Having established his fundamental principles, Ferrier goes on to trace the birth of self-consciousness in the child—the knowledge of itself as 'I,' which means the knowledge of good and evil—the moral birth. Perception, again, is a synthesis of sensation and consciousness—the realisation of self in conjunction with the sensation experienced: it is, of course, peculiar to man. Things can only take effect on 'me' when there is a 'me' to take effect upon, and not at birth, or before I come to consciousness. Consciousness is the very essence and origin of the ego; without consciousness no man would be 'I.' It is our refusal to be acted on by outside impressions that constitutes our personality and perception of them; our communication with the universe is the communication of non-communication. And the ego is not something which comes into the world ready-made; it is a living activity which is never passive, for were it passive, it would be annihilated; in submitting to the action of causality its life would be gone. Our destiny is to free ourselves from the bonds of nature, from that 'blessed state of primeval innocence,' the blessedness, after all, of bondage. A man cannot be until he acts, for his Being arises out of his actions: consciousness being an act, our proper existence is the consequence of that act. His natural condition for others, and before he comes to existence, Ferrier says, is given, while his existence for himself is made by his thinking himself. It is only in the latter case that he can attain to Liberty, instead of remaining bound by the bonds imposed upon him by Necessity. The three great moments of humanity are: first, the natural or given man in enslaved Being; second, the conscious man in action working into freedom against passion; third, the 'I': man as free, that is, real personal Being.
