Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/37

Rh you employ, to signalise a most important distinction between mind and matter. You inform me that both of them change; but that while one of them takes no cognisance of its changes, the other does. You tell me that in the case of matter the object known is different from the subject knowing, but that in the case of mind the object known is the same as the subject knowing. Disregarding, then, the fact of change as it takes place in either object, let us attend a little more minutely to this latter fact. It is carelessly slurred over in ordinary metaphysics; but it is certain, that our attention as psychologists ought to be chiefly directed, if not exclusively confined to it, inasmuch as a true knowledge of any object is to be obtained by marking the point in which it differs from other things, and not the point in which it agrees with them. We have found in mind a fact which is peculiar to it; and this is, not that it changes, but that it takes cognisance of its changes. It now remains to be seen what effect this new fact will have upon your 'science of the human mind.'"

"First of all," says the metaphysical inquirer, "allow me to make one remark. I neglected to mention that mind is essentially rational. It is endowed with reason or intelligence. Now, does not this endowment necessarily imply that mind must be conscious of its various changes, and may not the matter in this way be relieved of every difficulty?"

"To expose fully," replies the other disputant, "the