Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/436

408PROP. I.———— account. In one or other of these predicaments all previous systems appear to be placed in reference to the problem of absolute existence; and hence a reasoned and systematic ontology has remained until this day a desideratum in speculative science, because a reasoned and systematic agnoiology has never yet been projected.

5. The only way in which a deliverance from this dilemma can be effected is, by admitting our ignorance to the full, and then by instituting a searching inquiry into its nature and character. Conceding, then, that the conclusion of the epistemology cannot at present, with any logical propriety, be given out as valid for the ontology, the system proceeds to this investigation, and dealing not with the abstract, but only, or chiefly, with the concrete, it goes on to consider and to point out what we are, and can be, and what we are not, and cannot be, ignorant of. It is conceived that the research, thus conducted, will result in an effectual clearance of the ground for the establishment of a demonstrated ontology.

6. First Counter-proposition.— There is no first counter-proposition. We shall come, indeed, by and by, to certain psychological doctrines which are defensible only on the ground that ignorance is no imperfection, and therefore a counter-proposition