Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/503

Rh meaning, because it expresses a necessary thought: the thought of the permanent and universal, as opposed to the fluctuating and particular. The word mind, then, is the word which gives expression to the thought of the permanent and universal, just as the word matter gives expression to the thought of the changeable and particular. These two ideas are directly antagonistic; it is impossible to regard the one as convertible with the other, although, at the same time, they are absolutely indivisible; wherever change is thought there is also thought permanence conversely. It is impossible to regard mind and matter as the same, unless we regard change and not-change as the same, or permanence and non-permanence as the same. It is impossible to regard matter as everything, as the whole, unless we hold that change is everything, and that there is no permanence anywhere; it is impossible to regard mind as everything, as the whole, unless we hold that permanence is everything, and that there is no diversity anywhere; but it is impossible to think that there is nothing but change, it is impossible to think that there is nothing but permanence. We must hold that there is both change and permanence; in other words, we must hold that there is both matter and mind as the two distinct elements of the universe. These are thoughts which we cannot help thinking, and in this way, and only in this way, do we obtain an intelligible distinction between mind and matter; not, however, as two distinct substances,