Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/293

Rh one whole, is again found to be itself that very whole. Therefore we see that it is impossible for us to get ourselves into a position from which we might inquire into the nature of the connection between mind and matter, because it is not possible for thought to construe, intelligibly to itself, the ideal disconnection which must necessarily be presupposed as preceding such an inquiry. It must not be supposed, however, that this inability to separate the subject and object of perception argues any weakness on the part of human thought. Here reason merely obeys her own laws; and the just conclusion is, that these two are not really two, but are, in truth, fundamentally and originally one.

Let us add, too, that when we use the words "connection between," we imply that there are two things to be connected. But here there are not two things, but only one. Let us again have recourse to our old illustration of the neutral salt. Our hypothesis (for the purpose of explaining the present question) is, with regard to this substance, that its analysis, repeated as often as it may be, invariably gives us, not an alkali and an acid, but what turns out to be an acid-alkali (an indivisible unit), when we examine what we imagined to be the pure acid; and also what turns out to be an acid-alkali (an indivisible unit), when we examine what we imagined to be the pure alkali; so that, supposing we should inquire into the connection between the acid and the alkali, the question would either be, What is the connection