Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/35

Rh does not a science, or some knowledge, at least, of the third still remain a desideratum?"

"Not at all," replies the inquirer, "for 'I' and 'mind' are identical. The observed and the observer, the knowing subject and the known object, are here one and the same: and whatever is a science of the one is a science of the other also."

"Then you get out of one error only to be convicted of another. You set out with saying that mind, like matter, was visited by various changes, and that this was all; you said that changing was its only fact, or was, at least, the general complementary expression of the whole of its facts. So far I perfectly understood the analogy between mind and matter, and considered it complete. I also saw plainly that any principles of science applicable to the one object would likewise be applicable to the other. But when you are questioned as to whom these changes are known, you answer 'to me.' When further interrogated, you will not admit this 'me' to be a third existence different from the other two, but you identify it with mind; that is to say, you make mind take cognisance of its own changes. And in doing this, you depart entirely from your first position, which was, that mind did nothing more than change. You now, in contradiction to your first statement, tell me that this is not all. You tell me that moreover it is aware of its own changes; and in telling me this, you bring forward a fact connected with mind altogether new. For to change and to be cognisant of change; for a