Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/551

RhPROP. XI. never postulates more than is necessary. Therefore all absolute existences are contingent except one; in other words, there is One, but only one, Absolute Existence which is strictly necessary; and that existence is a supreme, and infinite, and eternal Mind in synthesis with all things.

1. In this proposition a distinction is taken between contingent absolute existences (for example, human beings together with what they apprehend) and the One Absolute Existence which is necessary. All absolute existences except one are contingent. This is proved by the consideration that there was a time when the world was without man; and by the consideration that in other worlds there may be no intelligences at all. This is intelligible to reason. But in the judgment of reason there never can have been a time when the universe was without God. That is unintelligible to reason; because time is not time, but is nonsense, without a mind; space is not space, but is nonsense, without a mind; all objects are not objects, but are nonsense, without a mind; in short, the whole universe is neither anything nor nothing, but is the sheer contradictory, without a mind. And therefore, inasmuch as we cannot help thinking that there was a time before man existed, and that there was space before