Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/435

RhPROP. I.———— merely the substantial in cognition. It does not follow, the objector would say, that this synthesis alone is true and absolute Being—that it is the only true substantial in existence. He would argue that what truly and absolutely exists may be something very different from this—may be matter per se or mind per se, or something else of which we can form no sort of conception, and to which we can attach no predicate;—in short, that it may be, and is, that of which we are profoundly ignorant.

4. This plea has hitherto operated as an insurmountable barrier to the advance of metaphysics into the region of ontology. The fact of our extreme ignorance being undeniable, and the science of absolute existence being apparently inaccessible except on the postulation of a universal and unlimited knowledge, the difficulty of reconciling these two apparent incompatibilities seems to have disconcerted every system hitherto propounded. Any reasoned ontological conclusion establishing what alone absolutely exists, is obviously impossible in a system which admits our ignorance without entering into any critical inquiry as to its nature; while, on the other hand, the ontology of a system which denies our ignorance, or passes it over sub silentio, must either rest upon a false ground, or upon no ground at all—on a false ground if our ignorance is denied—on no ground at all if it is not taken into