Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/341

RhPROP. XIII.———— —namely, to be thinking of the universe by itself, or out of synthesis with every intelligent subject. This latter operation cannot be performed. It is made impracticable by the law which declares that that alone can be thought of which can possibly be known. But although it cannot be performed, we can understand how its performance, if possible, would have the effect of reducing the universe to the predicament of a contradiction; because the abstraction of the "me" would empty it of the element which, by Proposition I., is essential to the constitution of all knowledge or presentation, and which, by Proposition XI., is essential to the constitution of all thought or representation.

4. An objection, which at first sight may look serious, seems to lie against this proposition. It may be alleged that, in cogitating material things, each of us can cogitate merely his own individual self, which was originally apprehended in the cognition of them. It may be supposed that, no other than each person's individual self having been known or represented to him in the first instance, no other than this can be conceived or represented by him in the second instance, according to the terms of Proposition XI.

5. This objection is very easily removed. It proceeds on a misapprehension, not unnatural, of