Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/169

Rh they contradict the facts of experience; and a fact of experience we maintain it to be (let people conceive or not as they please or can), that man's true Being follows and arises out of man's act, that man, properly speaking, cannot be said to be until he acts; that consciousness is an act, and that our proper existence, being identical and convertible with our personality, which results from consciousness, is not the antecedent but the consequent of that act.

Need we say anything further in enforcement and illustration of this very extraordinary fact? Every man will admit that his true Being is that which for him is "I." Now suppose no man had ever thought himself "I," would he ever have become "I," or possessed a proper personal Being? Certainly not. It is only after thinking oneself "I," and in consequence of thinking oneself "I," that one becomes "I." But thinking oneself "I" is an act, the act of consciousness. Therefore the act of consciousness is anterior to the existence of man, therefore man is in Act before he is truly and properly in Being; or, in other words, he performs an act before he has an existence (i.e., a standing out) for himself.

But how can man act before he is? Perhaps we cannot perfectly explain the How, but we can state, and have stated the That, namely, that the fact is so. But at the same time we beg it to be understood that it is only in one sense that this is true. We would not be misunderstood. We here guard ourselves from the imputation of saying that in every sense