aspects of one complex. Relative chance stands for something which is, but is, in part, not connected and understood. It is therefore that which exists, but, in part, only somehow. The relatively possible is, on the other hand, what is understood incompletely, and yet is taken, more or less only somehow, to be real. Each is thus an imperfect way of representing reality. Or we may, if we please, repeat the distinction in another form. In bare chance something is to be given, and therefore given in a connection of outer relations; and it yet is regarded as not intrinsically related. The abstractly possible, again, is the not-related; but it is taken, at the same time, in relation with reality, and is, therefore, unawares given with external relations. Chance forgets, we may say, the essential connection; and possibility forgets its de facto relation to the Real, that is, its given external conjunction with context. Chance belongs to the world of existence and possibility to thought; but each contains at bottom the same defect, and each, against its will, when taken bare, becomes external necessity.[1] If the possible could be given, it would be indifferently chance or fate. If chance is thought of, it is at once but merely possible; for what is contingent has no complete connection with Reality.
With this I will pass from a subject, on which I have dwelt perhaps too long. There is no such thing as absolute chance, or as mere external necessity, or as unconditional possibility. The possible must, in part, be really, and that means internally, necessary. And the same, again, is true of the
- ↑ The identity, in the end, of possibility with chance, and of chance with external or brute necessity, has instructive consequences. It would obviously give the proper ground for an estimate of that which vulgarly is termed Free Will. This doctrine may in philosophy be considered obsolete, though it will continue to flourish in popular Ethics. As soon as its meaning is apprehended, it loses all plausibility. But the popular moralist will always exist by not knowing what he means.
