Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/502

492 is not the only thing of which he is cognisant, as he heretofore supposed; and, secondly, that there is a permanent of which he is cognisant amid all the vicissitudes that surround him, whereof he is cognisant through sense. These are the two thoughts which he now entertains, and which he cannot help entertaining. He must think change as one of the elements of his consciousness, otherwise there would be an absolute uniformity in his perceptions, which would be equivalent to his having no perceptions at all; he must think permanence as the other element of his consciousness, otherwise there would be an absolute diversity (a new subject for every new object), which also would be tantamount to no consciousness at all.

9. Now you have got hold of an idea, an idea opposed to that idea which we call change; as the converse of this idea, you have got hold of the conception of a permanent, an immutable, a universal, an identical amid all changes; this idea must have a word attached to it; and, accordingly, to this idea you attach the word mind. By this process you have been enabled to get hold of the idea before you had recourse to the word; of course you were acquainted with the word before we went through the process, but we did not avail ourselves of that acquaintance in order to assist us to the idea; no, we got hold of the idea independently of the word, and now the word has for us a meaning. It has a