Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/218

208 manifests itself, we found to be the fact of perception. We have now to consider consciousness in its relation to those modifications of our nature which assail us from within; and here it will be found, that just as all perception originates in the antagonism between consciousness and our sensations, so all morality originates in the antagonism between consciousness and the passions, desires, or inclinations of the natural man.

We shall see that, precisely as we become percipient beings, in consequence of the strife between consciousness and sensation, so do we become moral beings in consequence of the same act of consciousness exercised against our passions, and the other imperious wishes or tendencies of our nature. There is no difference in the mode of antagonism, as it operates in these two cases; only, in the one case, it is directed against what we may call our external, and, in the other, against what we may call our internal, modifications. In virtue of the displacement or sacrifice of our sensations by consciousness, each of us becomes "I;" the ego is, to a certain extent, evolved; and even here, something of a nascent morality is displayed; for every counteraction of the causality of nature is more or less the development of a free and moral force. In virtue of the sacrifice of our passions by the same act, morality is more fully unfolded; this "I," that is, our personality, is more clearly and powerfully realised, is advanced to a higher potence; is exhibited in a brighter phase and more expanded condition.