Now, language is for us the sign or sensible representation of the intelligible, and, as every thought includes the apprehension of the intelligible, therefore to every thought language, of some sort, is essential. The reviewer stumbles, and supposes that we are accusing Cousin of being ignorant of what he is not ignorant, because he supposes that we mean by reflective reason the discursive as distinguished from the intuitive faculty of the soul, which, if he had comprehended at all our philosophy, he would have seen is not the case. Intuition with us is ideal, not empirical. It is not our act, whether spontaneous or reflective, but a divine judgment affirmed by the Creator to us, and constituting us capable of intelligence, of reason, and reasoning. Reflective reason is our reason, and the reflex of the divine judgment, or the divine reason, directly and immediately affirmed to us by the Creator in the very act of creating us. Not only discursion, then, but what both Cousin and the reviewer call intuition, or immediate apprehension, is an operation of the reflective reason. Hence, to the operation of reason in the simple, direct apprehension of the _intelligible_, as well as in discursion or reasoning, language of some sort, as a sensible medium, is necessary and indispensable. When the reviewer will prove to us that Cousin held, or in any sense admitted this, he will tell us something of Cousin that we did not know before, and we will then give him leave to abuse us to his heart's content. {113} But we have already dwelt too long on this attempt at criticism on us in the _Church Review_--a _Review_ from which, considering the general character of Episcopalians, we expected, if not much profound philosophy or any very rigid logic, at least the courtesy and fairness of the well-bred gentleman, such as we might expect from a cultivated and polished pagan. We regret to say that we have been disappointed. It sets out with a promise to discuss the character of Dr. Brownson as a philosopher, and confines itself to a criticism on an article in our magazine without the slightest allusion to a single one of that gentleman's avowed writings. Even supposing, which the _Review_ has no authority for supposing, that Dr. Brownson wrote the article on Cousin, that article was entitled to be treated gravely and respectfully; for no man in this country can speak with more authority on Cousin's philosophy, for no one in this country has had more intimate relations with the author, or was accounted by him a more trust worthy expositor of his system.