But these privileges of contradiction don't amount to much. When you
say a thing is possible, does not that make some farther difference
in terms of actual fact?
It makes at least this negative difference that if the statement be
true, it follows that there is nothing extant capable of preventing
the possible thing. The absence of real grounds of interference may
thus be said to make things not impossible, possible therefore in
the bare or abstract sense.
But most possibles are not bare, they are concretely grounded, or
well-grounded, as we say. What does this mean pragmatically? It
means, not only that there are no preventive conditions present, but
that some of the conditions of production of the possible thing
actually are here. Thus a concretely possible chicken means: (1)
that the idea of chicken contains no essential self-contradiction;
(2) that no boys, skunks, or other enemies are about; and (3) that
at least an actual egg exists. Possible chicken means actual egg--
plus actual sitting hen, or incubator, or what not. As the actual
conditions approach completeness the chicken becomes a better-and-
better-grounded possibility. When the conditions are entirely
complete, it ceases to be a possibility, and turns into an actual
fact.
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