Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/454

444 hors de combat? Stewart says that Reid made it good by means of direct observation; but the claim is too ridiculous to be listened to for a single instant. We have also shown that reasoning is incompetent to make out and support the analysis; and therefore our conclusion is, that it falls to the ground as a thing altogether impracticable as well as false, and that the attempt to re-establish it ought never, on any account, to be renewed.

We have dwelt so long on the exposition of the psychological or analytic solution of the problem of perception, that we have but little space to spare for the discussion of the metaphysical doctrine. We shall unfold it as briefly as we can.

The principle of the metaphysical doctrine is precisely the opposite of the principle of the psychological doctrine. The one attempts an analysis; the other forbears from all analysis of the given fact, the perception of matter. And why does metaphysic make no attempt to dissect this fact? Simply because the thing cannot be done. The fact yields not to the solvent of thought: it yields not to the solvent of observation: it yields not to the solvent of belief, for man has no belief in the existence of matter from which perception (present and remembered) has been withdrawn. An impotence of the mind does indeed apparently resolve the supposed synthesis; but essential thinking exposes the imposition, restores