Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/482

472 11. This, then, I say, is the question, Does the distinction between the real and the apparent hold good in the world of mind just as it holds good in the world of matter? In other words, Does our apparent thinking, our apparent consciousness, present phenomena which are just as little worthy of being trusted or accepted as true and final, as the apparent heavens are admitted to present phenomena of this character, phenomena which astronomy cannot accept as ultimate and true, but which that science sets aside? And, on the other hand, are there real truths of thought which, lying behind or beyond these mere apparent truths, may be reached by means of science, just as the truths of the starry skies are reached by means of astronomy? In answer to this question our antecedent philosophers have said, that in the world of mind the apparent and the real are coincident and identical; that the deliverances of our ordinary consciousness are to be accepted as true and ultimate. They have said that philosophy is not the corrector, but is rather the confirmer of these deliverances. I, on the other hand, assert that the distinction between the apparent and the real, the obvious and the ultimate, obtains in the world of thought no less than in the world of things. I hold that philosophy exists for the purpose of correcting and not for the purpose of confirming the deliverances of ordinary thinking; and, in maintaining this opinion, I set myself against ordinary thinking no farther than all the other sciences do. It is the