Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/202

174PROP. VI.———— to be such, would be to mistake the division into kinds for the division into elements. Thus the two analyses are not only different; they are absolutely incompatible with each other. Each denies all that the other affirms. It is, therefore, a point of essential importance to determine which of the two was contemplated by Plato in his theory of Knowing and Being. He divides all cognition into the particular and the universal. That is certain: the doubtful point is, whether the analysis is a division into elements, or a division into kinds; for it cannot be both. He likewise divides all existence into the particular and the universal. That, also, is certain. But is this analysis a division into elements or into kinds? That is the point which Plato has left somewhat undecided; and it is one on which we must come to a distinct understanding if we would comprehend his philosophy, either in itself or in its bearings on the subsequent course of speculation.

17. Although no express decision of this question can be found in the writings of Plato, the whole tenor of his speculations proves beyond a doubt that his aim, in both cases, was the ascertainment of elements, and not the enumeration of kinds; and that in affirming that all knowledge and all existence was both particular and universal, he intended to deny, and virtually did deny, that some cognitions