THE GENERAL AND THE PARTICULAR.

1. The Ego in every perception, conception, cognition, is the general, universal, unchangeable factor, hence its identity without personality, and its nothingness as well (Ferrier)!

2. The "particular" is the other factor. It is the changeable contingent, i. e. it cannot by itself stand alone (Ferrier) !

3. A perception, conception, cognition of a thing or thought is the concrete, i. e. the two (general and particular) inseparably unified, but not known as existent each by itself alone (Ferrier)!

I refute Ferrier thus: The Ego is a unity, an entity called self. "I, by myself, I" illustrates this general truth. Hence the Ego's personal identity, as revealed in consciousness. I perceive, I judge, next concept, cognosce; the result is my conception of things, so called cognitions. But things as "particulars" are totally separate and distinct from self; and although all things change, yet the perceptions of them are not contingent, changeable, as Ferrier said; they are in themselves independent truths, i. e. they vary not, as I have already proved. If they were changeable, they with the Ego never could unite. Like always draws to like, hence all truths necessarily unite. Contraries are antagonistic; they see each other and repel each other; they never can possibly agree. Hence "war to the knife," as in America (if possible, live peaceably with all men; if not possible, separate-St Paul). The highest truth is the Absolute the ALL and WHOLE-ALL and ALL-ALL in ALL, and hence it has within it an infinitude of parts. The Ego as a fact or truth is a part of the Absolute infinite whole; hence in itself it is only as a thing finite, a part of the created finite whole, i. e. the universe. The Ego differs from matter in its nature. Matter changes, and is divisible; the Ego is not. I have said that perceptions are not particulars, in Ferrier's sense, i. e. they are not contingent, they are independent, i. e. they change not. A photograph is a fixed likeness; the person or thing may change through time, but the photograph ever remains the same so long as it is a photograph. Hence all truths are blood relations, having family likenesses, all are descendants from one and the same blood. We cannot mistake a vivid perception caused by a material impression or impulse. Hence external injuries are felt as realities, or if slight we scarcely feel them; hence we overlook them. Even words are blows, and the Ego (not the ear) feels them as such. A wound in the flesh heals itself by its "first intention," vis medicatrix. A mental injury is instantly cured if it was by non intention in the agent. No one can easily bear an intentional insult. Revenge is just and honourable; not to revenge is to be as

mean as a slave (he dared not)-Aristotle. "Not so," said Jesus, of love absolute. Avenge not," said Paul. Thus far as to the factor called by Ferrier the " particular in thought." And how egregious was his error, i.e. he confounded real and permanent perceptions with conceptions, which are ever changing as we advance in life. Knowledge acquired is à posteriori empirical, i. e. by experience. Hence a rampaging tory becomes a rational conservative. Even Peel gave up prejudice-misconception-when he became the advocate of free trade. "Matter is not the cause of conceptions," said Ferrier. "They are," said he, "supplied by the Ego out of itself." How so? seeing he had said that the Ego was by itself incogitable-an absolute "surd"! Hence, in one sense he said they are innate! as much so as perceptions are innate! Is a tree innate, i. e. as a perception? It has its source in the senses, and its origin in the mind! said Hamilton. Was this not one of Ferrier's perfect "surds"? The fact is, that from Plato to Descartes, and from him to Ferrier, all philosophers have erred. They had confounded perceptions with conceptions, and their misconceptions of what I have revealed as the simplest of allprimitive truths have been the destruction of metaphysics! Perceptions are as certain as the things perceived are certain (Reid). Over them, without distinction, the Ego has no control (Combe). The external object may change, and it does change, omnia mutantur, but its photographic impression and the perception of it changes not. But what of motion? We see it not. The eye imperceptibly follows the crow while flying. The eye turns on its axis, and becomes sensible of the crow's motion by the fact that all things else are fixed; yea more, when we are flying at railway speed we think that the crow has no apparent motion in its flight. It cannot beat the telegraph. We even think that the distant trees are all in motion, and move more quickly than those that are near at hand. Yea more, instead of proceeding, I have at times thought I was retrograding when the engine was at its full speed. "Behold! we could not know anything," unless our perceptions were formed in less than a second, and as instantly fixed. Hence we can recall them, by the law of association, even by the mark of an immoveable type. Thus the ceremonial law was in its every jot, tittle, and iota, fixed, i. e. it was unalterable by man until it was absolutely fulfilled by Christ. How else could he have appealed to it as his exemplar? The types were so fixed for the sake of the antitype. Hence a simple mark transferred to the brain may stand for the subject of a whole chapter! The Ego sees it, and perceives it, next knows and judges of it, yea, determines it as well, i. e. it "forms its own conception of it," and may be its misconception of it after all, and yet our

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senses are not deceivers. Nature is as God made it; hence our “particular” nature, although changeable, is by the fixedity of its perceptions unchangeable amidst all other changing things, in order that the Ego might dwell in it, and taste the ever ripe fruit of that tree of knowledge which grows up in it, and under whose evergreen shade it seeks to enjoy perfect rest without motion, and perfect peace as well. Hence our everchanging nature after all is not a lie, it only gives a neverceasing variety. "Familiarity," said Ferrier, "breeds neglect," i. e. we thus fail to respect the Ego as the better half of all cognitions! I might illustrate these conceptions, grounded on natural perceptions, at greater length. I might here appeal to the "Pleasures of Hope" and of "Imagination" (Campbell and Akenside), but I prefer the Bible after all. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, what great things God hath prepared for them that wait for him." They are so vast that they are only in part revealed by the Spirit in his word. How could we have seen earthly things in their absolute totality had our eyes not been achromatically adjusted, i. e. they are diminishers, and hence not magnifiers. Hence they are sufficient to scan the universe, and thereby enable the Ego to form some small conception of infinitude! What a fool that man must be who says even in his heart "no God." And what, after all, are Ferrier's logical conclusions? I quote from p. 510, "What are the conceival causes in existence which generate knowledge? No existence can be conceived by any intelligence anterior to knowledge. Knowledge of existence-the apprehension of one's self and other things (inseparably unified)—is alone true existence (hence a man dies when his wife, horse, cow, or dog dies, for the Ego by itself is nothing!). This is the First, the Bottom, the Origin, and this is what all Intelligence is prevented, by the laws of reason, from ever getting beyond or below (!) To inquire what this proceeds from is as inept as to ask what is the Beginning of the Beginning." "Finally, it must be borne in mind, although cognition has been characterised by this (Ferrier's own) system as a fusion or synthesis of two contradictories (the Ego and the non Ego), that is of two elements which, out of relation to each other, are necessarily unknowable. This does not mean that the synthesis is brought about by the union of two elements which existed in a state of separation previous to the formation of the synthesis. The synthesis is the primary or original; the analysis is the secondary or posterior. The contradictory elements are found by an analysis of the synthesis, but the synthesis is not generated by putting together the parts obtained by the analysis, because these parts can be conceived only in relation to each other, or

as already put together (hence the spirit cannot exist after death!).

Again the ultimate question, What is truth? Whatsoever absolutely is is true. But what absolutely is? That object plus subject (the Ego and non Ego in perfect fusion) is what absolutely (actually) is that this and this alone truly and really exists (!) This synthesis is "THE TRUTII: the Groundbelow which there is neither anything or nothing"! No marvel that the Bible is not referred to in Ferrier's "nonsensical" "Institutes." "What agreement hath light with darkness?" If the light that is in them be darkness, how great must be that darkness. Hence no marvel that I repeat that scepticism, fatalism, atheism, and blasphemy abounds. And yet after all there is a saving clause in Ferrier's "Institutes" at p. 524. "Ordinary minds," he said, "suppose the universe capable of subsisting by itself, hence there is with such no necessity for a supreme intelligence in connection with it. But speculation," he added, "proved that the universe by itself is the contradictory, that it is incapable of self-subsistency, that it can exist only cum alio, inasmuch as it can be known cum alio, and be ignored cum alio; that all true and cogitable and noncontradictory existence is a synthesis of the subjective and the objective; and we are compelled by the most stringent necessity of thinking to conceive a supreme intelligence as the ground and essence of the universal whole. Thus the postulation of a deity is not only permissible, but unavoidable. Every mind thinks, and must think of God whenever it thinks of anything as lying beyond all human observation, or as subsisting in the absence or annihilation of all finite intelligences. Here metaphysics stop; here ontology is merged into theology. Philosophy has accomplished her final work; she has reached by strict demonstration the central law of all reason (the necessity, namely, of thinking an infinite and eternal Ego in synthesis with all things) and that law she lays down as the basis of all religion!* I repeat, I would rather pin my coat sleeve to that of St. Paul, who overlooked all changeable "particulars" (things temporal and vain) as unworthy of his notice, and 'hold fast" to those realities which have a positive and real existence, both within and without the veil. Hence his philosophy was summed up in these memorable words, "God is all and all." This, according to St. Paul, is the absolute truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Its highest sensible development was Christ. Hence his intercessory prayer, St John xvii.

* Was Ferrier not, after all, a Pantheist of the Fichte and Hegel school?

LIFE.

There is a kind of innocence in childhood which is lovely, and yet all speak lies from their very birth, i. e. dissemble. Still Jesus loved the lawyer for his honest legality; yet even he lacked one thing which was far above all his rich possessions"Go sell all, and then come and follow me." No, said the lawyer, and he went away very sorrowful. How difficult it is for a rich man to enter heaven's strait gate! with man it is impossible; but not so with God! Hence the disciples at one bidding left their nets-St Paul lost all, and yet was rich! C. M. D. was as beautiful as she was good. She was the most loving among her associates, and yet playful with all. We have had our amusements, they used to say, but we had no fun. Why so? Christian was not among us. She was most graceful in her white attire, and she always led the dance-our festive intimations had their limitation-six to ten o'clock. This wholesome rule was enacted by the late Sir James Spittal. But childhood soon arrives at womanhood, and still we mark differences in taste. She voluntarily gave up dancing. She said it was unseemly in adults. Christian was by nature "a poetic child." See, she would say, that meandering stream, with its grassy sloping banks, losing itself among the shelved rocks, lying deep deep in that dark dark greenly shaded glen, as seen at Hawthornden, and at Carlops's so called Habbie's Howe:"A wee bit up the hill to Habbie's Howe,

Where a' the sweets o' spring and summer grow."

See also how the weeping willow is ever bathing itself, and at every gust kissing its own shadow as reflected in the glassy pool. How child-like!

Is not all this beautiful, i. e. picturesque! Again, How grand is our Highland scenery-see Benlomond's lofty crags! they seem to touch and kiss the very skies! and yet, looking down, it too bathes its huge feet in its placid lake deep, deep, or may be, omnia mutantur-hence the mountain torrents,-anon every furrow in it, is a raging silvery cataract! Ah! is not all this

sublime !

AN INCIDENT.-One day I was returning homeward, I met my children walking sorrowfully as in a procession, two and two: they were so sad that they heeded not the passers by. Ho, said I, what next? We have, said Christian, made a coffin for our canary that was killed by the cat, and we are going to bury