Page:(1856) Scottish Philosophy—The Old and the New.pdf/28

28 truly exists, is one which either actually is, or may possibly be, known. But the only material world which either actually is, or may possibly be, known, is one, along with which intelligence is, and must be, also known. Therefore, the only material world which truly exists, is one, along with which, intelligence also exists. Therefore, the mere material world, has no real and absolute existence. But neither is it a nonentity (I am no idealist), for there is no nonentity, any more than there is entity out of relation to all intelligence. It is simply an expression of nonsense. That is my reasoning, and if any one can propose an amendment on the syllogism, I shall very willingly receive it. Of course it requires much explanation, which is abundantly supplied in the Institutes, to render it perfectly clear and convincing. Its conclusion is not my conclusion, more than it is any other man's conclusion. It follows just as inevitably, from putting the premises together (and the premises are obtained in the same inevitable way), as a neutral salt follows, when an acid and an alkali are brought into combination. The conclusions of a demonstrated philosophy are no more the peculiar opinions of an individual thinker, than the muscles of the human body are the peculiar muscles of an individual anatomist.

In the passage in his pamphlet, bearing on what he calls this second result of my system, Mr Cairns says,—"Professor Ferrier's attempt to put the mind outside, as a part of the external object of perception, is a mere confusion of his own." It is no mere confusion of mine, for I never made any such attempt. Any such attempt would be utterly destructive to my system, which demands, as the very condition of its existence, that the mind shall not be made a part of the external object of perception. It holds that the one part of every total object of perceptive knowledge, must be the inner mind itself, while the other part is the outer thing. Mr Cairns has a foot-note on this point (Exam. p. 15), where he seems to have caught for a moment a glimmering of light from the Institutes, but where he instantly plunges into still deeper darkness, taxing me with an obfuscation, which exists nowhere but in his own brains. If I were to make the "me" (or mind), as he says in that