Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/187

Rh negation; that is to say, knowledge, consciousness, perception, depend upon the restoration of the element we supposed withdrawn, and are inconceivable and impossible without it. It is therefore evident that if man, in sensation, were virtually identified with the object, were the same as it, he would never perceive it; it would never be an object to him, and just as little would he be "I." But the only way in which this virtual identification is to be avoided is by and through an implied discrimination. Then only do the "I" and "not I" emerge, and become the "I" and the "not I." But an implied discrimination involves an act of negation, either implicitly or explicitly. Therefore an act of negation, actual or virtual, is the fundamental act of humanity, is the condition upon which consciousness and knowledge depend, is the act which makes the universe an object to us, is the ground and the placer of the "I" and the "not I."

Do metaphysicians still desire information with respect to the "nature of the connection," the "mode of communication," which subsists between matter and what they term "mind"? or do they continue to regard this question as altogether insoluble? About "mind" we profess to know nothing. But if they will discard this hypothetical substance, and consent to put up with the simple word and reality "I" instead of it, we think we can throw some light on what takes place between matter and "me," and that the foregoing observations have already done so.