Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/227

RhPROP. VII.———— the particular and changeable element, because much may be conceived—if not actually by us, yet possibly by other intellects—besides matter, of which intelligence may be cognisant. Matter does not, of necessity, enter into the constitution of cognition. Something particular must be known whenever anything at all is known, but this particular need not be material; for, as has been said, the particular is not necessarily restricted to, and convertible with, matter, although the universal, when carried to its highest generalisation, is necessarily limited to, and convertible with, the ego.

3. Another reason for the introduction of this proposition is, that it is required as a stepping-stone to the next.

4. That the common, permanent, and necessary constituent of all knowledge should not have been brought clearly to light, and turned to good account, and had all its consequences pressed out of it long before now, is not a little remarkable. It has scarcely, however, been even enunciated—certainly not emphatically dwelt upon. There cannot be a doubt that speculation, from a very early period, has aimed at the ascertainment of the immutable and universal feature which all cognitions present. It might have been expected, therefore, that the first consideration which would have occurred to the