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INSTITUTES OF METAPHYSIC.
PROP. XVII.————
dition, or with any thing or thought present to it,—the universal in union with the particular—these varieties of expression declare what constitutes the only synthesis which can be known or conceived without anything else being known or conceived along with it (see in particular Props. II. III. VI. IX. XIII.) Therefore this synthesis (thus variously expressed) is the substantial, and the only substantial, in cognition, conformably to the definition of substance given in Prop. XVI.
OBSERVATIONS AND EXPLANATIONS.
Seventeenth counter-proposition.1.
Seventeenth Counter-proposition.—"Object
plus subject—matter
mecum—thoughts or mental states whatsoever, together with the self or subject—the universal in union with the particular—this synthesis, thus variously expressed, is merely the phenomenal in cognition. The substantial is rather the separate members of the synthesis, than the total synthesis itself. Thus object apart from subject—matter apart from mind—the ego apart from the non-ego, and separated from all thoughts and determinations—the non-ego divorced from the ego, and existing as it best can,—these are the substantial, not indeed in human knowledge, for human knowledge cannot lay hold of the substantial, but in reality,
in rerum natura. They are the occult bases of all the phenomena, intellectual and
mate- 