Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/542

532 it does not follow that right and wrong are absolutely and in themselves distinct. In short, you cannot conclude an objective and divine, and absolutely true distinction from the existence of a mere subjective and human distinction. It is thus that the sceptic has in all ages endeavoured to confound moral distinctions. And the terms of the psychological theory afford us no grounds upon which his argument may be successfully resisted and answered. But what is the answer? The answer is this: I have, properly speaking, no mind to begin with. I have no mind before the distinction between right and wrong is revealed to me. My mind exists subsequently to this revelation. At any rate, I acquire my mind, if not after, yet in the very act which brings before me the distinction. The distinction exists, it exists as an immutable institution of God prior to the existence of our minds. And it is the knowledge of this distinction which forms the prime constituent, not of our mental acquisitions, but of our mental existence. Extinguish in a man's mind the distinction between good and evil, and you not merely extinguish his mind's knowledge, you extinguish a large portion, if not the whole, of his mind's existence. I shall have occasion to dwell more fully on this doctrine hereafter. Meanwhile I would just request any one who is not altogether satisfied with our views to consider, and to consider well, what he means by the mind acquiring a knowledge of the distinction between good and evil; and