Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/589

Rh I now take up the statement that my system "confounds the province of logic and metaphysics." First of all, let me state what the province of logic is, and what the province of metaphysics is. Logic sometimes signifies the theory of reasoning (as part, at least, of its province), and sometimes it signifies reasoning itself. Metaphysics is the science of real existence. The former is a science of the abstract, the latter of the concrete. But I have just made it plain that I assume real existence, and make no effort to demonstrate it. I have not confounded the provinces of logic and metaphysics, because I have not attempted to reach real existence by means of logic, whether logic be understood to signify the theory of reasoning, or reasoning itself.

It is quite true that, after real existence has been assumed by metaphysics, I employ logic (in the sense of reasoning) to determine what it is. But no man can find fault with this procedure, or can justly allege that this is a confounding of logic and metaphysics ; for, surely, if we are to think and speak of real things at all, we must do so according to the laws of thought and of speech.

I assume, on the very title-page, and in every word of my book, that both knowledge and being are. The Institutes are entitled " an inquiry into Knowing and Being." But who ever heard of an inquiry into a thing, unless the thing in question