Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/198

188 Now the natural man, man as he is born, is clearly placed entirely under the dominion of this law. He is, as we have often said, a mere passive creature throughout. He dons the sensations and the passions that come to him, and bends before them like a sapling in the wind. But it is by no means so obvious that the conscious man, the man become "I," is also placed under jurisdiction of this law.

The "I" stands in a direct antithesis to the natural man; it is realised through consciousness, an act of antagonism against his passive modifications. Are we then to suppose that this "I" stands completely under the law of causality, or of virtual surrender, that the man entirely assents, and offers no resistance to the passive states into which he may be cast? then, in this case, no act of antagonism taking place, consciousness, of course, disappears, and the "I" becomes extinct. If, therefore, consciousness and the "I" become extinct beneath the law of causality, their appearance and realisation cannot depend upon that law, but must be brought about by a direct violation of the law of causality. If the "I" disappears in consequence of the law of causality, it must manifest itself (if it manifests itself at all) in spite of that law. If the law of virtual assent is its death, nothing but the law of actual dissent (the opposite of causality) can give it life.

Here, then, in the realisation of the "I," we find a counter-law established to the law of causality. The law of causality is the law of assent, and upon this