Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/386

358PROP. XVII.———— always do overlook, or attend to very slightly in our ordinary moods, is and was, nevertheless, there all the while, essentially and necessarily there, and present to our mind, along with every sensible thing that comes before it—that, namely, which Plato calls an idea—that which this system calls, perhaps more intelligibly, ourselves. When this element is found out, the whole material universe still presents to us precisely the same appearance as before; because, of course, the mere finding out this element is by no means equivalent to putting it there. It was there all along, and it was apprehended as there all along. The only difference is, that we attended hitherto so slightly to its presence, as almost actually to think that it was not there. Hence our inadvertency in supposing that we apprehended things by and in themselves—that is, things with the element of their intelligibility, the ground of their apprehensibility taken away. This cardinal contradiction philosophy corrects. And surely common sense, when enlightened by philosophy, and not blinded, as she usually is, by psychology, will adopt this correction as one of her own most genuine and undoubted children,—and to this extent at least, will become perfectly reconciled with speculation, and a convert to her ways of thinking. The universe presents exactly the same appearance to speculation which it does to common sense; only with this difference, that