Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/183

Rh consciousness began to reassert itself, and to regain its place, the passion, in its turn, began to give way, and, becoming diminished or suspended, the man recovered his personality. The same was observed to be the case with regard to sensation. A sensation is notoriously most absorbing when the least consciousness of it has place; and, therefore, is not the conclusion legitimate that it would be still more effective, that it would be all-absorbing, provided no consciousness of it interfered to dissolve the charm? And does not all this prove that consciousness is an act of antagonism against the modifications of man's natural being, and that, indeed, it has no office, character, or conceivability at all, unless of this antagonist and negative description?

But this act has, as it were, two sides, and although single, it fulfils a double office. We have still to show, more clearly than we have yet done, how this act, breaking up the great natural unities of sensation and of passion, at once displaces the various modifications of man's given existence, and, by a necessary consequence, places the being which was not given, namely, the "I" of humanity, the true and proper being of every man "who cometh into the world." This discussion will lead us into more minute and practical details than any we have yet encountered.

The earliest modifications of man's natural being are termed "sensations." These sensations are, like all the other changes of man's given existence, purely passive in their character. They are states of