Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/496

472PROP. IV.———— 2. There is no fourth counter-proposition; because the system has now reached, by legitimate steps, the conclusion which Counter-proposition I. reached illegitimately and prematurely.

3. To some persons, the logical operation developed in the preceding propositions, by which the third alternative, in regard to Absolute Existence, is eliminated from the list, may appear superfluous. It is, indeed, by no means certain that the operation referred to is not superfluous. Its performance has been prompted by the anxiety to do the work completely, to deal with every difficulty which may arise, and to staunch all the possible sources of objection. To those, however, who think that it might have been dispensed with, the starting-point of the ontology will present itself in the next proposition.