Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/562

534 even out of their relation to the system, as affording the only argument by which the materiality of the mind can be disproved, and its immateriality put upon a right and intelligible footing.

15. The ninth contradiction which the system corrects is found in the assertion that the ego or mind is knowable per se, or in a state of pure indetermination. Proposition IX. gives expression to the true doctrine on this point

16. The contradiction embodied in Counter-proposition X. is one which called for correction, more imperatively, perhaps, than any other error which these Institutes have brought to light and refuted. The doctrine that the senses by themselves are, to some extent, faculties of cognition, and not mere capacities of nonsense, has operated more fatally on the cause of speculative truth, and has retarded the progress of philosophy more effectually, than any other blunder presented in the manifold aberrations of psychology. This doctrine is proved to be contradictory by Proposition X., and expunged, it is to be hoped, for ever from the pages of metaphysical science.

17. At Proposition XI. the system takes a fresh start,—puts forth a new articulation. Hitherto the system has controverted the contradictions incident