Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/498

488 while, but they are present as though they were absent, and it often requires a severe intellectual strain before we can make ourselves cognisant of them. Indeed it may be assumed that the whole efforts of speculation, from the earliest times until now, have been directed to the single end of bringing men to think, to think clearly that which at no moment of their lives are they able to avoid thinking; and how difficult this task is, how laborious this process, is proved by the fact that this end has as yet been very imperfectly overtaken. It may appear a paradox, but it is not really one; it is undeniable truth to say this, that Plato and all great philosophers have existed for the purpose of teaching people to think what not one man in a million has as yet succeeded in thinking, but what nevertheless every man necessarily thinks in the very exercise of his powers as an intelligent being.

7. But I am still dealing, you will think, too much with generalities. Let us get to something like specialty, to some definite and particular illustration of the foregoing position. Well, what you want, I suppose, is this, that I should place distinctly before you one of those necessary and inevitable thoughts which men cannot help thinking, and which scarcely any man has as yet been able to think clearly or in the right way. I shall do so, but I shall begin by placing before you an opinion, or set of opinions, on a particular point, in order that by the contrast you may