112 PROF. FERMER ON KNOWING AND BEING. 



to be called (as it ought not to be) a necessary condition of thought 

 and knowledge. Plato being judge — and our author will uot dissent 

 from Plato here — what is requisite to bring the question to an end, 

 is, that some common characteristic of all cognition should be indi- 

 cated. But wc do not indicate any thing common to all cognition 

 when v:e say that the law of contradiction is binding on reason 

 universally. By the law of contradiction, the exercise of the Di- 

 vine Intelligence is what it is. By the same law the exercise of the 

 intelligence of a creature is what it is. Does this imply that the 

 two are distinguished by any common characteristic ? JNot at all. 

 They may be essentially and in all respects different from each other, 

 and yet each be what it is. The question, therefore, is not at an 

 end, even though the universality and necessity of the law of con- 

 tradiction be admitted. It will be at an end, when the knowledge of 

 the Infinite Being, and that of finite beings like ourselves, have been 

 designated by one notion ; and that there is any notion designative 

 of both alike, remains yet to be evinced. 



As a series of necessary propositions regarding knowledge could 

 only be established on condition of a definition of knowledge being 

 first given, so before a series of necessary propositions regarding 

 existence can be established, it is indispensable that existence be de- 

 fined. In some systems of philosophy, the identity of knowledge 

 and existence, the equation of the known and the existent, is assumed. 

 "Were such an assumption legitimate no definition of existence 

 over and above the definition of knowledge would require to be 

 given ; nor would an Ontology be any thing distinct from an Epis- 

 temology. The task of the metaphysician would be ended, when he 

 had worked out his theory of knowing ; or at least, he would merely 

 have to draw the inference, that, since knowledge and existence are 

 coincident, real being consists in that (whatever it might be) which 

 was proved to be the object of cognition — the object in this case be- 

 ing identical with the existence knowing. But Professor Ferrier 

 does not allow us to assume that the known and the existent coin- 

 cide. He finds fault with bis great idol, Plato, for virtually mak- 

 ing this assumption. " Here it wa3, " he says, " that Plato broke 

 down. Instead of proving the coincidence of the known and the 

 existent, he assumed it. " Now, if it be not legitimate to assume 

 that knowledge is identical with existence, and to change our Epis- 

 temological conclusions at once into Ontological, then 1 repeat that 

 just as a definition of knowledge is the conditio sine qua non of an 

 Epistemology, so a separate and distinct definition of existence is the 

 conditio sine qua non of an Ontology. Yet, strange to say, Pro- 



