Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/576

548 Knowing and Being" (and all metaphysic centres in these two words), which I hope to publish soon, is a system which, like a telescope, shuts up as short, and pulls out as long, as one pleases. We shall now shut it up very short, yet even in that state we may perhaps get a glimpse of the heavens through it.

The speculation is threefold. First, the theory of Knowing (epistemology); secondly, the theory of Ignorance (agnoiology); thirdly, the theory of Being (ontology). The theory of ignorance is that which merits most attention, if not on its own account, at any rate on account of its consequences. It seems to me to be an entire novelty in philosophy. Here, so far as I can learn, I have absolutely no precursor. Many a time and oft have philosophers inquired into the nature of Knowledge, but who has investigated the nature of Ignorance?

Let us begin with the second part of the system. There are two kinds of ignorance; but only one of these is ignorance properly so called. There is, first, an ignorance which is incident to some minds as compared with others, but not necessarily incident to all minds. Such ignorance is a defect, an imperfection. A Hottentot is ignorant of geometry; a Frenchman knows it. This kind of ignorance is ignorance. But, secondly, there is an ignorance or nescience which is of necessity incident to all intelligence by its very nature, and which is no defect, or imperfection, or limitation, but rather a perfection. For