Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/228

200PROP. VII.———— inquirer would have been this, that the factor in question must be that which we are more familiar with than we are with anything else—must be that, to find which we must have a very short way to go. For, surely, that which we always know, and cannot help knowing, must be that which we are best acquainted with, that which lies nearest to our hand, and which may be most readily laid hold of This reflection might have been expected to bring him to the question, What, then, is that which we are most familiar with, and cannot help knowing, during every conscious moment of our lives? And this question would have been followed, one might have thought, by the prompt answer, It is ourselves. Nevertheless, both the question and the answer were missed. The common element has indeed been sometimes obscurely indicated, but its importance has never been sufficiently proclaimed; its fruits have never been gathered in. The words inscribed over the porch of the temple at Delphi, —which, properly interpreted, must mean "Consider well; it is thyself, oh man, that thou art conscious of, in and along with all that comes before thee"—have been oracular in vain.

5. Several causes might be pointed out in explanation of this oversight: they are, however, mostly, if not entirely, reducible to the one great and leading cause which has been already referred to (Prop. I.,