Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/154

144 presented to thee, the element or act of negation; that is, as we shall show, of freedom.

Sensation in man is found to be, first of all, a unity, and at this time there is no ego or non-ego at all in the case; but afterwards it becomes a duality, and then there is an ego and a non-ego. But, in the latter case, it is obvious that very different circumstances are connected with sensation, and very different elements are found along with it, than are found in it when it is a unity: there is, for instance, the fact of negation, the non which is interposed between the subject and the object; and there are also, of course, any other facts into which this one may resolve itself.

Moreover, it is evident that, but for this act of negation or division, there would be no ego, or non-ego. Take away this element, and the sensation is restored to its first unity, in which these, being undiscriminated, were virtually non-existent. For it is obvious that, unless a man discriminates himself as "I" from other things, he does not exist as "I." The ego and the non-ego, then, only are by being discriminated, or by the one of them being denied (not in thought or word only, but in a primary and vital act) of the other. But consciousness also is the discrimination between the ego and the non-ego; or, in other words, consciousness resolves itself, in its clearest form, into an act of negation.

In order, then, to throw the strongest light we can on consciousness, we must ascertain the value and