Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/263

RhPROP. VIII.———— . To attempt to conceive it as some particular thing, by affixing to it some peculiar or distinctive mark, would be to reduce it from universality to particularity—in other words, would be to destroy the conception of mind in the very act of forming it.

11. This observation brings us to close quarters with the fundamental error both of the materialist and the spiritualist. The fundamental error of the materialist does not consist in his holding the mind, or ego, to be a material substance or a material result. That is no doubt wrong; but the feeding or mother blunder consists in his supposing that it is a particular substance or a particular result. It is only through his occupation of the latter position that the materialist is able to maintain with any show of meaning that the mind is some sort of matter, or some sort of dependency on organisation. Whether it is this—whether it be any particular thing or particular dependency—is, as we have said, not the question. It is certain that it cannot be known as such. It can be known only as the universal part, in contradistinction to the particular part, of every cognition. It therefore can be conceived only as this: and every attempt to conceive it as some form of matter, or as some result of matter, must necessarily be a failure, and must terminate in no conception of it at all. A moderate degree of