Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/172

PROPOSITION V.

MATTER AND ITS QUALITIES PER SE.

All the qualities of matter by themselves are, of necessity, absolutely unknowable.

DEMONSTRATION.

The qualities of matter by themselves are, equally with matter itself, an objective presentment without a subject. But it has been proved by Proposition II. that no objective can be known without a subjective or self being known along with it. Therefore, all the qualities of matter, by themselves, are absolutely unknowable.

OBSERVATIONS AND EXPLANATIONS.

Why Proposition V. is introduced.1. In dealing with the question respecting our knowledge of material existence, psychology vacillates between two opinions. At times it sides with natural thinking, and affirms, in the terms set forth