author:John Francis Waller

“ He rather proceeds prematurely to build up into a synthesis the elements of pure thought, which are the result of the analysis. Hence arises, in a great measure, his obscurity, which seems, in many places, to be absolutely impenetrable. Nevertheless, in spite of all its defects, his exposition of the dialectual movement by which the categories of reason evolve themselves, from lowest to highest, through a self-conversion into their opposites, is a work replete at once with the profoundest truth, and the most marvellous speculative sagacity. ”

“ The avowed aim of the author was to shake to the foundation the distinctive principles of the Scottish philosophy, and to prove that the common dicta of consciousness are to be repudiated as false, instead of being accepted as the source and groundwork of all true mental science. ”

“ On the death of his distinguished relative in 1852, Professor Ferrier became a candidate for the chair of moral philosophy in the university of Edinburgh, but was unsuccessful. He was also an unsuccessful candidate for the chair of logic and metaphysics in the same university, vacant by the death of Sir William Hamilton. The reputation of Ferrier as a philosopher rests chiefly on his "Institutes of Metaphysics, the theory of Knowing and Being," published in 1854—a work which is characterized by much acuteness of thought and no little learning. ”

“ Wherever knowledge or thought is, even in its narrowest manifestation, there "the absolute" is known; because there something is apprehended by intellect simply, something which is intelligible, not merely to this or to that particular mind, but to r eason universally. In any review of the question of "the absolute," our philosophers would do well to bear in mind, that not the range or compass, but only the nature or character of our thought has to be taken into account. ”

“ The Swabian temperament—its gravity, straightforwardness, and perseverance—is said to have declared itself at an early period in the life and conversation of the future philosopher. While still in his teens he went by the nickname of "the old man." ”

“ But it is in the analysis referred to that the philosophy of Hegel, and of Germany in general, finds its most signal contrast in the philosophy of Great Britain. Of the analysis in question our philosophers have formed no just or adequate conception. ”

“ Hegel remained at Jena until 1807, during which period he published a dissertation on "The Difference between the Systems of Fichte and of Schelling;" edited, along with Schelling, a journal of philosophy; and delivered lectures on the history of philosophy, and on the phenomenology of the mind. In 1803 Schelling migrated to Würzburg, and after some interval Hegel was promoted to the chair which he had vacated. ”