Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/158

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148
an introduction to the



PART V.




CHAPTER I.


The question of Liberty and Necessity has been more perplexed and impeded in its solution by the confounding of a peculiar and very important distinction, than by all the other mistakes and oversights burdened upon it besides. The distinction to which we allude is one which ought to be constantly kept in mind, and followed out as a clue throughout the whole philosophy of man; the distinction, namely, between one's existence for others, and one's existence for oneself; or, in other words, the distinction between unconscious and conscious existence. This distinction, we remark, is very commonly confounded; that is to say, the separate species of existence specified, instead of being regarded as two, are generally regarded as only one; and the consequence is, that all the subsequent conclusions of psychology are more or less perplexed and vitiated by this radical