PROPOSITION VIII.

The concept of merely possible Being, so far as it is positive and real, is the concept of some Being or other not possible but existing.

It will be well to recall to mind the results obtained from the analysis instituted in the proof for the first Member of the preceding Thesis. It was there seen that, in order to be able to conceive truly of an entity as internally possible, it is necessary that there should be some sort of objective reality to justify the concept. Similarly, in order to be able to conceive of an entity as externally possible, a similar objective reality is equally necessary. Why is it that external possibility is called relative by the Angelic Doctor, if it be not because extrinsic possibility essentially includes a transcendental relation to some power really capable of creating or producing it into the world of existing things? The question thereupon arises, What is this reality which is necessarily included in the concept of merely possible Being? One thing is certain. That reality must itself be either possible Being or existing Being; for there is no middle term. But it cannot be possible Being. Therefore, it must be existent.

The Major of this syllogism is self-evident; for it is really, if not verbally dichotomic. It is the Minor, therefore, if anything, that must be proved. But it is inconceivable that merely possible Being should be able to supply the place of that reality which is included in the positive concept of possible Being. For possible Being is, in and of itself, nothing. It is formally a logical concept. But the non-existent cannot become cause of the Existent, nor the non-real sufficient reason of the Real. But to this argument answer may be made, that the merely possible is not supposed to be sufficient reason or cause of the merely possible in its character of a logical concept, but so far forth as it is real. Such an answer is, however, a virtual petitio principii; because it is precisely on this real basis in the concept of the possible, that the whole question turns.

Again, the hypothesis that possible Being is the object of the positive and real concept of merely possible Being, necessarily involves a processus ad infinitum, -- a never ending series. For supposing it, for the sake of argument, to be true; the question would return as to the foundation of this new concept of possibility, and so on for ever. Either, therefore, the analysis would never cease; or it would at last evolve an existent reality, which would contradict the assumption with which it started.