ABSTRACT
1. What we do not know for certain may yet be probable. And if not probable it may still be possible. What meaning and value are to be attached to this latter term? To begin with, it depends a good deal on the intention of the speaker. If I use it as a broad name for anything not proved to be impossible, it is clear that the certain and the probable will fall under it as species. A historical event, the laws of motion, or the multiplication table will all be possible truths. If anybody likes to use the words in this sense, I do not know what is to prevent him, unless it is the Horatian arbiter—
“usus,
Quern penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi.”
