Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/484

456PROP. I.———— 4. First Counter-proposition.—"There are only two alternatives in regard to Absolute Existence. If Absolute Existence is not what we know, it must be what we are ignorant of; for there is no middle between knowledge and ignorance. Whatever we do not know, we must be ignorant of; in other word; it is impossible neither to know nor to be ignorant of a thing."

5. There is nothing wrong in this counter-proposition, in so far as it maintains that there are only two alternatives in regard to absolute existence. This is the very conclusion which the ontology is proceeding to establish in the subsequent propositions; but it must be established in an orderly manner, and not taken for granted at the outset. At first sight the alternatives of Absolute Existence are apparently three, and accordingly they have been set forth as three in the opening proposition, in order that the Theory of Being may be cleared from the very commencement, may proceed by deliberate and legitimate steps, and may leave in arrear or unremoved no difficulty or objection to which it may seem to be exposed. Its labours would have been considerably abridged had it held itself entitled to start from the affirmation that the alternatives of Absolute Existence are only two; but such a starting-point would have been not strictly legitimate.