Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/83

Rh to speak of the consequences of the fact of consciousness. Dr Chalmers has a long chapter in his Moral Philosophy (Chap. II.) on the effect which consciousness has in obliterating the state or mind upon which it turns its eye. But to what account does he turn his observation of this fact? He merely notices it as attaching a peculiar difficulty to the study of the phenomena of mind. It does indeed. It attaches so peculiar a difficulty to the study of these phenomena, that we wonder the Doctor was not led by this consideration to perceive that these phenomena were no longer the real and important facts of the science; but that the fact of consciousness, together with the consequences it brought along with it, and nothing else, truly was so. Again, on the other hand, this fact attaches so peculiar a facility to the study of morality, that we are surprised the Doctor did not avail himself of its assistance in explaining the laws and character of duty. But how does Dr Chalmers "get quit of this difficulty"? If the phenomena of mind disappear as soon as consciousness looks at them, how do you think he obviates the obstacle in the way of science? Why, by emptying human nature of consciousness altogether; or, as he informs us, "by adopting Dr Thomas Brown's view of consciousness who makes this act to be," as Dr Chalmers says, "a brief act of memory." Whether this means that consciousness is a short act of memory, or an act of memory following shortly after the "state" remembered, we are at a loss to say; but at any rate, we here have consciousness converted into memory. For we presume that there is no difference in kind, no distinction at all between an act of memory which is brief, and an act of memory which is not brief. Thus consciousness is obliterated. Man is deprived of the notion of himself. He no longer is a self at all, or capable of any self-reference. From having been a person, he becomes a mere thing; and is left existing and going through various acts of intelligence, just like the animals around him, which exist and perform many intelligent acts without being aware of their existence, without possessing any personality, or taking any account to themselves of their accomplishments.