Page:Appearance and Reality (1916).djvu/410

 And, without this, the idea would cease altogether to be possible.

What are we to say then about the possibility, or about the chance, which is bare, and which is not relative, but absolute and unconditional? We must say of either that it presents one aspect of the same fundamental error. Each expresses in a different way the same main self-contradiction; and it may perhaps be worth while to exhibit this in detail. With mere possibility the given want of all connection with the Real is construed into a ground for positive predication. Bare chance, again, gives us as a fact, and gives us therefore in relation, an element which it still persists is unrelated. I will go on to explain this statement.

I have an idea, and, because in my opinion I know nothing about it, I am to call it possible. Now, if the idea has a meaning, and is taken not to contradict itself, this (as we have seen) is, at once, a positive character in the idea. And this gives a known reason for, at once so far, regarding it as actual. And such a possibility, because in relation with an attribute of the Real, we have seen, is still but a relative possibility. In absolute possibility we are supposed to be without this knowledge. There, merely because I do not find any relation between my idea and the Reality, I am to assert, upon this, that my idea is compatible. And the assertion clearly is inconsistent. Compatible means that which in part is perceived to be true; it means that which internally is connected with the Real. And this implies assimilation, and it involves penetration of the element by some quality or qualities of the Real. If the element is compatible it will be preserved, though with a greater or less destruction of its particular character. But in bare possibility I have perverted the sense of compatible. Because I find absence of incompatibility, because, that is,