ponder well the distinction of the universal and the particular in knowledge (Instit., prop. VI.), he would get at the root of the distinction of subject and object. The former of these distinctions is the foundation and light of the latter.
He endeavours further to invalidate my system, by showing that I have not preserved a proper distinction between the act and the object of knowledge. I have preserved this distinction sufficiently, although, in the Institutes, I have dwelt principally on the object of knowledge (the cognitum) as that which, above all things, required to be distinctly ascertained and fully explained—so confusedly had it been expounded, if not completely misapprehended in our antecedent psychology. The distinction is this, and it is a very simple one: the object of knowledge—of course the true and total object—is always the union of subject and object (subject + object). The act of knowledge is the apprehension of this synthesis by the subject. In conclusion, I have to thank this reviewer for the handsome compliments with which his strictures are interspersed.
To Mr Mansel of Oxford, I am indebted for some observations on the Institutes, published in a note appended to a lecture delivered by him some months ago, in the university of which he is so distinguished an ornament. His objections are written in a fair spirit, and accompanied by compliments more flattering than my philosophy deserves. The most formidable difficulty or objection which Mr Mansel advances, is contained in the following extract:—"According to Professor Ferrier, the apprehension of matter per se is a contradiction. I can only apprehend myself-as-apprehending-matter. But this second self is, ex hypothese, equally incapable of apprehending matter per se. It can only apprehend it under the same condition as the first, namely, by apprehending itself along with it. I cannot therefore apprehend myself as apprehending matter; but I must apprehend myself as apprehending myself-as-apprehending-matter. But the third self, again, is under the same law as the second. Wheel within wheel, ego within ego, the process continues ad infinitum. The argument which Herbert urges against Fichte's assumption of a subject-object, tells with greater force
