Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/79

Rh intensity at the one pole is always compensated by a corresponding decrease of intensity at the other pole, and vice versa. For if, on the contrary, it should appear that these two poles agree and act so harmoniously together, that the vividness experienced at the one pole (say that in which sensation, &c., reside) is answered by, a proportional vividness at the opposite pole of consciousness; and that a depression at this latter pole again takes place in accordance with a diminished intensity at the former pole: in short, if it should appear that these two poles, instead of mutually extinguishing, mutually strengthen each other's light, then we must own that the antithesis we are endeavouring to establish is virtually void and erroneous; that sensation and consciousness are really identical, and that the two poles are in fact not two, but only one. In a word, we will own that the distinction we have been all along fighting for does not exist, and that the ordinary doctrine of psychology upon this head is faultless, and beyond dispute.

This point, however, is not to be settled by speculation, or by abstract reasoning. What says the fact? The fact is notorious to every one except metaphysicians, who have seldom paid much attention to this or any other fact, that the degree of our consciousness or self-reference always exists in an inverse ratio to the degree of intensity of any of our sensation's, passions, emotions, &c.; and that consciousness is never so effectually depressed, or, perhaps, we