Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/323

RhPROP. XI.———— cognition, of antecedent experience. The two restrictions may be stated thus: Thought cannot transcend knowledge—representation cannot go beyond presentation, in the way of adding to the materials of knowledge any element absolutely new; nor can thought transgress experience in the way of subtracting from the materials of knowledge any element essential to the very formation of cognition. The one restriction may be termed, shortly, restriction by the way of addition; and the other, restriction by the way of subtraction. By these two restrictions all thinking is incapacitated from carrying beyond certain limits its operations on the data of experience.

6. All philosophers have seen that thought could not transcend experience by the way of addition: no philosopher (except Berkeley, who had a glimpse of the truth) has seen, or at least has stated, that thought is equally incompetent to transgress experience by the way of subtraction. And the consequence of their oversight shows itself in the following counter-proposition, which, although never literally propounded, may be accepted as a faithful expression of the common and psychological opinion on the subject of presentation and representation. Eleventh Counter-proposition: "Less can be represented in thought than can be presented in knowledge: it is possible to think of less than it is