Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/147

Rh

Cartesian philosophy is said to commence by inculcating a species of wide and deep-searching scepticism; and its fundamental and favourite tenet is that Cogito, ergo sum, which is now so universally decried. But abandoning altogether its written dogmas and formulas, let us only return upon them after we have looked forth for ourselves into the realities of things.

When a man sees and thinks a mountain, it is obvious that his thought does not create the mountain. Here, then, the thought and the reality are not identical; nor does the one grow out of the other. The two can be separated, and, in point of fact, stand apart, and are quite distinct. In this case, then, it requires some degree of faith to believe that the notion and the reality correspond. It is evident that there is a sort of flaw between them which nothing but the cement of Faith can solder; a gap which no scientific ingenuity has ever been able to bridge; in short, that here there is a chink in the armour of reason which scepticism may take advantage of if it