Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/461

Rh saves much circumlocution, much expenditure of sound. But it runs the risk of making great havoc with scientific thinking; and there cannot be a doubt that it has helped to confirm psychology in its worst errors, by leading the unwary thinker to suppose that he has got before him a complete fact or thought, when he has merely got before him a complete word. There are whole words which, taken by themselves, have no thoughts or things corresponding to them, any more than there are thoughts and things corresponding to each of the separate syllables of which these words are composed. The words "perception" and "matter" are cases in point. These words have no meaning, they have neither facts nor thoughts corresponding to them when taken out of correlation to each other. The word "perception" must be supplemented (mentally at least) by the words "of matter," before it has any kind of sense, before it denotes anything that exists; and in like manner the word "matter" must be mentally supplemented by the words "perception of," before it has any kind of sense, or denotes any real existence. The psychologist would think it absurd if any one were to maintain that there is one separate existence in nature corresponding to the syllable mat-, and another separate existence corresponding to the syllable ter, the component syllables of the word "matter." In the estimation of the metaphysician it is just as ridiculous to suppose that there is an existing fact or modification in us corresponding to the three syllables