Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/111

Rh beg to call the attention of the reader to three other problems, which may be said to constitute the very vitals of the science of ourselves. These are, first, When does consciousness come into operation? Second, How does consciousness come into operation? And third, What are the consequences of its coming into operation? The discussion of these three problems will, it is thought, sufficiently exhaust this Introduction to the Philosophy of Consciousness.

First, however, let us remark that it was not possible that these problems could ever have been distinctly propounded, much less resolved, by the "philosophy of the human mind." This false science regards as its proper facts the states or phenomena of mind, or, in other words, the objects of the act of consciousness, degrading this act itself into the mere medium or instrument through which these objects are known. Thus researches concerning the nature and origin of the objects of consciousness (of sensation, for instance), and not concerning the genesis of the act itself of consciousness, constituted the problems of the science of mind. Our very familiarity with this latter fact has blunted our perception of its importance, and has turned us aside from the observation of it. Metaphysicians have been so much in the habit of considering all the mental phenomena as so evidently and indissolubly accompanied by consciousness, that the fact that they are thus accompanied being taken for granted, as a matter of course, as a necessity of nature, has been allowed to fall