Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/137

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earliest speculators among mankind were, as we have before remarked, mere naturalists or physici. They looked at everything and conceived everything under the law of cause and effect. After a time, when speculation began to be directed upon man, or became what is now termed "metaphysical," this law still continued to be regarded as supreme, and the spirit of the old method was carried on into the new research. But as no instance of causality could be conceived without the existence of a thing operated on, as well as of a thing operating, they were forced to postulate something in man (either physical or hyperphysical) for the objects of external nature to act upon. Thus, in order to allow the law of causality an intelligible sphere of operation, and at the same time to lift man out of the mire of a gross materialism, they devised or assumed a certain spiritualised or attenuated substance called "mind," endowed with certain passive susceptibilities as well as with various active powers; and this hypothetical substance, together with all the false facts and foolish problems it brings along with it, has been