Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/550

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PROPOSITION XI.

WHAT ABSOLUTE EXISTENCE IS NECESSARY.

All absolute existences are contingent except one; in other words, there is One, but only one, Absolute Existence which is strictly necessary; and that existence is a supreme, and infinite, and everlasting Mind in synthesis with all things.

DEMONSTRATION.

To save the universe from presenting a contradiction to all reason, intelligence must be postulated in connection with it; because everything except the synthesis of subject and object is contradictory, is that of which there can be no knowledge (Props. I. II., Epistemology), and no ignorance (Prop. VIII., Agnoiology). But more than one intelligence does not require to be postulated; because the universe is rescued from contradiction as effectually by the supposition of one intelligence in connection with it, as by the supposition of ten million, and reason