Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/118

90PROP. I.———— and of the psychological doctrine as to the origin of knowledge. The statement does not expressly deny that the subject must always know itself, in order to be cognisant of the object. It neither denies nor admits this in express terms; and, therefore, it is not easy to grapple with the ambiguity which it involves. But it certainly leans more to the side of denial than to the side of affirmation. The ordinary psychological doctrine seems to be, that the subject, or mind, is at times cognisant of itself to the exclusion of the object, and is at times cognisant of the object to the exclusion of itself, and again is at times cognisant both of itself and the object at once. Its general position is, beyond a doubt, me rely this, that to constitute knowledge there must be an intelligent subject, and something for this intelligent subject to know—not that this intelligence must in every act of knowledge be cognisant of itself. But this doctrine is equivalent to the counter-proposition just advanced, because it declares that the cognisance of self is not necessarily the condition and concomitant of all knowledge.

14. It is, however, rather from the conclusions reached by our popular psychology, than from any express statement it contains, that we may gather that its starting-point is our first counter-proposition. Supposing it to start from a denial of our