Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/428

400PROP. XXII.———— oneself along with all that one apprehends. This cognisance of self in addition to whatever things, or thoughts, we may be cognisant of—this, and this alone, is knowledge. In answer to the question, What is known? it replies that object + subject—things or thoughts mecum—constitute the only object which it is possible for any intelligence to know: further, that this synthesis constitutes the only object which it is possible for any intelligence to conceive or think of; because there can be a conception only of that of which the type or pattern may possibly be given in cognition: further, that the only way in which it is possible for any individual intelligence to transcend his own consciousness of himself and things, is by conceiving the total synthesis of which he himself is conscious repeated or multiplied, either with or without certain variations; in other words, by conceiving other intelligences conscious of themselves in the same way in which he is conscious of himself, and cognisant of things either as he is cognisant of them, or in ways of which he is totally ignorant: no consciousness can transcend itself in any other way than this, without falling sheer over into the abyss of the contradictory: but the mode of transcendence which these Institutes contend for, as the only possible mode, is quite easy and legitimate, and is as satisfactory as any that could be desired; indeed much more satisfactory, both in itself and in its