Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/611

Rh tree, all that I am expressly cognisant of is the tree. This at least is usually the whole—the whole that is explicit. But much more is implied. I am implied, seeing is implied, a retina is implied, a brain is implied. All these are implicated in the process. They are present and instrumental, but the tree alone is expressly known. So far, I think, Mr G. and I will agree; so far there is no ambiguity.

But a question here arises. Are these implicated elements not known at all, or are they only not known expressly? In other words, may not that which is not known expressly or explicitly be nevertheless known—known implicitly?

This is an important question. In reference to the present discussion it is all-important, and it must be answered unambiguously. For myself, I answer the question in the affirmative. I argue for implicit, as well as for explicit cognition. And I maintain that some of the elements above referred to, as implicated in my cognition of the tree, are known implicitly, and that others of them are not known at all. "I" and "seeing" are known implicitly in and along with my explicit knowledge of the tree; "retina" and "brain" are not known at all. And the ground of the distinction is this, that reflection enables me to recover and render explicit "me" and "seeing"—a circumstance which to my mind proves that these were already known implicitly, although overlooked at the time; whereas no power of reflection can reveal to me a retina or brain as having been concerned in