Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/166

156 and an undeniable matter of fact. The conclusion, therefore, is inevitable and irresistible, that existence is not of one, but of two kinds; existence, to wit, for others, and existence for ourselves; and that a creature may possess the former without possessing the latter, and that, though it should lose the latter by losing consciousness, it may yet retain the former, and "live and breathe and have a being in the eyes of others."

Does some one here remark that consciousness is not our existence, but is merely the knowledge of our existence? Then we beg such a person to consider what would become of his existence, with respect to him, if he were deprived of the knowledge of it. Would it not be, in so far as he was concerned, precisely on the footing of a nonentity? One's knowledge, therefore, or consciousness of existence, is far more than mere consciousness of existence. It is the actual ground of a species of existence itself. It constitutes existence for oneself, or personal existence; for without this consciousness a man would possess no personality, and each man's personality is his true and proper being.

Having divided existence, then, into two distinct kinds, the next question is, To what account do we propose turning the discrimination? If it is of no practical use in removing difficulties and in throwing light upon the obscurer phenomena of man, it is worthless, and must be discarded as a barren and mere hair-splitting refinement. What application,