Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/71

Rh scene; for none of us can attribute consciousness directly to another; we can only attribute it directly to another by becoming it, and if we become it, it ceases to be another; it becomes we, that is to say, nothing but the ego is left, and we have no object either ideally or really before us. The dilemma to which the philosophers of mind are reduced is this: unless they attribute consciousness to mind, they leave out of view the most important and characteristic phenomenon of man; and if they attribute consciousness to mind, they annihilate the object of their research, in so far as the whole extent of this fact is concerned.

So much in the shape of mere abstract reasoning upon this question. It appears to us that our point is now in a fair way of being completely made out. We think that, as far as mere reasoning can do it, we have succeeded in extricating the fact of consciousness from the oppressive and obscuring envelopment of "the human mind." But our views, their correctness, and their application, still require to be brought out and enforced by many explanations and observations of fact. We now, then, descend to various statements, illustrations, and practical considerations which will probably be still more plain and convincing than anything we have yet said. These, however, we reserve for the following chapter.