Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/544

534 minds exist with a veritable existence, just in proportion as we accommodate ourselves to the standard distinction; while, on the contrary, our fluctuations increase, our minds lose their very existence, just in proportion as we endeavour to accommodate to ourselves the standard difference between right and wrong. That is the foundation, I conceive, on which all true ethical theory must be based.

But without attempting to develop these views in a detailed form at present, I would merely remark, that the doctrine of the human mind which I am disposed to adopt is this, expressed briefly and antithetically it is this: It is not man's mind which puts him in possession of knowledge, but it is knowledge which puts him in possession of a mind. Instead of making mind the radical, and knowledge and ideas the derivative, as is usually done, I would make knowledge and ideas the radical, and mind the derivative. In making knowledge and ideas the basis and the constituent of the mind, we are dealing with facts of the existence of which we are assured, we are keeping within the limits of a prudent and circumspect induction. But in making mind the basis and upholder of knowledge, we are dealing with we know not what, a phantom, an abstraction, which not only eludes our research, but which leads us astray into a wilderness thickly set with sceptical snares and sophistical pitfalls.

Taking our stand, then, on the general doctrine that knowledge under the Divine appointment is the