Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/101



is philosophy? Look at man struggling against the fatalistic logic of physics, and thou shalt best know what philosophy is. In the hands of physical science man lies bound hand and foot, and the iron of necessity is driven into the innermost recesses of his being; but philosophy proclaims him to be free, and rends away the fetters from his limbs like stubble-withs. Physical science, placing man entirely under the dominion of the law of causality, engulfs his moral being in the tomb; but philosophy bursts his scientific cerements, and brings him forth out of "the house of bondage" into the land of perfect liberty.

If we look into the realities of our own condition, and of nature as it operates around us, we shall be convinced of the justness of this view. We shall see that the essential character of philosophy is best