Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/264

254 into manifestation? Leave "mind" alone, ye metaphysicians, and answer us that.

IV. It is obvious that the new form of humanity, called "I," is evolved out of the act of consciousness; and this brings us to the second problem of our inquiry, How is the act itself of consciousness evolved? A severe scrutiny of the act of consciousness showed us, that this act, or, in other words, that our observation of our own phenomena, is to a certain extent a displacement or suspension of them; that these phenomena (our sensations, passions, and other modifications) are naturally of a monopolising tendency; that is to say, they tend to keep us unconscious, to engross us with themselves: while, on the contrary, consciousness or our observation of them, is of a contrary tendency, and operates to render us unsentient, unpassionate, &c. We found, from considering facts, that consciousness on the one hand, and all our natural modifications on the other, existed in an inverse ratio to one another; that wherever the natural modification is plus, the consciousness of it is minus, and vice versa. We thus found that the great law regulating the relationship between the conscious man (the "I ") and the natural man was the law of antagonism; and thus consciousness