IV.

NECESSITY IN THOUGHT PRESUPPOSES NECESSITY IN FACTS.

I have thus outlined Mr. Peirce’s views, not only because his line of reasoning[76] is admirable and deserves to be universally known and recognised, but also because it seems to me to have some bearing upon the question at issue.

If the ultimate conclusion of every man concerning reality shall be the same, there must be some truth in the idea of necessity. If there is an opinion “fated to be ultimately agreed to,” we are confronted in our representation of reality with something that is inevitable. Shall there be necessity in thought but not in that of which all our ideas are but images and symbols? We can conceive of the necessity in the ideal realm of thought only as a reflection of that necessity which pervades the original and prototype of our thought, which lives in reality.