PROPOSITION X.

The concept of merely possible Essence, so far as it is positive and real, implies the concept of some existence in which it is logically contained.

So far it has been shown, that possible Essence must be precontained in some other existing being which is the adequately sufficient reason why, independently of any human mode of conceiving, that Essence can with justice be deemed capable of existing; whether we look to its intrinsic constitutives, or to its extrinsic production.

But such judgment would be unmotived, if that Essence were not actually apprehended by some intellect, that is, unless some intellect should know what it would be, if it should exist.

As the point now under consideration is a very subtile one, yet of primary importance to the successful issue of the present analysis; it will be useful to pursue it under a less abstract form by an appeal to intellectual experience. It is not absolutely impossible, -- to take a case, -- that a race of men should be born with their heads where the feet now are, and the feet and legs up in the air. But no one in his ordinary senses will deny, that it is impossible de potentia ordinata; i.e. that, taking into account the actual constitution of man, the proper functions of his feet and of his head with its organs of sense, it would be the highest conceivable unwisdom to produce into the world, as at present constituted, a race of men characterized by such a disposition of the bodily members. But why? For greater clearness, let us imagine that a man of ordinary common sense is questioned touching the last assertion, which we will suppose to have been his own. 'Why do you think that it is practically impossible?' 'Because such a man as you suppose would have the greatest possible difficulty in eating; his eyes would be comparatively useless, because they would be all but level with the ground, and his legs and feet would serve no purpose whatever, dangling in the air.' 'Then it is because your mind perceives these inconveniences which you have alleged, that you deem such a production practically impossible? But such an impossibility is simply ideal, for it is your own mind that makes the impossibility.' 'Nothing of the sort. I know it to be a practical impossibility, quite independently of what I may think about the matter.' 'How so? For even now you say, "I know," as though your knowledge were the only measure.' 'Why, of course, I say "I know," because otherwise I could not express an opinion about it at all; but we are not talking now of my thought, but of the object of my thought. Just as I also spoke of the actual arrangement of the human body as it now is; and in order to speak about it, I must think about it. Yet my thought did not make the present order of parts, limbs, organs, and so forth in the human body. They are real and objective, though I happen to understand them; and so is this practical impossibility real, though I conceive it.' 'Yes, but you forget that the human body really exists; whereas this supposed race of men does not exist.' 'I know that, of course; otherwise, I could not say that their existence was a practical impossibility. But what I asserted was, that the impossibility of their existing was real.' 'But how can that be? For the impossibility does not exist.' 'Who ever thought it did? But is not the impossibility of your jumping over the moon real, though that impossibility does not exist either?' 'Yes, I own you are right there, but I do not see why.' 'Why! because you are real, and a jump is something real, and your power of jumping is real; so that the impossibility, though it is in itself an idea in my head, has a real foundation.' 'I see that, but now to apply it to the present case.' 'Why, I see a certain arrangement in the parts of the human body; that is real. I perceive that those parts have respectively certain duties and functions to perform; that is real. Then I perceive an order and adaptation, in the position of the former, to that which is required of them by the latter. That is real. Now, the other arrangement you have imagined would turn everything topsy-turvy; so that I say it is practically impossible, quite independently of anything I may think about the matter.' 'Wait a moment. I do not see that at all, because that supposed combination of members is not real.' 'Yes, it is though, in a way. For just as the present wonderful adjustment of parts now existing in the human body was real, before man was created; so, in some sort, is that confused medley of parts which you have supposed, not real indeed, but really impossible.' 'I must ask you to explain a little more clearly what you mean.' 'I mean this; that He Who made man must have formed an idea of him before He could create him. That idea is His type. Any other arrangement in the creation of a man which is in contradiction to that type, is absolutely impossible; while any other arrangement which militates against the principle of order and the due adaptation of parts, is morally impossible.' 'But, if there were no intellect in which this prototypal Idea was to be found, and which knew the impossibility of its opposite; where would the impossibility he then?' 'Nowhere, outside our own minds.'

And now, to put the same argument in more brief and scientific form.

If the possible Essence, as constituted by its characteristic notes, were not logically contained in that existence which is the sole basis of its reality; those notes would be deprived, not only of all actuation properly so called (i.e. of existence), but also of all actuation improperly so called, i.e. of conceptional realization. Therefore, the concept would be stript of all objective reality. There would be no more reason for saying that such an essence was possible, than for saying it was impossible. Furthermore, unless the given Essence were thus represented in that existence which is the supposed basis of its reality, it could not be conceived as actually producible among existing things. For no efficient cause is perfectly prepared and ready for the production of its effect; unless it either knows itself what it is going to do, or at least is under the direction of some superior cause which possesses the necessary knowledge. Otherwise, there would be an effect existing without a proportionate cause.