Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/561

Rh The corrective proposition, however, proves that there must be a universal or common, as well as a particular or peculiar, ingredient in every cognition; and that, consequently, we can have no knowledge of the particular prior to our knowledge of the universal. This proposition is very important, on account of the historical notices connected with it, and the psychological fallacies (Realism, Conceptualism, and Nominalism) which it demolishes.

13. The next contradiction involved in natural thinking, and countenanced by psychology, is the notion that the ego, or oneself is, or may be a special or particular object of cognition, just as material things are supposed to be special or particular objects of cognition. Proposition VII. corrects this error by showing that the ego can be known only as the common or universal element in every cognition, just as matter is known as the particular or peculiar element of some cognitions.

14. Counter-proposition VIII. declares that the ego, or mind, may possibly be known to be material. This affirmation is proved to be contradictory by the corresponding proposition, which derives its data of proof from Propositions VI. and VII. These three Propositions (VI. VII. VIII.) form