vols. 1895). 



Cousins, SAMUEL, engraver, was born 9th 

 May 1801 at Exeter, and was apprenticed to S. W. 

 Reynolds, the excellent mezzotinter, in many of 



