Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/445

Rh quite different from matter per se. In trying to believe in the existence of matter per se, we always find that we are believing in the existence of something else, namely, in the existence of matter cum perceptione. But it is not to the psychological analysis that we are indebted for this matter, which is something else than matter per se. The psychological analysis does its best to annihilate it. It gives us nothing but matter per se, a thing which neither is nor can be believed in. We are thus prevented from believing in the existence of any kind of matter. In a word, the psychological analysis of the perception of matter necessarily converts all those who embrace it into sceptics or idealists.

In this predicament what shall we do? Shall we abandon the analysis as a treacherous principle, or shall we, with Dr Reid, make one more stand in its defence? In order that the analysis may have fair play we shall give it another chance, by quoting Mr Stewart's exposition of Reid's doctrine, which must be regarded as a perfectly faithful representation. "Dr Reid," says Mr Stewart, "was the first person who had courage to lay completely aside all the common hypothetical language concerning perception, and to exhibit the difficulty, in all its magnitude, by a plain statement of the fact. To what, then, it may be asked, does this statement amount? Merely to this: that the mind is so formed that certain impressions produced on our organs of sense, by external objects, are followed by corresponding sensations,