Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/255

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will now conclude, by recapitulating very shortly the chief points of our whole discussion.

I. Our first inquiry regarded the method to be adopted, and the proper position to be occupied when contemplating the phenomena of man, and, out of that contemplation, endeavouring to construct a science of ourselves. The method hitherto employed in psychological research we found to be in the highest degree objectionable. It is this: the fact, or act of consciousness, was regarded as the mere medium through which the phenomena, or "states of mind," the proper facts of psychology, as they were thought to be, were observed. Thus consciousness was the point which was looked from, and not the point which was looked at. The phenomena looked at were our sensations, passions, emotions, intellectual states, &c., which might certainly have existed without consciousness, although, indeed, they could not have been known except through that act. The phenomenon looked from, although tacitly recognised, was in reality passed over without