Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/190

180 an act of negation, in virtue of which they are what they are; and that this act constitutes that link (or rather unlink) between body and mind, if we must call the "I" by that name, which many philosophers have sought for, and which many more have declined the search of out of despair of ever finding it.

We must here guard our readers against a delusive view of this subject which may be easily taken up. It may still, perhaps, be conceived that "mind," or the "I," is immediately given, is sent into the world, as we have said, ready-made, and that it puts forth this act of negation out of the resources of its natural being. Such a doctrine borrows its support, as we have already hinted, from what are called "the laws of human thoughts," but is utterly discountenanced by facts; that is to say, by the sources themselves from whence these laws are professedly, although, as it appears, incorrectly deduced. This doctrine directly reverses the truth of facts and the real order of things. It furnishes us with a notable instance of that species of misconception and logical transposition technically called a hysteron-proteron; in vulgar language, it places the cart before the horse. For, as we have all along seen, the being "I" arises out of this act of negation, and therefore this act of negation cannot arise out of the being "I." All the evidence We can collect on the subject, every ray of light that falls upon it, proves and reveals it to be a fact, that the act of negation precedes the being "I," is the