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INSTITUTES OF METAPHYSIC.
position XXII. is to show that the Absolute in our cognition is not, of necessity, the Absolute in all cognition, except in so far as its essentials are concerned; that is to say, except to this extent, that it (the absolute, namely, and substantial in all cognition) must consist of these two elements—whatever their nature may be—a subject and an object together. So much, then, in regard to the contradictions affecting "Knowing and the Known," which the epistemology subverts, and in regard to the truths which it substitutes in their room. The popular and psychological errors in respect to ignorance have next to be passed under review.
The leading contradiction which the agnoiology corrects.19. The leading contradiction which the agnoiology corrects consists in the affirmation, express or implied, that there can be an ignorance of that of which there can be no knowledge. When tested by the criterion of necessary truth, the contradictory character of this assertion is obvious. It amounts to a denial that ignorance is ignorance. Because ignorance is a defect; but no defect is involved in not knowing what is not to be known on any terms by any intelligence. And therefore to affirm that a nescience of the absolutely unknowable is ignorance, is to affirm that ignorance is no defect; in other words, is to affirm that ignorance is not ignorance,—is not what it is. This error is embodied in Counter-proposition III. of the agnoiology, and re-