Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/465

RhPROP. VIII.———— seen, more than once, that the unity of object and subject is the only possible object of cognition. But this doctrine, not having been worked through all its phases, or followed out into all its consequences, remained, as has been said, a mere approximation to the truth. It was left very far in arrear; and hence the true doctrine of ignorance, which depends entirely on the perfecting of that antecedent speculation, has never shown itself until now.

5. Another cause of the omission is to be found in the circumstance that philosophers hitherto have been satisfied with making our ignorance a theme for moral declamation, instead of making it a subject for metaphysical inquiry. Its quantity has distracted their attention from its quality. "Heu, quantum est quod nescimus!" exclaim they pathetically. "What an immensity of ignorance is ours!" True; but these whinings will never teach us what ignorance is, what its law is, and what its object is: and this alone is what we, as searchers after truth, are interested in finding out. To tell us how much a thing is, will never teach us what it is, as our psychologists, moralising on the boundlessness of human ignorance, seem to suppose. "What does this cheese consist of?" says a customer to his grocer. "Consist of!" answers the man—"consist of; why, it weighs twenty pounds to a hair, and that is what