Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/32

22 suppose himself in the situation of one who can extract no more from language than what the words, of themselves — that is, taken irrespectively of any previously acquired knowledge on his part — afford to him. He must bring no supplementary thought of his own to eke out explanations which the words do not supply him with. He must not bridge or fill up with a sense born of his own mind, hiatuses which the language leaves gaping. It is only upon such conditions as these that the question upon which we are entering can be fairly canvassed; it is only upon these conditions that we can fairly test the "science of the human mind," and ascertain, as we are about to do from its verbal bearings, whether it be a valid or a nugatory research.