Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/459

Rh former, "our apprehension," alone subjective. Admitting, then, that the total fact we have to deal with is this, "our apprehension of the perception of matter," the difference of treatment which this fact experiences at the hand of psychology and metaphysic is this: they both divide the fact; but psychology divides it as follows: "Our apprehension of the perception of," that is the subjective part of the datum, the part that belongs to the human mind; "Matter per se" is the objective part of the datum, the part of the datum which exists independently of the human mind. Metaphysic divides it at a different point, "our apprehension of": this, according to metaphysic, is the subjective part of the process, it is all which can with any propriety be attributed to the human mind: "the perception of matter," this is the objective part of the datum, the part of it which exists independently of the human mind, and to the possession of which the human mind has no proper claim, no title at all.

Before explaining what the grounds are which authorise metaphysic in making a division so different from the psychological division of the fact which they both discuss, we shall make a few remarks for the purpose of extirpating, if possible, any lingering prejudice which may still lurk in the reader's mind in favour of the psychological partition.

According to metaphysic, the perception of matter is not the whole given fact with which we have to deal in working out this problem (it is not the whole