Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/248

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
238
an introduction to the



CHAPTER II.


Neither overrating nor underrating the pretensions of philosophy, let us now, as our final task, demonstrate the entire harmony between her and the scheme of Christian revelation. Philosophy has done much for man, but she cannot do everything for him; she cannot convert a struggling act (consciousness in its antagonism against evil)—she cannot convert this act into a permanent and glorified substance. She can give the strife, but she cannot give the repose. This Christianity alone can give. But neither can Christianity do everything for man. She, too, demands her prerequisites; she demands a true consciousness on the part of man of the condition in which he stands. In other words, she demands, on man's own part, a perception of his own want or need of her divine support. This support she can give him, but she cannot give him a sense of his own need of it. This philosophy must supply. Here, therefore, Christianity accepts the assistance of philosophy; true though it be, that the latter, even in her highest and most exhaustive flight, only brings man up to the