Philosophical Works of the Late James Frederick Ferrier/Institutes of Metaphysic (1875)/Section 3/Proposition 8
PROPOSITION VIII.
WHAT ABSOLUTE EXISTENCE IS NOT.
DEMONSTRATION.
The ego per se, or the mind in a state of pure indetermination, is what we cannot know (Prop. IX. Epistemology): it is what we cannot be ignorant of (Prop. VII. Agnoiology). But Absolute Existence is what we either know or are ignorant of (Prop. V. Ontology). Therefore Absolute Existence is not the ego per se, or the mind in a state of pure indetermination; in other word; the ego per se is not that which truly and absolutely exists.
OBSERVATIONS AND EXPLANATIONS.
1. Eighth Counter-proposition.—"Absolute existence Eighth counter-proposition.is, or may be, the ego per se; in other words, the mind in a state of pure indetermination, or with no thing or thought present to it, is, or may be, Being in itself."
Importance of the ego as a constituent of Absolute Existence. 2. It must be borne in mind, that although Absolute Existence cannot be attributed to the ego or mind per se, still this element is infinitely the more important of the two in the constitution of Absolute Existence, just as it is infinitely the more important of the two in the constitution of Absolute Cognition. In both cases this is the essential, eternal, and universal factor, while the other element is contingent, temporary, and evanescent.
Why the reduction of the ego per se to a contradiction is important. 3. It has further to be remarked that the reduction of the ego (or universal) per se to the condition of a contradiction is important on this account, that unless the reduction had been effected, matter (the particular) could not have been reduced to the predicament of a contradiction either; for the same measure which is dealt out to one of the factors of cognition must be dealt out to the other. But if matter per se had not been reduced to a contradiction, it could not have been disfranchised of Absolute Existence; in which case materialism, with all its gloomy consequences, would have carried, while it also blackened, the day.