The World as Will and Idea, Vol. II — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

the understanding ; the necessary, for both. Indeed, the distinction between necessary, actual, and possible really exists only in the abstract and according to the conception ; in the real world, on the other hand, all three fall into one.

For all that happens, happens necessarily, because it happens from causes ; but these themselves have again causes, so that the whole of the events of the world, great and small, are a strict concatenation of necessary occurrences.

Accordingly everything actual is also necessary, and in the real world there is no difference between actuality and necessity, and in the same way no difference between actuality and possibility ; for what has not happened, i.e., has not become actual, was also not possible, because the causes without which it could never appear have not themselves appeared, nor could appear, in the great concatenation of causes ; thus it was an impossibility.

Every event is therefore either necessary or impossible. All this holds good only of the empirically real world, i.e., the complex of individual things, thus of the whole particular as such.

If, on the other hand, we consider things generally, comprehending them in abstracto, necessity, actuality, and possibility are again separated; we then know everything which is in accordance with the a priori laws which belong to our intellect as possible in general ; that which corresponds to the empirical laws of nature as possible in this world, even if it has never become actual ; thus we distinguish clearly the possible from the actual.

The actual is in itself always also necessary, but is only comprehended as such by him who knows its cause ; regarded apart from this, it is and is called contingent. This consideration also gives us the key to that contentio irepi Bvvarmv between the Megaric Diodorus and Chrysippus the Stoic which Cicero refers to in his book Dt Fato. Diodorus says: "Only what becomes actual was possible, and all that is actual is also necessary. Chrysippus on the other hand says: "Much that is possible never becomes actual; for only the necessary becomes

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actual." "We may explain this thus: Actuality is the conclusion of a syllogism to which possibility gives the premises. But for this is required not only the major but also the minor; only the two give complete possibility. The major gives a merely theoretical, general possibility in dbstracto, but this of itself does not make anything possible, i.e., capable of becoming actual. For this the minor also is needed, which gives the possibility for the particular case, because it brings it under the rule, and thereby it becomes at once actual. For example :

Maj. All houses (consequently also my house) can be destroyed by fire.

Min. My house is on fire.

Concl. My house is being destroyed by fire.

For every general proposition, thus every major, always determines things with reference to actuality only under a presupposition, therefore hypothetically ; for example, the capability of being burnt down has as a presupposition the catching fire. This presupposition is produced in the minor. The major always loads the cannon, but only if the minor brings the match does the shot, i.e., the conclusion, follow. This holds good throughout of the relation of possibility to actuality. Since now the conclusion, which is the assertion of actuality, always follows necessarily, it is evident from this that all that is actual is also necessary, which can also be seen from the fact that necessity only means being the consequent of a given reason : this is in the case of the actual a cause : thus everything actual is necessary. Accordingly, we see here the conceptions of the possible, the actual, and the necessary unite, and not merely the last presuppose the first, but also the converse. What keeps them apart is the limitation of our intellect through the form of time ; for time is the mediator between possibility and actuality. The necessity of the particular event may be fully seen from the knowledge of all its causes; but the concurrence of the whole of these different and independent causes seems top. 74 us contingent ; indeed their independence of each other is just the conception of contingency. Since, however, each of them was the necessary effect of its causes, the chain which has no beginning, it is evident that contingency merely a subjective phenomenon, arising from the limi tion of the horizon of our understanding, and just as subjective as the optical horizon at which the heavens tou< the earth.