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PROPOSITION VII.
WHAT THE UNIVERSAL AND THE PARTICULAR IN COGNITION ARE.
The ego (or mind) is known as the element common to all cognitions,—matter is known as the element peculiar to some cognitions: in other words, we know ourselves as the unchangeable, necessary, and universal part of our cognitions, while we know matter, in all its varieties, as a portion of the changeable, contingent and particular part of our cognitions—or, expressed in the technical language of logic, the ego is the known summum genus, the known generic part, of all cognitions—matter is the known differential part of some cognitions.
DEMONSTRATION.
It is a necessary truth of reason that the ego must be known (that is, must be known to itself) when-
