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say, then, that I think that when Dr. Irons leaves the ground of morals to 
come to metaphysical philosophy, he is not so happy as in the other parts of 
his paper. I will ask those who have the paper in their hands to refer to 
the following passage : — 
“ A conscious agent is what is meant commonly by a mind, without ques- 
tioning other kinds of intelligence. He is, and knows that he is ; acts, and 
knows it. To affirm itself, the mind needs no other principle than itself.” 
What does that mean ? I thought that it had now come generally to be admitted 
that the mind does not act itself except in coming into contact with something 
that is not itself. I thought that it had now come to be generally admitted 
that the mind only knows itself as subject — as the “ ego,” by coming into 
contact with that which is the object. I suppose that is now generally 
admitted ; and therefore I don’t precisely understand in what sense Dr. 
Irons says that “ to affirm itself the mind needs no other principle than 
itself,” and “ to affirm any other being we must, as Berkeley said, look to 
the phenomena.” I apprehend that the mind, first of all, is conscious of the 
phenomena, and must be conscious of the phenomena, in reality, that it may 
be conscious of itself. The question of the origination of “ I myself ” is one of 
the most delicate and difficult problems belonging to metaphysical inquiry ; 
but, if I do not misapprehend what seems to be the meaning of this passage, 
it implies that in reality the mind, in its dark and solitary abode, before it 
has come into contact with any external phenomena whatever, is conscious 
of itself, and knows itself before it has any knowledge whatever of anything 
else 
Dr. Irons. — That is not what I intended the passage to imply, certainly. 
Dr. Rigg. — If that is not the meaning of the passage I will turn to the 
next page, where I find the following : — 
u Looking, then, at intelligence, mind, or conscious being as prior to and 
apart from all phenomena of external being, what do we find ? Evidently, 
ex vi termini, its object then must be the abstract, or it may be the infinite ; 
and itself (or the subject) has natural relation with the object. All that is 
phenomenal is later.” 
Again (I only speak by way of inquiry) it is necessary that we should know 
more clearly what the meaning of these words may be. I think the natural, 
if not the true sense (and Dr. Irons will inform us what is the sense in which 
they have been used), seems to be that the object of the mind is the abstract 
or the infinite, and that all that is phenomenal is subsequent ; whereas, as it 
appears to me, we must have the phenomena before we get the abstraction. 
Abstraction is the process of generalization from the phenomena ; so that the 
mind must be brought into relation with phenomena before mental abstrac- 
tion is possible. Then 1* go to the next passage : — 
“ It is true, indeed, that some abstractions are measures of phenomenal 
and contingent being ; but all are not so. Collective and general terms, for 
instance, are abstractions, partly derived from the phenomena of experience ; 
but some thoughts we certainly have beyond these.” 
