Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/188

178 The point at which all preceding philosophers have confessed the hiatus to be insurmountable, the hitch to be inscrutably perplexing, was not the point at which the impression was communicated to the organ of sense, was not the point where the organ communicated the impression to the nerves, was not the point where the nerves transmitted it to the brain, but was the point where the brain, or ultimate corporeal tissue, conveyed it to the "mind." Here lay the gap which no philosophy ever yet intelligibly cleared; here brooded the mist which no breath of science ever yet succeeded in dispersing. But, repudiating the hypothesis of "mind." let us use the word, and attend to the reality "I," and we shall see how the vapours will vanish, how the prospect will brighten, and how the hiatus will be spanned by the bridge of a comprehensible fact. In the first place, in order to render this fact the more palpable, let us suppose, what is not the case, that the "I" is immediately given, comes into the world ready-made, and that a sensation, after being duly impressed upon its appropriate organ of sense, and carried along the nerves into the brain, is thence conveyed into this "I." But we have just seen that, along with this transmission of sensation, there is no negation conveyed to this "I." There is nothing transmitted to it except the sensation. But we have also just seen that without a negation, virtually present at least, there could be no "I" in the case. This supposed "I," therefore, could not be a true and real "I." Its