But the logician finds it necessary for his
processes to present that outer Not-A as bounded (Vide e.g. Kayne's
"Formal Logic" re Euler's diagrams and Immediate Inferences.), and to
speak of the total area of A and Not-A as the Universe of Discourse; and
the metaphysician and the commonsense thinker alike fall far too readily
into the belief that this convention of method is an adequate
representation of fact.
Let me try and express how in my mind this matter of negative terms has
shaped itself. I think of something which I may perhaps best describe as
being off the stage or out of court, or as the Void without
Implications, or as Nothingness, or as Outer Darkness. This is a sort of
hypothetical Beyond to the visible world of human thought, and thither I
think all negative terms reach at last, and merge and become nothing.
Whatever positive class you make, whatever boundary you draw, straight
away from that boundary begins the corresponding negative class and
passes into the illimitable horizon of nothingness. You talk of pink
things, you ignore, as the arbitrary postulates of Logic direct, the
more elusive shades of pink, and draw your line.
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