Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/70

60 argument contained in a former part of this discussion was intended; and the reader may, perhaps, be now placed in a situation which will enable him to perceive its drift more clearly. We will recapitulate it very shortly, and in somewhat different words from those formerly used.

An object is that which is either really or ideally different from ourselves; or in other words, is either different in itself, or is conceived of as different by us. Suppose, now, that the metaphysician makes use of the expression of common sense and ordinary language, "my mind." He here certainly appears, at first sight, to lay down a real discrimination between himself and his mind. Whatever he may intend to say, he clearly says that there are two of them, namely, his mind and himself, the "I" (call it the ego), possessing it. In this case, "mind" may contain what it likes, but the consciousness of what it contains certainly remains with the ego. In this case mind is really destitute of consciousness. Does the metaphysician disclaim this view of the matter? Does he say that mind is really himself, and is only ideally an object to him. Then we answer, that in this case mind is ideally divested of consciousness, and if the metaphysician thinks otherwise, he imposes upon himself. For how can he make it contain consciousness without first of all ideally replacing within it himself, the ego which he had ideally severed from it. But if he does make this reinvestment, mind (his object) at once vanishes from the