Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/195

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we then to hold that man does not become "I" by compulsion, that he is not constrained to become "I"? We must hold this doctrine. No man is forced or necessitated to become "I." All the necessitated part of his Being leans the other way, and tends to prevent him from becoming "I." He becomes "I" by fighting against the necessitated part of his nature. "I" embraces and expresses the sum and substance of his freedom, of his resistance. He becomes "I" with his own consent, through the concurrence and operation of his own will.

We have as yet said little about Human Will, because "Will" is but a word; and we have all along been anxious to avoid that very common, though most fatal, error in philosophy—the error, namely, of supposing that words can ever do the business of thoughts, or can, of themselves, put us in possession of the realities which they denote. If, in philosophy, we commence with the word "Will," or with any other word denoting what is called "a faculty" of man, and keep harping on the same,