Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/207

RhPROP. VI.———— universal existences. An inferior kind of knowledge occupied about particulars, and a superior kind of knowledge occupied about universals—that is the doctrine usually ascribed to Plato; and most fatal has this perversion of his meaning proved to the subsequent fortunes of philosophy. The general tenor of speculation during the last two thousand years, as well as its present aspect, betrays at every turn and in every feature the influence of this cardinal misconception—this transmutation of elements into kinds—this mistaking for cognitions of what are the mere factors of cognition.

20. This erroneous interpretation, and indeed reversal of the Platonic doctrine, after giving rise to interminable controversies, which shall be noticed immediately, has at length settled down in the following counter-proposition, which represents faithfully the ordinary psychological deliverance on the subject of knowledge—the topic of existence being of course kept out of the question at present. Sixth counter-proposition: "Every cognition is either particular or universal (also called general); in other word; there is a knowledge of the changeable, contingent, and particular part of cognition, to the exclusion of the unchangeable, necessary, and universal part; and a knowledge of the unchangeable, necessary, and universal part, to the exclusion of the changeable, contingent, and particular part. Thus there is one kind