Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/415

RhPROP. XXII.———— conclusion towards which the inquiry is advancing in the ontology, is the reasoned settlement of what absolutely exists. Now, two preliminary objections may be raised as a bar to any such attempt: first, it may be said that we are not entitled to predicate the absolute existence even of that which is known to us under the necessary laws; and, secondly, that we are still less entitled to predicate the absolute existence of that which is known to us under the contingent laws. The force of the former objection shall be considered more particularly hereafter. The force of the latter objection is at once conceded. Speculation, it is to be hoped, knows her business better than to ascribe an absolute Being either to the contingent laws of knowledge, or to anything which is known to us through their instrumentality. But in order to exhibit that for which a real and absolute existence is hereafter to be claimed, it is necessary that this should be disengaged from that for which no such existence is claimed; and in order to effect this disengagement, it is indispensable that the contingent laws of knowledge, and that which is known in virtue of them, should be distinguished from the necessary laws, and from that which is known by means of their operation.

4. In setting about this analysis, the reader is requested to observe that it is not one which he is