Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/474

446PROP. VIII.———— 13. As a corollary of this proposition, it follows that object + subject is the only substantial and absolute in ignorance, just as this synthesis is the only substantial and absolute in cognition. It is, however, unnecessary to enunciate this truth in a distinct and separate proposition; suffice it to say, that the mere factors of this synthesis cannot either of them be the substantial and absolute in ignorance, because there can be no knowledge of them apart from each other; and there can be no ignorance of what there can be no knowledge of. Hence, the only absolute and substantial reality of which we can be ignorant is a subject in union with objects of some kind or other.

14. The short summing up is this—a summary which refers in part to the epistemology. The ordinary thinker—that is, every man in his habitual and unphilosophical moods—supposes, first, that he can know less than he can really know; hence he supposes that mere objects can be known. Secondly, he supposes that he can think of less than can be known; hence he supposes that mere objects can be conceived. Thirdly, he supposes that he can be ignorant of less than can be known; hence he supposes that mere objects are what he can be ignorant of. The first and second of these inadvertencies are corrected in the epistemology. It is there shown that we cannot know less than we can really