Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/273

RhPROP. IX.———— guarded against under Proposition VII. (Obs. 2), to which reference is made in order to avoid repetition. The caveat there introduced is quite sufficient to obviate any charge of materialism which might be brought against this system, on the ground that it makes our cognisance of ourselves to depend on our cognisance of matter. The system steers completely clear of that objection, although it holds unequivocally that our cognisance of self is dependent on our cognisance of something particular, or of ourselves in some determinate state, and that this is a law binding on intelligence universally.

5. In his Treatise of Human Nature, book i. part iv. sec. vi., David Hume says: "For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other of heat, cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never catch myself at any time without a perception"—that is, unmodified in any way whatever. This is undoubtedly true. It is what Proposition IX. maintains. But Hume does not stop here; he goes on to say that he always catches his perceptions without any self. "I never can observe," says he, "anything but the perception"—in other words, I always observe that the perceptions are not mine, and do not belong to any one! This is perhaps the hardiest assertion ever hazarded in philosophy. Not content with saying that a man