Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/110

100 consciousness from the control or domineering action of outward objects. Thus commencing at the very circumference of man, we shall clear out an enlarged atmosphere of freedom around that true and sacred centre of his personality—his character, namely, as a moral and accountable agent.

In returning, then, to the fact of consciousness, we may remark that hitherto we have been chiefly occupied in opening out a way for ourselves, and have hardly advanced beyond the mere threshold or out-works of psychology. Regarding this fact as the great, and indeed, properly speaking, as the only fact of our science, we have done our best to separate it from any admixture of foreign elements, and, in particular, to free it from that huge encumbrance which, since the commencement of science, has kept it weighed down in obscure and vaporous abysses—the human mind, with all its facts, which are elements of a fatalistic, and therefore of an unphiosophic.al character. Imperfectly, indeed, but to the best of our ability, we have raised it up out of the depths where it has lain so long, and, blowing aside from it the mist of ages, we have endeavoured to realise it in all its purity and independence, and to make it stand forth as the most prominent, signal, and distinguishing phenomenon of humanity. But in doing this we have done little more than establish the fact that consciousness does come into operation. We still expect to be able to make its character and significance more and more plain as we advance, and now