PROP. XVII.————
"me" of the Institutes) comes through the intellect, and their synthesis is the presentation of the substantial, or real, or concrete. This doctrine need not puzzle any one who chooses to throw his eyes on the things around him, and then to consider that he is not apprehending them to the exclusion of himself, nor himself to the exclusion of them; but that he is apprehending them and himself in a synthesis which cannot be broken up in thought without breaking up and destroying the ground of all conceivability. Each of the factors, when the attempt is made to conceive it by itself, is nonsensical: the intelligible or universal element, by itself is no less contradictory than the sensible or particular element by itself. On this point the ancient speculations appear to differ from the doctrine of the Institutes: but this may proceed merely from their being less explicit—for it is obvious that the universal without the particular is just as inconceivable as the particular is without the universal (see Prop. VI.) Again, each of the elements is phenomenal when considered as the counterpart of the other; and, again, the two together are the known substantial, when considered per se, and without anything else being taken into account along with them.
An objection obviated.22. In case it should be objected that this doctrine represents intellect equally with sense as a faculty of nonsense, inasmuch as it declares that the