Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/272

244PROP. IX.———— million things as the condition of his knowing himself. Besides, the first question of philosophy is, What is the one thing, or rather element which must be known in order that anything may be known,—what is the one thing known along with all other things? The answer, as we have seen, is—self. But had the question been, What is the one thing which must be known in order that self may be known—what is the other thing known along with self?—the question would have been aimless and unanswerable, because there is no one thing which can be mentioned, or conceived, which must be known in all knowing of oneself. These reasons may be sufficient to explain the relation which subsists between this proposition and Proposition I., and to show that the law stated in the latter has an undoubted right to the priority which has been accorded to it.

4. A second difficulty may be started. The ego must know itself whenever it knows anything material. Does the converse follow—must it know something material whenever it knows itself? No—that is by no means necessary. It must know something particular,—it must know itself in some determinate condition, whenever it has any sort of cognisance, but the particular element need not be material—the determinate state need not embrace any material thing. This objection was sufficiently