Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/206

196 left than to turn philosophy aside from following their analogy, and to guide her footsteps upon a new line and different method of inquiry. Let us, then, turn away the attention of philosophy from the facts which she does not contribute to her object (viz., the ready-made phenomena of man); and let us direct it upon the new fact which she does contribute thereto, and let us see whether greater truth and a more practical satisfaction will not now attend her investigations.

The great and only fact which philosophy, of herself, adds to the other phenomena of man, and which nothing but philosophy can add, is, as we have said, the fact that man does philosophise. The fact that man philosophises is (so often as it takes place) as much a human phenomenon as the phenomenon, for instance, of passion is, and therefore cannot legitimately be overlooked by an impartial and true philosophy. At the same time, it is plain that philosophy creates and brings along with her this fact of man; in other words, does not find it in him ready made to her hand; because, if man did not philosophise, the fact that he philosophises would, it is evident, have no manner of existence whatsoever. What, then, does this fact which philosophy herself contributes to philosophy and to man, contain, embody, and set forth, and what are the consequences resulting from it?

The act of philosophising is the act of systematically contemplating our own natural or given