Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/455

Rh the divided elements to their pristine integrity, and extinguishes the theory which would explain the datum by means of the concurrence of a subjective or mental, and an objective or material factor. The convicted weakness of psychology is thus the root which gives strength to metaphysic. The failure of psychology affords to metaphysic a foundation of adamant. And perhaps no better or more comprehensive description of the object of metaphysical or speculative philosophy could be given than this: that it is a science which exists, and has at all times existed, chiefly for the purpose of exposing the vanity and confounding the pretensions of what is called the "science of the human mind." The turning-round of thought from psychology to metaphysic is the true interpretation of the Platonic conversion of the soul from ignorance to knowledge, from mere opinion to certainty and satisfaction: in other words, from a discipline in which the thinking is only apparent, to a discipline in which the thinking is real. Ordinary observation does not reveal to us the real but only the apparent revolutions of the celestial orbs. We must call astronomy to our aid if we would reach the truth. In the same way ordinary or psychological thinking may show us the apparent movements of thought, but it is powerless to decipher the real figures described in that mightier than planetary scheme. Metaphysic alone can teach us to read aright the intellectual skies. Psychology regards the universe of thought from the