Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/211

Rh and his sensations no longer monopolise him; they have no longer the complete mastery over him. In this act he has thrust his passions from their place, and his passions have lost their supreme ascendancy. And now what is this particular kind of act? What is it but the act of consciousness, the act of becoming "I," the act of placing ourselves in the room which sensation and passion have been made to vacate? This act may be obscure in the extreme, but still it is an act of the most practical kind, both in itself and in its results; and this is what we are here particularly desirous of having noted. For what act can be more vitally practical than the act by which we realise our existence as free personal beings? and what act can be attended by a more practical result than the act by which we look our passions in the face, and, in the very act of looking at them, look them down?

Now, if consciousness be an act of such mighty and practical efficiency in real life, what must not the practical might and authority of philosophy be? Philosophy is consciousness sublimed. If, therefore, the lower and obscurer form of this act can work such real wonders and such great results, what may we not expect from it in its highest and clearest potence? If our unsystematic and undisciplined consciousness be thus practical in its results (and practical to a most momentous extent it is), how much more vitally and effectively practical must not our systematic and tutored consciousness, namely, philosophy, be?