Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/457

Rh sternly bids it to abide. That is the profession of the metaphysician considered in his beau-ideal. That, too, is the practice (making allowance for the infirmities incident to humanity, and which prevent the ideal from ever being perfectly realised), the practice of all the true astronomers of thought from Plato down to Schelling and Hegel. If these philosophers accomplish more than the psychologist, it is only because they attempt much less.

In taking up the problem of perception, all that metaphysic demands is the whole given fact. That is her only postulate, and it is undoubtedly a stipulation which she is justly entitled to make. Now, what is in this case the whole given fact? When we perceive an object, what is the whole given fact before us? In stating it we must not consult elegance of expression; the whole given fact is this:

"We apprehend the perception of an object." The fact before us is comprehended wholly in that statement, but in nothing short of it. Now, does metaphysic give no countenance to an analysis of this fact? That is a new question, a question on which we have not yet touched. Observe, the fact which metaphysic declares to be absolutely unsusceptible of analysis is "the perception of matter." But the fact which we are now considering is a totally different fact; it is our apprehension of the perception of matter, and it does not follow that metaphysic will also declare this fact to be ultimate and indecompoundable. Were metaphysic to do this it would