Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/469

RhPROP. VIII.———— of man, in behalf of which so zealously contends, would have been placed in jeopardy: reasoning at least could have done nothing towards their extrication and security. Again, if the contingent laws had been elevated to a level with the necessary laws, the only possible object of our ignorance would have been a subject apprehending things exactly as we apprehend them. This would have been the only possible object of ignorance, because, in the circumstances supposed, it would have been the only possible object of knowledge; in which case the sophism of Protagoras would have been verified, that man is the measure of the universe. Our ontology would have been anthropomorphical and revolting. But the accomplishment of the analysis referred to, extricates the system from this dilemma. By distinguishing the necessary from the contingent laws of cognition, we were able to obtain demonstrably in the epistemology a mind, or self or subject plus some objects (though what objects it is impossible to say—this being the particular, variable, and inexhaustible element of cognition) as the only possible object of all knowledge; and in like manner, this distinction enables us to obtain demonstrably in the agnoiology a mind, or self; or subject plus some objects (though what objects it is impossible to say—this being the particular, variable, and inexhaustible element of ignorance) as the only possible object of all ignorance. The system is thus