Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/595

Rh circumference without also thinking of some other centre. The thought of a circumference without a centre would be a contradictory or nonsensical thought. But what is there to prevent this individual centre from thinking, without a contradiction, another whole circle (circumference and centre) as totally independent of itself ? Nothing in the world. Having got the type once given to it, namely, a centre and a circumference, it can suppose, without the smallest contradiction, that same type repeated ad infinitum. But, in supposing this, it must suppose the whole type repeated, otherwise, in supposing only half of the type (centre without circumference, or circumference without centre), a contradiction would inevitably emerge. So in regard to the " me " and the " not-me." Contradiction arises whenever the attempt is made to conceive either of these out of relation to the other. But no contradiction arises when one case of "me-plus-not-me," is conceived out of all relation to another case of "me-plus-not-me."

The difference between centre and circumference illustrates exactly the distinction between "me" and "not-me," between subject and object: it is a relation of opposition, but not a relation of independency. The difference between two whole circles illustrates exactly the distinction between one instance of object-plus-subject, and another instance