Ferrier, to that department of thought whose subject matter is the nature and origin of knowledge.
Among his principal publications are An Examination of Ferrier's "Knowing and Being," and the Scottish Philosophy - (a work which gave him the reputation of being an independent Hamiltonian in philosophy); Memoir of John Brown, D.D.
Mill in the 'Westminster Review (reprinted in Dissertations), and from Ferrier in Blackwood (reprinted in Lectures and Remains, ii).
His theory of "attuition," by which he supposes that we become conscious of objects outside ourselves, is his " return to dualism," and is indeed so like natural realism as to suggest that, like Ferrier, he starts from Hamilton to end in Hegel.
Ferrier's investigations showed, motor reactions of the facial and sensori- limb muscles are regularly and easily evoked.