Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/286

276 also necessarily convert itself, when conceived, into the subjective and the objective in one. For the establishment of this point in the affirmative is necessary for the completion of our premises. But we have no fears about the result; for certainly a simple reference made by any one to his own consciousness will satisfy him that, as he could not think of light without thinking of seeing, or of sound without thinking of hearing, so now he cannot conceive seeing without conceiving light, or hearing without conceiving sound. Starting with light and sound, we found that these, the objective parts of perception, became, when construed to thought, both subjective and objective in one; so, now, starting with seeing and hearing, we find that each of these, the subjective parts of perception, become both subjective and objective when conceived. For, let us make the attempt as often as we will, we shall find that it is impossible to think of seeing without thinking of light, or of hearing without thinking of sound. Vision is thought through the thought of light, and hearing through the thought of sound, and they can be thought in no other manner, and these two are conceived not as two but as one.

But is there no such thing as a faculty of seeing, and a faculty of hearing, which can be thought independently of light and sound? By thinking of these faculties, are we not enabled to think of hearing and seeing without thinking of sound and light? A great deal, certainly, has been said and written about