Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/444

434 of thinking will liberate matter from perception; therefore we cannot believe in the existence of matter per se. This argument admits of being exhibited in a still more forcible form. We commence with an illustration. If a man believes that a thing exists as one thing, he cannot believe that this same thing exists as another thing. For instance, if a man believes that a tree exists as a tree, he cannot believe that it exists as a house. Apply this to the subject in hand. If a man believes that matter exists as a thing not disengaged from perception, he cannot believe that it exists as a thing disengaged from perception. Now, there cannot be a doubt that the only kind of matter in which man believes is matter not disengaged from perception. He therefore cannot believe in matter disengaged from perception. His mind is already preoccupied by the belief that matter is this one thing, and, therefore, he cannot believe that it is that other thing. His faith is, in this instance, forestalled, just as much as his faith is forestalled from believing that a tree is a house, when he already believes that it is a tree.

There are two very good reasons, then, why we cannot believe in the existence of matter at all, if we accept as our starting-point the psychological analysis. This analysis gives us, for matter, matter per se. But matter per se cannot be believed in: 1st, because the condition on which the belief depends cannot be complied with; and, 2dly, because the matter which we already believe in is something