Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/302

274PROP. X.———— of distraction, instead of what it ought to be, an exercise of clear and systematic thinking. First, The problem having been obscurely expressed, succeeding philosophers have taken it up, as if the question for consideration was, How does the intelligible become intelligible? not, How does the unintelligible become intelligible? Intimately connected with this misconception are the other two. Secondly, Sense, not having been fixed with sufficient precision as the faculty of nonsense, came to be regarded as a kind of intellect. Of course, if it is not altogether a senseless or nonsensical capacity, it must be to some extent an intellectual power. The ambiguity in the old speculations allowed sense to be regarded as a sort of cognitive endowment, or, at any rate, as possessing, to some extent, a capacity of cognition. And, accordingly, as such it is now actually fixed by the whole psychology at present in vogue. No pains, at least, are taken by any existing system to guard against this misconception. Thirdly, Sensible things not having been laid down by the old philosophers with sufficient distinctness as absolutely nonsensical and contradictory things, came, in the course of time, to be looked upon as a kind of intelligible things; for, of course, whatever is not thoroughly nonsensical must be, in some way, and to some extent, comprehensible.

19. These three misconceptions, and their baneful