Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/237

Rh machine, inspired and actuated throughout by the divine energies.

But, upon the slightest reflection, it is equally obvious that man could not possibly realise his own personality without being guilty of an evil act, an act not referable unto God, a Being out of whom no evil thing can come; an act in which the injunctions of the Creator must be disobeyed and set at nought: He could not, we say, realise his own personality without sinning; because his personality is realised through the act of consciousness; and the act of consciousness is, as we have all along seen, an act of antagonism put forth against whatsoever state or modification of humanity it comes in contact with. Man's paradisiacal condition, therefore, being one of supreme goodness and perfection, could not but be deteriorated by the presence of consciousness. Consciousness, if it is to come into play here, must be an act of antagonism against this state of perfect holiness, an act displacing it, and breaking up its monopoly, in order to make room for the independent and rebellious "I." In other words, it must be an act curtailing and subverting good, and therefore, of necessity, an evil act. Let us say, then, that this act was really performed, that man thereby realised his own personality: and what do we record in such a statement but the fact of man's "first disobedience" and his Fall?

The realisation of the first man's personality being thus identical with his fall, and his fall being brought