Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/602

574 about space and time, indicate certain essential laws of human thinking, and that such laws, being essential, must be transferred, if any are to be transferred, to all thinking, I answer that these laws are not essential to human thinking, unless their opposites are shown to be nonsensical and contradictory by an appeal to the principle of contradiction. If this can be shown, I shall admit the legitimacy and necessity of the transference, not otherwise.

These propositions are a mere reproduction of the antinomies of Kant. They are the veriest trifling that can be conceived. They are not contradictory propositions; they do not face each other: for while it is obvious that there is no absurdity in supposing space "infinitely unlimited" (whether we can conceive this is another matter), it is evident that the grossest absurdity and contradiction are involved in the supposition that space is "absolutely limited." We cannot for a moment entertain the supposition that there is a space beyond which there is no space: this is a downright absurdity; but there is no absurdity in the supposition of space infinitely extended. In the spirit of this trifling, we might as well amuse ourselves with maintaining that, in regard to numeration, there either is a last number or no last number, and that both are inconceivable. But it is unnecessary to dwell on the merits of these contradictory propositions (propositions, however, which are not really contradictory); my purpose is answered in