20

36

consists in the possibility of something being true
about something else. Ordinary An ordinary adjective
is not a when applied to an object does not assert any accomplished
fact. It saystells how an experiment
will in future experience turn out. To say that
a body is soft means that the experiment of
trying [to ??] scratch it by the moderate pressure of
a knife will always succeed. To say that a body
is hard will mean that the same experiment will
always fail. We so rarely meet with a body on
which such experiments will give variable
results without any seriousassignable reason that
the need of an adjective to express this quality has [not ??]
been felt. That is what it is toTo possess a quality now
usually means that anyexperiments of a certain kind
that may be made in the future will turn out