Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/29

Rh has got waxen wings, that fall to pieces in the blaze of the brighter sun of human freedom.

These things are spoken of physical science; but they apply equally to the science of the human mind, because this science is truly and strictly physical in its method and conditions, and, to express it in general terms, in the tone it assumes, and the position it occupies, when looking at the phenomena of man. As has been already hinted, it is not wonderful that man, when endeavouring to comprehend and take the measure of himself, should, in the first instance at least, have adopted the tone and method of the physical sciences, and occupied a position analogous to that in which they stand. The great spectacle of the universe is the first to attract the awakening intelligence of man; and hence the earliest speculators were naturalists merely. And what is here true in the history of the race, is true also in the history of the individual. Every man looks at nature, and, consciously or unconsciously, registers her appearances long before he turns his eyes upon himself. Thus a certain method, and certain conditions, of inquiry, are fixed; what is considered the proper and pertinent business of science is determined, before man turns his attention to himself. And when he does thus turn it, nothing can be more natural, or indeed inevitable, than that he should look at the new object altogether by the light of the old method, and of his previously-acquired conception of science. But man not having been taken into account when these