Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/279

RhPROP. IX.———— but not what they called the essence of things. With the old philosophers the essence of things was precisely that part of them of which a clear conception could be formed: with you of the modern school it is precisely that part of them of which there can be no conception. Whether anything is gained by thus changing the meaning of words, is another question; but certainly it is rather hard treatment dealt out to the early speculators, first to have the meaning of their language reversed by modern psychology, and then to be knocked on the head for carrying on inquiries which are absurd under the new signification, but not at all absurd under the old one.

12. Considered, however, even as a matter of nomenclature, the change is to be deprecated. The reversal has resulted in nothing but confusion, and the propagation of unsound metaphysical doctrine. The essence of the mind, and the mind per se, are nowadays held to be identical; and these terms are employed by psychology to express some occult basis or unknown condition of the mind. That the mind per se is absolutely inconceivable (although for a reason very different from that alleged by psychology) is undoubted. But the essence of the mind is, of all things, the most comprehensible. The essence of the mind is simply the knowledge which it has of itself, along with all that it is