This matter of the Ding an sich Ferrier felt to be the crucial point in his system: 'You talk glibly of "existence per se," as maids of fifteen do of puppy dogs. This shows that, like a carpet knight, you have never smelt the real smoke of metaphysical battle, but at most have taken part in the sham fights and listened to the shotless popguns of the martinet of Königsberg. You will find existence per se a tougher customer than you imagine.'

As to the Institutes, then on the verge of publication, the author says: 'I am inclined to follow your advice, so far, in regard to the title of the work, and to call it the "Theory of Knowing and Being," leaving out ignorance. But why an introduction to metaphysics? If this be an introduction to metaphysics, pray, Mr. Pundit, what and where are metaphysics themselves? No, sir, it shall be called a text-book of metaphysics, meaning thereby, that it is a complete body (and soul) of metaphysics. You are an uncommonly modest fellow in so far as the protestations of your friends are concerned!'

This correspondence appears to have continued regularly for some years, and to have dealt almost entirely with metaphysical and economic subjects—the subjects which were constantly in Ferrier's mind, as he taught them in the University and tried to work them out in his study. Doubtless it was of the greatest use to him to be able to write about them as he would, had opportunity served, have spoken; and this opportunity was afforded by his friendship with his correspondent, whose interest in philosophy was keen, and whose critical faculties were exceptionally acute, although he never accomplished any original work on philosophical lines.

Of other letters few have been preserved. Absence from home did not make a reason for writing, for Ferrier's journeyings were but few. In 1859, however, he made an expedition to England to see his newly-married daughter, Lady Grant, start for India with her husband, Sir Alexander Grant, after his appointment to the Chancellorship of the University of Bombay. From Southampton he made his way to the scene of his schooldays at Greenwich, from which place he writes to one of the sons of Dr. Bruce of Ruthwell, with whom he spent a happy childhood: 'One of our fêtes was a sumptuous fish dinner at Greenwich. I call it sumptuous, but in truth the fish was utter trash, the best of them not comparable to Loch Fyne herring. Whitebait is the greatest humbug of the age, though it may be heresy to say so in your neighbourhood.' This journey was concluded by a visit to Oxford and to the Lake country, with both of which Ferrier's associations were so many and so agreeable.

The following is a letter, dated 21st March 1862, to Professor Lushington, his friend and biographer:—'I have been very remiss in not acknowledging your photograph, which came safe, and is much admired by all who have seen it. I must get a book for its reception and that of some other worthies, otherwise my children will appropriate it for their collections, with which the house is swarming…. The ego is an infinite and active capacity of never being anything in particular. I will uphold that definition against the world. Did you never feel how much you revolted from being fixed and determined? Depend upon it, that is the true nature of a spirit—never to be any determinate existence. This is our real immutability—for death can get hold only of that which has a determinate being. We stand loose from all determinations. That is our chance of escaping his clutches."

This expresses Ferrier's views and hopes for an after life: he looked forward to an immortality in which the particular and determinate should disappear and only the absolute element remain—in which death should mean only the rising from the individual into a true and universal life. It is a matter to which he frequently refers, and always in terms of a very similar nature. We shall see how, when the end was coming near, his views remained the same, and he was able to face the inevitable without a qualm or shadow of complaint.

CHAPTER VI
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.'