Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/438

PROPOSITION II.

IGNORANCE REMEDIABLE.

All ignorance is possibly remediable.

DEMONSTRATION.

No kind of knowledge is absolutely inconsistent with the nature of all intelligence. But unless all ignorance were possibly remediable, some kind of knowledge would be inconsistent with the nature of all intelligence, to wit the knowledge by which the ignorance in question might be remedied. Therefore all ignorance is possibly remediable.

Or again, All defects are possibly remediable, otherwise they would not be defects. But ignorance is a defect (Prop. I.) Therefore all ignorance is possibly remediable.

OBSERVATIONS AND EXPLANATIONS.

All that this proposition proves.1. This proposition does not prove that all ignorance is actually remedied: in other words, that omniscience pervades the universe; but only that