3 Oct. 1814

Logic

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Ch.2. Ontology

Entities classed

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The persuasion expressed by the word certainty has for its foundation the event itself simply. The persuasion indicated by the word necessity has for its object not only that event, but an infinity of other events, and states of things out of number, from the beginning of time, in the character of its causes.

Certainty, necessity, impossibility; exhibited seriously in any other character than that of expressions of the degree of the persuasion entertained in relation to the subject in question, by him whose words they are, in the use of these words is virtually involved the assumption of omniscience. All things that are possible are within my knowledge, - this is not upon the list; such being interpreted is the phrase, this thing is impossible.

The sort of occasion on which, without any such assumption, these terms can be applied, is that of a contradiction in terms, - a self-contradictory proposition, or two mutually contradictory propositions issuing, at the same time, from the same mouth or the same pen. But here the objects to which these attributes are, with propriety, applicable, are not the objects, for the designation of which the propositions are applied, but the propositions themselves. Propositions thus contradictory and incompatible cannot, with propriety, be applied to the same object. It is impossible that they should, i.e. inconsistent with the notions entertained by the person in question, in relation to what is proper and what improper in language.

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