following sense. We may mean by it that something somehow appears already in a given point of time, although it does not as yet appear fully or in its own proper character. I will try to show later the positive conditions required for this use, but it is better to begin by pointing out where it is quite inadmissible. We ought not to speak of potential existence where, if the existence were made actual, the fact given now would be quite gone. That part of the conditions which appears at present, must produce causally the rest; and, in order for this to happen, foreign matter must be added. But, if so much is added that the individuality of this first appearance is wholly destroyed, or is even overwhelmed and swamped—“potential existence” is inapplicable. Thus the death of a man may result from the lodgment of a cherry-stone; but to speak of every cherry-stone as, therefore, the potential death of a man, and to talk of such a death as appearing already in any and every stone, would surely be extravagant. For so large an amount of foreign conditions must contribute to the result, that, in the end, the condition and the consequence are joined externally by chance. We may perhaps apprehend this more clearly by a grosser instance of misuse. A piece of bread, eaten by a poet, may be a condition required for the production of a lyrical poem. But would any one place such a poem’s existence already virtually in each piece of food, which may be considered likely by any chance to make its way into a poet?
These absurdities may serve to suggest the proper employment of our term. It is applicable wherever the factor present is considered capable of producing the rest; and it must effect this without the entire loss of its own existing character. The individuality, in other words, must throughout the process be continuous; and the end must very largely be due to the beginning. And these are
