Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/80

52 query which is always the first to make its appearance, but which requires to be staved off and off, until we have got in hand all the elements of its solution—What is Truth?

§ 61. This paragraph need merely recapitulate that the three divisions of philosophy, as laid down in three Institutes, are, first, The Epistemology, or theory of knowledge; secondly, The Agnoiology, or theory of ignorance; and, thirdly, The Ontology, or theory of being; and that this arrangement is not dictated by the choice or preference of any individual thinker, but by the very necessity of the case, which will not admit of the problems of philosophy being taken up in any other order.

§ 62. The confusion which arises when any other division than that here laid down is attempted, is unspeakable—the dead lock which ensues is inextricable. It is not going too far to affirm that the whole embroilment of philosophy is due to the practice usually indulged in, and never systematically abstained from, of taking in hand the question of ontology, and of predicating something about Being before the question of epistemology—that is, the question as to knowledge and its laws—has been thoroughly worked out and cleared. This, however, is a mere consequence or accompaniment of the great retarding cause of philosophy already pointed