Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/540

512PROP. X.———— this alone, is the substantial and absolute in cognition (Props. XVII. XXI., Epistemology). Again, if Absolute Existence is that which we are ignorant of, it must equally be the synthesis of subject and object, the union of the universal and the particular, the concretion of the ego and the non-ego, because this, and this alone, is what we can be ignorant of (Prop. VIII., Agnoiology). Therefore, whichever alternative be adopted, the result is the same. Whether we claim a knowledge, or profess an ignorance, of the Absolutely Existent, the conclusion is inevitably forced upon us that the Absolutely Existent is the synthesis of the subject and object—the union of the universal and the particular—the concretion of the ego and non-ego; in other words, that the only existences to which true, and real, and independent Being can be ascribed are minds-together-with-that-which-they-apprehend.

1. This proposition solves the problem of ontology. It demonstrates what is—what alone absolutely exists: and thus the end or aim which it was the business and duty of this section of the science to accomplish, has been overtaken.—(See Introduction, § 54.) A predicate declaratory of its character has been affixed to Absolute Existence, and