FERRIER'S SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY--PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS
'If one were asked,' says Professor Fraser, 'for the English writings
which are fitted in the most attractive way to absorb a reader of
competent intelligence and imagination in the final or metaphysical
question concerning the Being in which we and the world of sensible
things participate, Berkeley's _Dialogues_, Hume's _Inquiry into Human
Understanding_, and some of the lately published _Philosophical
Remains_ of Professor Ferrier are probably those which would best
deserve to be mentioned.'
It has been given to few philosophers of modern days to write on
philosophic questions in a manner at once so lucid and so convincing as
that of Ferrier. Nor can it in his case be said that matter is
sacrificed to form, for the writer does not hesitate to 'nail his
colours to the mast,' as he himself expresses it, and to tackle
questions the most vital in their character in a straightforward and
uncompromising fashion. His earliest published writings, as we have
seen, took the form of a series of seven articles, which appeared,
roughly speaking, in alternate months, between February of 1838 and
March of 1839. These articles, entitled _An Introduction to the
Philosophy of Consciousness_, represented the results of their author's
work during the years which had elapsed since he first began to be
really interested in philosophy, and to feel that the way of looking at
it adopted almost universally in Scotland was not satisfying to
himself, or in any way defensible.
The whole point in Ferrier's view turns upon the way in which we look
at 'Mind.' 'The human mind, to speak it profanely,' says Ferrier, 'is
like the goose that laid the golden eggs. The metaphysician resembles
the analytic poulterer who slew it to get at them in a lump, and found
_nothing_ for his pains.... Look at thought, and feeling, and passion,
as they glow in the pages of Shakespeare--golden eggs indeed! Look at
the same as they stagnate on the dissecting-table of Dr. Brown, and
marvel at the change. Behold how shapeless and extinct they have
become!' Locke began by saying there are no original ideas, simply
impressions from without; Hume then says cause and effect are incapable
of explanation, and the notion which we form of them is a nonentity,
seeing that we have a series of impressions alone to work from; Reid
says there is a mind and there is an object, and calls in common-sense
to interpret between the two. But the mistake all through is very
evident: man looks at Nature in a certain way, interprets her by
certain categories, and then he turns his eye upon himself,
endeavouring thereby to judge of what he finds within by methods of a
similar kind. And the human mind cannot be so 'objectised'; it is
something more than the sum of its 'feelings,' 'passions,' and 'states
of mind.' Dr. Reid had done a service by exploding the old doctrine of
'ideas'; he brought mind into contact with immediate things, but much
more is left for us to do; the same office has to be performed for
'mind'--that is, mind when we regard it as something which connects us
with the universe, or something which can be looked at and examined, as
we might look at or examine a thing outside ourselves, and not as that
which is necessary to any such examination. 'Is it not enough for a man
that he is _himself_? There can be no dispute about that. _I_ am; what
more would I have? What more would I be? Why would I be _mind_? I am
_myself_ therefore let it perish.'
What, then, makes a man what he is? It is the fact of consciousness,
the fact which marks him off from all other things with a deep line of
separation. It is this and this alone, Ferrier says, this '_human_
phenomenon,' and not its objects, passions, or emotions, which leads us
into pastures fresh and far separated from the dreary round which the
old metaphysicians followed. The same discovery, of course, is always
being made, though to Ferrier it was new; we are always straying into
devious ways, ways that lead us into grey regions of abstraction, and
we always want to be called back to the concrete and the real, to the
freshness and the brightness of life as it is and lives.
Ferrier from this time onwards, from his youth until his death, kept
one definite aim in view: the object of his life was to insist with all
his might that our interests must be concentrated on man as he is as
man, and not on a mere sum-total of passions and sensations by which
the human being is affected. The consciousness of a state of mind is
very different from that state of mind itself, and the two must be kept
absolutely distinct. 'Let mind have the things which are mind's, and
man the things which are man's.' We should, Ferrier says, fling 'mind'
and its lumber overboard, busy ourselves with _the man_ and his facts.
Man's passions and sensations may be referred to 'mind' indeed, but he
cannot lay his hands upon the fact of consciousness. That fact cannot
be conceived of as vested in the _object_ called the 'human mind,' an
object being something really or ideally different from ourselves. In
speaking of 'my mind,' mind may be what it chooses, but the
consciousness is in the _ego_; and mind is really destitute of
consciousness, otherwise the _ego_ would necessarily be present in it.
The dilemma is as follows: 'Unless the philosophers of mind attribute
consciousness to mind, they leave out of view the most important
phenomena 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.'
Since Ferrier's time this point has been worked out very fully, and by
none more successfully than by an English philosopher, Professor T. H.
Green of Oxford, in his Introduction to the works of Hume. But when
Ferrier wrote, his ideas were new; in England at least he was breaking
up ground hitherto untouched, and therefore the debt of gratitude we
owe him is not small, especially when we consider the forces against
which he warred. 'Common-sense,' the solution offered for all
philosophic difficulties, is really the _problem_ of philosophy, and to
speak of the 'philosophy of common-sense' is simply to confuse the
problem with its solution. Common-sense, or rather what is given by its
means, has simply to be construed into intelligible forms: in itself it
makes no attempt to solve the difficulties that present themselves, and
it is folly to suggest its doing so. When a man speaks of _my_
sensations or _my_ states of mind, he means something of which he--as
consciousness--is independent, and which can be made an object to him.
Were it not so, of course he could not possibly arrive at freedom, but
would merely be the helpless child of destiny; and, as Ferrier points
out, were consciousness and sensation one, consciousness would not have
the power, undoubtedly possessed by it, of 'recovering the balance'
that it loses on experiencing pain or passion; the return of
consciousness, as he puts it, 'lowers the temperature' of the sensation
or the passion, and the man regains the personality that for the time
had almost vanished. A man, he tells us, can hardly even be said to be
the 'victim' of his mind, and irresponsible--_i.e._, man stands aloof
from the modifications which may visit him, therefore we should study
him as he is, and not merely these 'states of mind' common to him and
to animals alike. And consciousness must be active, exercising itself
upon those states, and thereby realising human freedom.
Philosophy, then, is the gospel of freedom as contrasted with the
bondage of the physical kingdom. But we are in subjection at the first,
and all our lifetime a constant fight is being carried on. Philosophy
paints its grey in grey, another great philosopher has told us, only
when the freshness and life of youth has gone: the reconciliation is in
the ideal, not the actual world. And so with Ferrier: 'The flowers of
thy happiness,' says he, 'are withered. They could not last; they
gilded but for a day the opening portals of life. But in their place I
will give thee freedom's flowers. To act _according_ to thy inclination
may be enjoyment; but know that to act _against_ it is liberty, and
thou only actest thus because thou art really free.' Great and weighty
words, which might be pondered by many more than those to whom they
were originally addressed.
Having established his fundamental principles, Ferrier goes on to trace
the birth of self-consciousness in the child--the knowledge of itself
as 'I,' which means the knowledge of good and evil--the moral birth.
Perception, again, is a synthesis of sensation and consciousness--the
realisation of self in conjunction with the sensation experienced: it
is, of course, peculiar to man. Things can only take effect on 'me'
when there is a 'me' to take effect upon, and not at birth, or before I
come to consciousness. Consciousness is the very essence and origin of
the _ego_; without consciousness no man would be 'I.' It is our refusal
to be acted on by outside impressions that constitutes our personality
and perception of them; our communication with the universe is the
communication of _non_-communication. And the _ego_ is not something
which comes into the world ready-made; it is a living activity which is
_never_ passive, for were it passive, it would be annihilated; in
submitting to the action of causality its life would be gone. Our
destiny is to free ourselves from the bonds of nature, from that
'blessed state of primeval innocence,' the blessedness, after all, of
bondage. A man cannot _be_ until he _acts_, for his Being arises out of
his actions: consciousness being an act, our proper existence is the
consequence of that act. His natural condition for others, and before
he comes to existence, Ferrier says, is given, while his existence for
himself is made by his thinking himself. It is only in the latter case
that he can attain to Liberty, instead of remaining bound by the bonds
imposed upon him by Necessity. The three great moments of humanity are:
first, the natural or given man in enslaved Being; second, the
conscious man in action working into freedom against passion; third,
the 'I': man as free, that is, real personal Being.
Philosophy has thus a great future before her. Instead of being a mere
dead theory as heretofore, she becomes renovated into a new life when
she gets her proper place; she is separated from her supposed
connection with the physical world, and is recognised as consciousness.
When this is so, she loses her merely theoretic aspect, and is
identified with the living practical interests of mankind. The dead
symbols become living realities, the dead twigs are clothed with
verdure. 'Know thyself, and in knowing thyself thou shalt see that this
self is not thy true self; but, in the very act of knowing this, thou
shalt at once displace this false self, and establish thy true self in
its room.' And Ferrier goes on to trace the bearings of his theories in
the moral and intellectual world. He finds in morality something more
than a refined self-love; he finds the dawning will endeavouring to
assert itself, to break free from the trammels imposed upon it by
nature. Freedom, the great end of man, is contravened by the passive
conditions of his nature; these are therefore wrong, and every act of
resistance tends to the accomplishment of the one important end, which
is to procure his liberty.
This essay, or series of essays, gives the keynote to Ferrier's thought
and writings, therefore it seemed worth while to consider its argument
in detail. The completeness of the break with the old philosophy is
manifest. The 'scientific' methods applied to every region of knowledge
were then in universal use, and no little courage was required to
challenge their pretensions as they were challenged by Ferrier. But in
courage, as we know, Ferrier was never lacking. His mind once made up,
he had no fear in making his opinions known. He considered that the
Scottish Philosophy had become something very like materialism in the
hands of Brown and others, and he believed that the whole point of view
must be changed if a really spiritual philosophy was to take its place.
There may be traces of the impetuosity of youth in this attack: much
working out was undoubtedly required before it could be said that a
system had been established. But all the same this essay is a brilliant
piece of philosophic writing--instinct with life and enthusiasm--one
which must have made its readers feel that the dry bones of a dead
system had wakened into life, and that what they had imagined an
abstract and dismal science had become instinct with living, practical
interest--something to be 'lived' as well as studied.
The _Institutes of Metaphysics_--the work by which Ferrier's name will
descend to posterity--is a development of the Philosophy of
Consciousness; but it is more carefully reasoned out and
systematised--the result of many years of thoughtful labour. For
several years before the work was published (in 1854) the propositions
which are contained in it were developed in the course of Ferrier's
regular lectures. The _Institutes_, or _Theory of Knowing and Being_,
commences with a definition of philosophy as a 'body of reasoned
truth,' and states that though there were plenty of dissertations on
the subject in existence, there was no philosophy itself--no scheme of
demonstrated truth; and this, and not simply a 'contribution' to
philosophy was what was now required, and what the writer proposed to
give. The divisions into which he separates Philosophy are: first, the
Epistemology, or theory of knowledge; secondly, the Agnoiology, or
theory of ignorance; and thirdly, the Ontology, or theory of being. The
fundamental question is, 'What is the _one_ feature which is identical,
invariable, and essential in all the varieties of our knowledge?'
The first condition of knowledge is that we should know ourselves, and
reason gives certainty to this proposition which is not capable of
demonstration, owing to its being itself the starting-point; the
counter-proposition, asserting the separate subject and object of
knowledge, and the mutual presence of the two without intelligence's
being necessarily cognisant of itself, represents general opinion, and
the ordinary view of popular psychology. Knowledge, then, Ferrier goes
on, always has the self as an essential part of it; it is
knowledge-in-union-with-whatever-it-apprehends. The objective part of
the object of knowledge, though distinguishable, is not really
separable from the subjective or _ego_; both constitute the _unit_ of
knowledge--an utterance thoroughly Hegelian in its character, however
Ferrier may disclaim a connection with Hegel's system. In space they
may be separated, but not in cognition, and this idealism does not for
one moment deny the existence of 'external' things, but only says they
can have no meaning if out of relation to those which are 'internal';
as Hegel might have put it, they could be known as separable by means
of 'abstraction' only. From this point we are led on to the next
statement, and a most important statement it is, that matter _per se_
is of necessity absolutely unknowable; or to what Ferrier calls the
Theory of Ignorance. Whether or not this theory can make good the title
to originality which its author claims for it, there is no doubt that
its statement in clear language, such as no one can fail to understand,
marks an important era in English speculation. There are, Ferrier says,
two sorts of so-called ignorance: one of these is incidental to some
minds, but not to all--an ignorance of defect, he puts it--just as we
might be said to be ignorant of a language we had never learned. But
the other ignorance (not, properly speaking, ignorance at all) is
incident to _all_ intelligence by its very nature, and is no defect or
imperfection. The law of ignorance hence is that 'we can be ignorant
only of what can be known,' or 'the knowable is alone the ignorable.'
The bearing of this important point is seen at once when we turn back
to the theory of knowing. Knowledge is something of which the subject
cannot shake himself free; 'I' must always, in whatever I apprehend,
apprehend 'me.' We don't apprehend 'things,' that is, but what is
apprehended is 'me-apprehending-things.' Things-plus-me is the only
knowable, and consequently the only 'ignorable.'
This brings us a great way towards the Absolute Idealism associated
mainly with the name of Hegel--towards the Knowledge or 'Experience' (a
word which Ferrier afterwards himself makes use of) which shall cease
to be a 'theory,' being recognised as comprehending within itself all
Reality--as recognising no distinction between object and subject,
excepting when they are regarded as two poles both equally essential,
and separated only when looked at in abstraction. If Ferrier's 'theory
of knowledge' did not proceed so far, he at least made the discovery
that the subjective idealism of Kant was as unsatisfactory as the
relativity of Hamilton, and as certainly tending to agnosticism. Kant's
'thing-in-itself' is not that of which we are ignorant, or a hidden
reality which can be known by faith. It is that which cannot possibly
be known--and, in other words, a contradiction or nonsense. Now,
Ferrier says, we arrive at the true Idealism--the triumph of
philosophy. If it is said to reduce all things to the phenomena of
consciousness, it does the same to every _nothing_. What falls out of
consciousness becomes incogitable; it lapses, not into nothing, but
into what is contradictory. The material universe _per se_, and all its
qualities _per se_, are not only absolutely unknowable, but absolutely
unthinkable. We do indeed know substance, but only as object plus
subject--as matter _mecum_ or in cognition as thought together with the
self.
It may be true that we cannot claim for Ferrier complete originality in
his thinking; work on very similar lines was being carried on
elsewhere. It is not difficult to trace throughout his writings the
mode of his development. The earlier works are evidently influenced by
Fichte and his school, since the personal _ego_ and individual freedom
figure as the principal conceptions in our knowledge; and even while
the Scottish school of psychologists is being combated, the influence
of Hamilton is very manifest. But as time goes on, Ferrier's ideas
become more concrete; the theory of consciousness becomes more absolute
in its conception; the human or individual element is less conspicuous
as the universal element is more, which signifies that gradually he
approaches closer to the standpoint of the later German thinkers by a
careful study of their works, though for the most part it is Reid and
Hamilton his criticisms have in view, and not the corresponding work of
Kant.
Still, we should say that Ferrier's attitude represented another phase
in the same struggle against abstraction and towards unity in
knowledge, rather than being a simple outcome of the German influence
in Scotland. This last assumption he at least repudiated with energy,
and boldly claimed to have developed and completed his system for
himself. He claimed to have worked on national lines; to have started
from the philosophy of his country as it was currently accepted, and to
have little difficulty in proving from itself its absolute inadequacy.
He felt that in his doctrine of the reality of knowledge he had found
the means of solving problems hitherto dark and obscure, and he used
his instruments bravely, and on the whole successfully.
The faith-philosophy which professed to know reality through the
senses, when these senses were a part of the external universe, or
signified taking for granted the matter in dispute, was utterly
repugnant to Ferrier. The Unknowable of Sir William Hamilton was
inconceivable to him, and he ever kept this theory and its errors in
his mind, while developing a system of his own. It is better that a
philosophic system should grow up thus, instead of coming to us from
without in language hard to understand because of foreign idioms and
unwonted modes of expression. To be of use, a philosophy should speak
the language of the people: until it becomes identified with ordinary
ways of thinking, its influence is never really great; and the Idealism
of Germany has in this country always suffered from being intelligible
only to the few. Therefore we hold all credit due to Ferrier for
consistently refusing to adopt the phraseology of a foreign country,
and setting himself, heart and soul, to find expression for his
thoughts in the language of his birth.
Ferrier introduces his _Lectures on Greek Philosophy_, the last subject
on which he undertook to write, in a manner which reminds us of Hegel's
remarkable Introduction to his _History of Philosophy_; he begins, like
Hegel, by pointing out that the study of philosophy is just the study
of our own reason in its development, but that what is worked out in
our minds hurriedly and within contracted limits, is in philosophy
evolved at leisure, and seen in its just proportions: the historian of
philosophy has not merely to record the existence of dead systems of
thought that are past and gone, but the living products of his _own_,
full of present, vital interest, and there is nothing arbitrary or
capricious in such a history: all is reasoned thought as it manifests
and reveals itself.
Philosophy, Ferrier defines, by calling it the pursuit of Truth--not
relative Truth, but absolute, what necessarily exists for all minds
alike; and man's faculties (contrary to what is generally supposed) are
competent to attain to it, provided only that they have something in
common with all other minds, _i.e._, are partakers in a universal
intelligence. He works this out in his Introduction in an extremely
interesting way, showing, as he does, how in all intelligence there
must be a universal, a unity; that the very essence of religion, for
example, rests on the unity which constitutes the bond between God and
man, and that when this is denied, religion is made impossible. What
then, we may ask, is the Truth that has to be pursued?
It is that which is the real, the object of philosophy--the real which
exists for all intelligence. The historian of philosophy must show that
philosophy in its history corresponds with this definition, if the
definition be a true one.
The lectures begin with Thales and the followers of the Ionic school,
and Ferrier points out how, in spite of the material elements which are
taken as a basis, their systems are philosophic, in so far as they aim
at the establishment of a universal in all things, and carry with them
the belief that this universal is the ultimately real; and this gives
them an interest which from their sensuous forms we could hardly have
expected to find. But it was Heraclitus' doctrine of Becoming that was
most congenial to Ferrier, as it was to his great predecessor Hegel.
Being and Not-Being, the unity of contraries as essential sides of
Truth, in such conceptions as these Ferrier believes we come nearer to
the truth of the universe than in the current views of philosophy, in
which the unity of contrary determinations in one subject is regarded
as impossible. Apart, either side is incomprehensible, and hence Mr.
Mansel and Sir William Hamilton argue the impotence of human reason;
but if, as Ferrier believes, they are shown to be but moments or
essential factors in conception, the antagonism will be proved
unreal--it will be an antagonism proper to the very life and essence of
reason.
Possibly in his account of the early Greek philosophers Ferrier may
have done what many historians of philosophy have done before him, he
may have read into the systems which he has been describing much more
than he was entitled so to read. He may, when he is talking of the
Eleatics of Heraclitus, and even of Socrates and Plato, have had before
his mind the special battle which he had chosen to fight--the battle
against sensationalism in Scotland, against materialism in the form in
which he found it--rather than fairly to set before his readers an
exact and accurate account of the teaching of the particular
philosopher of whom he writes. But has it ever been otherwise in any
history of thought that was ever written, excepting perhaps in some
dryasdust compendium which none excepting those weighed down with dread
of examination questions, care to peruse? Thought reads itself from
itself, and if it sometimes reads the present into the past, and thinks
to see it there, is there matter for surprise, or is it so very far
wrong? If it tells us something of the secrets it itself conceals, it
is surely telling us after all much of those that are gone.
For Plato, Ferrier naturally had a very great affinity; he deals with
him at length, and evidently had made a special and careful study of
his writings. But the same method is applied by him to Plato as was
before applied to the other Greek philosophers. 'It is not so much by
reading Plato as by studying our own minds that we can find out what
ideas are, and perceive the significance of the theory which expounds
them. It is only by verifying in our own consciousness the discoveries
of antecedent philosophers that we can hope rightly to understand their
doctrines or appreciate the value and importance of their
speculations.' And so Ferrier proceeds to prove the necessity for the
existence of 'ideas'--of universals--as the absolute truth and
groundwork of whatever is. No intelligence can be intelligent excepting
by their light, and they are the necessary laws or principles on which
all Being and Knowing are dependent. 'All philosophy,' he says of
Plato, 'speculative and practical, has been foreshadowed by his
prophetic intelligence; often dimly, but always so attractively as to
whet the curiosity and stimulate the ardour of those who have chosen
him as a guide.' And it was as such that Ferrier marked him out and
chose him as his own. With Aristotle he had probably less in common,
and his treatment both of him and of the Stoics, Epicureans, and
Neo-Platonists, with which the history ends, is less sympathetic in its
tone and understanding in its style. But these lectures as a whole,
though never put together for printing as a book, must always be of
interest to the student of philosophy.
A philosophic article, entitled _Berkeley and Idealism_, and published
in June of 1842, was designed to meet the attack of Mr. Samuel Bailey,
who had written a _Review of Berkeley's Theory of Vision_, criticising
the soundness of his views. Mr. Bailey replied, and Ferrier a year
later published an article on that reply. Ferrier rightly appreciates
the very important place which ought to be allowed to Berkeley as a
factor in the development of philosophic truth--a place which has only
been properly understood in later years. He saw the part he had played
in bringing the real significance of Absolute Idealism into view, and
deprecated the representation of his system made by David Hume, or the
popular idea that Berkeley denied all reality to matter. What he did
deny was the reality which is supposed to lie beyond experience, and
his criticism in this regard was invaluable as a basis for a future
system. In his own words, he did not wish to change things into ideas,
but _ideas_ into _things_: matter could not exist independently of
mind. But yet Ferrier is perfectly aware that Berkeley did not entirely
grasp the absolute standpoint that the thing is the appearance, and the
appearance is the thing. Regarded merely as a literary production, this
article is entitled to rank with the classics of philosophic writings
both as regards the beauty of its style and its logical development.
Ferrier does not often touch directly on questions of religion or
theology, but there is an interesting passage in this essay which shows
his views regarding the question of immortality. He is talking of the
impossibility of our ever conceiving to ourselves the idea of our
annihilation. Such an idea could not be rationally articulated. We
_appear_, indeed, to be able to realise it, but we only _think_ we
think it: real thought of death in this sense would involve our being
already dead; but in thought we are and must be immortal. 'We have
nothing to wait for; eternity is even now within us, and time, with all
its vexing troubles, is no more.'
It was something absolute and enduring for which Ferrier was ever on
the search. Those of his Introductory Lectures which are preserved bear
out this statement, if nothing else were left to do so. Philosophy,
thought, is more than systems: 'As long as man thinks, the light must
burn.' Could he but teach the young men who gathered round him day by
day to think, he cared little as to what so-called 'system' they
adopted. He put his arguments clearly before them, but they were free
to criticise as they would. And perhaps it was because they realised
that the Truth was more to him than personal fame that their affection
for him was so great. He always kept before him, too, that in teaching
any science the mental discipline which it involves must not be
overlooked. The practical rule of disciplining the mind should run side
by side with the theoretical instruction, which might soon be
forgotten; the great effort of a teacher should be in the best and
highest sense to _educate_ his students. That is, he has not only to
instil their minds with multifarious learning, but to make their
thinking systematic.
And philosophy must, he tells us, be made interesting if it is to be of
any use: we must arrive at a 'philosophic consciousness,' and
distinguish philosophy from mere opinion. It is mind which is the
permanent and immutable in all change and mutation; even the Greeks
found the idea of permanence in mind while they regarded change as the
principle of matter.
Thus, when the end of the day had come, when the lamp grew dim, and the
books he loved so much must be for the last time shut, Ferrier's
teaching was not so very different from what it was nearly thirty years
before. The only real change was that the impetuosity of youth had
gone; the man and his system had both become matured: the one more
tolerant, more careful in expression, more considerate of the feelings
of his opponents; the other more systematic, more coordinated, firmer
in its grasp. There was much to do if the system were to be shown to
hold its place in every department of life, as an absolute system must:
much that has not even yet been accomplished. But for those who came in
contact with him, the man was more even than his creed--to them this
frail form which seemed to be wasting away before their eyes, yet never
losing the keen interest in work to be accomplished, must have taught a
lesson more than systems of philosophy dream of. For they could not
fail to learn that the eternal can be found in history--even in history
of long centuries ago, as in every other sphere of knowledge--and that
the search for it supports the seeker in his daily life, takes all its
bitterness from what is hardest, from pain, suffering, and even death.