Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/458

448 reduce us to the condition of subjective or egoistic idealism; but metaphysic is not so absurd. It denies the divisibility of the one fact, but it does itself divide the other. And it is perfectly competent for metaphysic to do this, inasmuch as "our apprehension of the perception of matter" is a different fact from "the perception of matter itself." The former is, in the estimation of metaphysic, susceptible of analysis, the latter is not. Metaphysic thus escapes the imputation of leading us into subjective idealism. This will become more apparent as we proceed.

"Our apprehension of the perception of matter;" this, then, is the whole given fact with which metaphysic has to deal. And this fact metaphysic proceeds to analyse into a subjective and an objective factor, giving to the human mind that part of the datum which belongs to the human mind, and withholding from the human mind that part of the datum to which it has no proper or exclusive claim. But at what point in the datum does metaphysic insert the dissecting-knife, or introduce the solvent which is to effect the proposed dualisation? At a very different point from that at which psychology insinuates her "ineffectual fire." Psychology cuts down between perception and matter, making the former subjective and the latter objective. Metaphysic cuts down between "our apprehension" and "the perception of matter;" making the latter, "the perception of matter," totally objective, and the