Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/140

130 Does the philosopher of mind, giving up this point, maintain that the proposition quoted has, at any rate, a true and intelligible application to us in our grown or advanced condition? Then we tell him that, in that case, the affirmation or dogma is altogether premature; because, before it can be admitted, he is bound to explain to us how the particular Being given and contemplated, which was not "I" or "me" at first, became converted into "me." Before any subsequent averment connected with this "me" can be listened to, it is first of all incumbent upon him, we say, to point out to us how this conversion is brought about; to explain to us the origin and significance of this "I," the circumstances out of which it arose; for, as we have already said, the particular Being which now appropriates it was certainly not sent into the world a born or ready-made "I."

Suppose, then, that the metaphysician should say that this Being becomes "I" under the law of causality, and beneath the action of the external objects which produce impressions upon it, then we would like to know how it happened that these outward objects, which induced the human Being's sensations at the very first, did not cause him to become "I" then. When he was first born he was just as sensitive as he ever was afterwards, no doubt more so, but for long his sensations continued pure and unalloyed. Alter a time, however, they were found to be combined with the notion and reality of self, a