Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/451

Rh which invariably comes. We may ring for No. 1, but No. 2 always answers the bell. We may labour to construe a tree per se to the mind, but what we always do construe to the mind is the perception of a tree. What we want is No. 1, but what we always get is No. 2. To unravel the thing explicitly, the manner in which we impose upon ourselves is this. As explanatory of the perceptive process, we construe to our minds two number twos, and one of these we call No. 1. For example, we have the perception of a tree (No. 2); we wish to think the tree itself (No. 1) as that which gives rise to the perception. But this No. 1 is merely No. 2 over again. It is thought of as the perception of a tree, i.e., as No. 2. We call it the tree itself, or No. 1; but we think it as the perception of the tree, or as No. 2. The first or explanatory term (the matter per se) is merely a repetition in thought (though called by a different name) of the second term, the term to be explained, viz., the perception of matter. Abstract thinking, then, equally with direct observation, refuses to lend any support to the analysis; for a thing cannot be said to be analysed when it is merely multiplied or repeated, which is all that abstract thinking does in regard to the perception of matter. The matter per se, which abstract thinking supposes that it separates from the perception of matter, is merely an iteration of the perception of matter.

Our conclusion therefore is, that the analysis of the perception of matter into the two things, perception