Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/134

106PROP. III.———— subjective constitutes such a unit or minimum: because if the objective part be entirely removed from the object of our knowledge, and if the mind be left with no thing or thought before it, it can have no cognition—so if the subjective part, or itself, be entirely removed from the mind's observation, the cognition equally disappears, to whatever extent we may suppose the mere objective part of the presentation to be still before us. All cognisance of it is impossible by Proposition I. Therefore the objective and the subjective do together constitute the unit or minimum of cognition.

1. Although this proposition is rather a corollary of the second than a new and distinct proposition, still there are good reasons for assigning to it a formal and prominent position in the system. Its enunciation affords us an opportunity of explaining what is meant by inseparability in cognition, and by the unit or minimum of knowledge—two important but ill-understood points in philosophy. And further, it is to be suspected that, notwithstanding the clearness and certainty of Proposition II., doubts may still be entertained as to the inviolable unity in cognition of the objective and the subjective parts of our knowledge. Moreover, it may be doubted whether the popular delusion, which is largely