Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/476

448PROP. VIII.———— the propositions would consequently have been overthrown, if a first and second counter-proposition could have been laid down and proved. Let it be assumed as Counter-proposition I. that ignorance is no imperfection or defect, and a ground would be secured for a second counter-proposition denying that ignorance is possibly remediable; because ignorance is remediable only on the ground that it is a defect. This basis, if it could be conceded, would establish all the other counter-propositions as true; for if ignorance is not a defect, and is not remediable, there may, indeed there must, be an ignorance of what cannot possibly be known. Hence Proposition III. would fall. Again, if there could be an ignorance of what could not possibly be known, there might, and must, be an ignorance of objects per se, and of material things per se: Propositions IV. and V. would fall. Again, if there could be an ignorance of what could not possibly be known, Proposition VI. would fall; because, in these circumstances, there might be an ignorance of the particular without the universal element of cognition, or of the universal without the particular element. Again, Proposition VII. would fall for the same reason. Further, the same concession would effect the destruction of Proposition VIII.; because, if there could be an ignorance of what could not possibly be known, object-plus-subject would no longer be the only possible object of