Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/598

570 extent. But why should I, a metaphysician, be vilified for not doing what no minister in the pulpit, what no theologian in the world, has ever yet done?

Suppose that you were listening to a preacher discoursing on the omniscience of the Supreme Being, would you regard his arguments or assertions as tantamount to a denial of the Supreme Being's omnipotence? You certainly would not. I contend for the existence of the Deity, on the ground that an omniscient Being is a necessity of our thinking. This line of argument fell particularly within the scope of my work. How can the argument proving the Divine omniscience be held equivalent to an argument disproving the Divine omnipotence? So far from being equivalent to this, the latter conclusion follows as a necessary corollary from the former. It is impossible for a Being to be omniscient, without being also omnipotent and the first great cause. No one infinite attribute is compatible with any finite attributes. That is certain. But my system is not a treatise on natural theology—it is only an introduction to it; and hence I did not profess to discuss fully the power and attributes of God. The detailed consideration of these would, I think, be out of place in a work on metaphysics; this supplies the groundwork, the superstructure is left to theology.

Finally, it is utterly untrue that my system denies "any other process of proof or basis of belief in