Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/215

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
philosophy of consciousness.
205

burst forth into living realities; the dry rustling twigs of science become clothed with all the verdure of the spring. Her inert tutorage is transformed into an actual life. Her dead lessons grow into man's active wisdom and practical virtue. Her sleeping waters become the bursting fountainhead from whence flows all the activity which sets in motion the currents of human practice and of human progression. Truly, γνῶθι σεαυτὸν was the sublimest, the most comprehensive, and the most practical oracle of ancient wisdom. Know thyself, and, in knowing thyself, thou shalt see that this self is not thy true self; but, in the very act of knowing this, thou shalt at once displace this false self, and establish thy true self in its room.