Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/297

RhPROP. X.———— position exactly: Let us suppose that the contradictory, the anoetic, is more than nothing (0), but less than anything (1). But this (the more than 0, but less than 1) is what no intellect can apprehend. That is precisely what the Greek philosophers affirm; and they affirm it of the whole sensible world, considered per se. Matter, by and in itself, is more than nothing, yet less than one. This is by far the best symbol or figure by which it can be expressed. But that is nonsense and a contradiction. Precisely so. Unless it were nonsense, these old philosophers could not have commenced their operations. They had to explain how nonsense becomes sense. They must accordingly be allowed their nonsense, their contradictory. If a man has to make clay into bricks, he must at any rate be furnished with clay. Accordingly, they hold that the whole sensible or material world is nonsense and a contradiction. But nonsense cannot be apprehended. True, say they, it cannot be apprehended by the factor or faculty of intellect; but it can be taken up by that factor of the mind whose special function it is to lay hold of nonsense; and this factor is the complement of the senses. These are specially fitted and commissioned to lay hold of the nonsensical; they seize upon that which is more than nothing but less than anything; they bring before intellect the incomprehensible world of matter per se, and having