Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/419

Rh tenets of the founder of the school. And should some of our shafts glance off against the editor's own opinions, he has only himself to blame for it. If we see a fatal flaw in the constitution of all, and consequently of his, psychology, it was his writings that first opened our eyes to it. So lucidly has he explained certain philosophical doctrines, that they cannot stop at the point to which he has carried them. They must be rolled forward into a new development which perhaps may be at variance with the old one, where he tarries. But his powerful arm first set the stone in motion, and he must be content to let it travel whithersoever it may. He has taught those who study him to think, and he must stand the consequences, whether they think in unison with himself or not. We conceive, however, that even those who differ from him most, would readily own, that to his instructive disquisitions they were indebted for at least one half of all that they know of philosophy.

In entering on an examination of the system of Dr Reid, we must ask first of all, what is the great problem about which philosophers in all ages have busied themselves most, and which consequently must have engaged, and did engage, a large share of the attention of the champion of Common Sense? We must also state the fact which gives rise to the problem of philosophy.

The perception of a material universe, as it is the most prominent fact of cognition, so has it given rise to the problem which has been most agitated by