Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/167

Rh then, has it to the subjects we are engaged in discussing; and, in particular, what assistance does it afford us in clearing up the great fact of Human Liberty, that key-stone in the arch of humanity, without which all our peculiar attributes, morality, responsibility, law, and justice, loosened from their mighty span would fall from their places, and disappear for ever in the blind abysses of Necessity?

In availing ourselves, then, of the assistance of this distinction, and in applying it to our purposes, the first circumstance connected with it which attracts our attention is the following fact, deserving, we may be permitted to say, of very emphatic notice; that while the one of these species of existence precedes the act of consciousness, the other of them follows that act. Our existence for others is antecedent, but our existence for ourselves is subsequent to the act of consciousness. Before a child is conscious, it exists for others; but it exists for itself only after it is conscious. Prior to consciousness, or in the absence of that act, man is a one-sided phantasmagoria; vivid on the side towards others with all the colours, the vigorous ongoings, the accomplishments, and the reality of existence; but on the other side, the side where he himself should be, but is not yet, what is there? a blank; utter nothingness. But, posterior to consciousness, and in consequence of it, this vacuity is filled up, new scenery is unfolded, and a new reality is erected on the blank side behind the radiant pageant. The man himself is now there.