Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/194

166PROP. VI.———— afford glimpses of intellectual systems which aim at the solution of the latter more accessible problem. This obscure movement, this wavering to and fro between the question of Being and that of Knowing, is the chief point of interest in the development of the Greek metaphysic. But while it was going on, it had the effect of entangling the operations of reason in coils which it is scarcely possible to unravel. Philosophy has three crises: First, when the nature of Being, or the question, What is? is proposed for solution before the nature of Knowing, or the question, What is known? is taken into consideration; Secondly, when Being and Knowing are inquired into together, and indiscriminately, by means of a mixed research; and, Thirdly, when the nature of Knowing is examined, and the question, What is known? is asked and answered before any attention is given to the problem which relates to existence. During the first period there is most error, for the whole method is wrong; the order of procedure is inverted. Here speculation is at its minimum. During the second period there is most confusion, for the attempt to carry out the two theories simultaneously, and not in succession, gives rise to the utmost disorder. But there is less error, for the revolution which adjourns the one question, and brings the other round for examination, is in progress. The method is coming right; speculation is beginning to assert itself. But it is only during the third period that