Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/55

Rh is to mistake the left hand of the magician for the right, and to bring down upon our heads evils analogous to those which befell the unfortunate experimentalist who committed this error. To note it well is to observe faithfully in which hand the staff of the magician is held, and to realise glorious consequences similar to those which would have been the fortune of the young man, had his observations of the facts connected with his lamp been correct and complete. Let us, therefore, confine our attention to this fact, and examine it with care. Thus we shall be led into extensive fields of novelty and truth; and shall escape from the censorious imputation of the Roman satirist, who exclaims, in words that at once point out the true method of psychological research, and stigmatise the dreary and intolerable mill-round monotony of customary metaphysics,