Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/279

Rh In the olden days of speculation, this distinction was rendered real and absolute by the logical understanding. The objective and the subjective of human knowledge (i.e., the reality and our perception of it) were permanently severed from one another; and while all philosophers were disputing as to the mode in which these two could again intelligibly coalesce, not one of them thought of questioning the validity of the original distinction—the truth of the alleged and admitted separation. Not one of them dreamt of asking whether it was possible for human thought really to make and maintain this discrimination. It was reserved for the genius of modern thought to disprove the distinction in question, or at least to qualify it most materially by the introduction of a directly antagonist principle. By a more rigorous observation of facts, modern inquirers have been led to discover the radical identity of the subjective and the objective of human consciousness, and the impossibility of thinking them asunder. In our present inquiry, we shall restrict ourselves to the consideration of the great change which the question regarding man's intercourse with the external world has undergone, in consequence of this discovery; but its consequences are incalculable, and we know not where they are to end.

In attempting, then, to interpret the spirit of this new philosophy, we commence by remarking that the distinction which lay at the foundation of all the older philosophies is not to be rejected and set aside