Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/407

RhPROP. XXI.———— the absolute in cognition.—(See Prop. III. Obs. 8.)

6. The reader need scarcely be reminded, that no grain of sand by itself, no, nor a universe of grains of sand by themselves, will constitute the absolute in cognition. Pile Pelion on Ossa, and the result will be mere relative knowledge, when these are considered in relation to their complementary factor, the ego; out of this relation they are the purely contradictory. Neither will the ego, by itself—that is, with no thought or thing present to it—constitute the absolute in cognition; because it can be known only along with its correlative factor, some thought or some thing. But the synthesis of the two factors must constitute the absolute in cognition; because this can be known out of all relation, or absolved and emancipated from every correlative.

7. It is thus obvious that there is a known absolute; that it is the spontaneous growth of ordinary thinking, and not the product of philosophical excogitation; that it is the inalienable possession of all intelligent beings, and not the peculiar property of a few speculative theorists. Had this been made clear at the outset, the controversy on this topic might have been relieved from one great source of embarrassment and confusion.