Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/582

554 (as I do) the demonstrative method, I own I cannot see it, and would feel much obliged to any one who would point this out and make it clear. In other respects, my method is diametrically opposed to his; he begins with the consideration of Being; my whole design compels me to begin with the consideration of Knowing.

I owe no fealty to Spinoza. I preach none of his opinions. Indeed I am not charged with adopting anything of his except a method, which he has in common with all rigorous reasoners. But this I will avouch, that all the outcry which has been raised against Spinoza has its origin in nothing but ignorance, hypocrisy, and cant. If Spinoza errs, it is in attributing, not certainly too much to the great Creator, for that is impossible, but too little to the creature of His hands. He denies, as many great and pious divines have done, the free agency of man: he asserts the absolute sovereignty of God. He is the very Calvin of philosophy.

My philosophy is Scottish to the very core; I disclaim for it the paternity of Germany or Holland: I assert that in every fibre it is of home growth and national texture. Whatever my dominion over truth may be, small or great, I have conquered every inch of it myself. I go on to speak of one to whom principally I owe the means which, next to my own