Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/155

Rh import, and, if possible, the origin of this act of negation, this fundamental energy and vital condition upon which the peculiar being of humanity depends. And, first of all, we must beg the reader (a point we have had occasion to press upon him before) to banish from his mind the notion that this negation is a mere logical power, or form, consisting of a thought and a word. Let him endeavour to realise such a conception of it as will exhibit it to him as a vital and energetic deed by which he brings himself into existence, not indeed as a Being, but as that which he calls "I." Let him consider that, unless this deed of negation were practised by him he himself would not be here; a particular Being would, indeed, be here: but it is only by denying or distinguishing itself from other things that that being becomes a self—himself. Unless this discrimination took place, the Being would remain lost and swallowed up in the identity or uniformity of the universe. It would be only for others, not for itself. Self, in its case, would not emerge.

Am I, then, to say that "I" have been endowed by some other Being with this power of sundering myself, during sensation, from the objects causing it; am I to say that this capability has been given "me"? Given me! Why, I was not "I" until after this power was exerted; how then could it have been given "me"? There was no "me" to give it to. I became "I" only by exercising it; and after it had been exerted, what would be the advantage of