Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/158

130PROP. IV.———— indeed, in that case, it must be cognisant of X per se; because, not being cognisant of Y, or itself; it must be cognisant of X without Y; but X without Y is X per se. So that the psychological position, which contends merely for the presence of Y along with X as the condition on which Y may know X, but not for the cognisance by Y of its own presence along with X, leaves the knowledge of X per se not only possible, but necessary. On this basis, which is occupied by ordinary thinking as well as by psychological science, our knowledge of matter per se may very well be vindicated.

13. A very different conclusion flows from the initial principle on which this work is founded. Our position is not simply that Y must be present to X in order to be cognisant of X: nothing can come of such a truism as that; it is barren as a cinder. Our position is that Y must, moreover, be cognisant of Y or itself, in order to be cognisant of X, and that Y can apprehend X only when it also apprehends Y. That seed bears fruit, which, whether acceptable or not, is at any rate legitimately raised, because it leads at once to the conclusion that all knowledge of X per se—that is, of X without any Y being known along with it—is altogether impossible.

14. Lest it should be supposed that this conclusion