Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/38

10 it, he puts over it a new coating of paint, and thus leaves the original masks covered over with an additional stratum of concealing visors, by which the first difficulty of attaining to the truth is very considerably augmented. So that now no question comes before the world which does not present many disguises, both natural and artificial, worn one above another; and these false-faces are continually increasing. Does matter exist or not? People actually think that that is, or ever was, a question in philosophy. It is only the outer-case masking a multiplicity of masks, which would all require to be removed before even a glimpse of the true question can be obtained. Another phantom is a mask, or rather a whole toy-shop of masks, which philosophers have been pleased to call the "Absolute;" but what they exactly mean by this name—what it is that is under these trappings,—neither those who run down the incognito, nor those who speak it fair, have ever condescended to inform us. Indeed, it may be affirmed with certainty that no man, for at least two thousand years, has seen the true flesh-and-blood countenance of a single philosophical problem.

§ 17. But how is that to be accounted for? It is to be accounted for by the circumstance, that men have supposed that in philosophy they could advance by going forwards; whereas the truth is, that they