(1) It is sometimes contended, and with some plausibility, that what we mean by saying that it is _possible_ for a thing which possesses one predicate F to possess another G, is, sometimes at least, merely that some things which possess F do in fact also possess G. And if we give this meaning to "possible," the corresponding meaning of the statement it is _impossible_ for a thing which possesses F to possess G will be merely: Things which possess F never do in fact possess G. If, then, we understood "impossible" in this sense, the condition for the "internality" of a kind of value, which I have stated by saying that if a kind of value is to be "intrinsic" it must be _impossible_ for two things to possess it in different degrees, if they are exactly like one another, will amount merely to saying that no two things which are exactly like one another ever do, in fact, possess it in different degrees. It follows, that, if this were all that were meant, this condition would be satisfied, if only it were true (as for all I know it may be) that, in the case of all things which possess any particular kind of intrinsic value, there happens to be nothing else in the Universe exactly like any one of them; for if this were so, it would, of course, follow that no two things which are exactly alike did in fact possess the kind of value in question in different degrees, for the simple reason that everything which possessed it at all would be unique in the sense that there was nothing else exactly like it. If this were all that were meant, therefore, we could prove any particular kind of value to satisfy this condition, by merely proving that there never has in fact and never will be anything exactly like any one of the things which possess it: and our assertion that it satisfied this condition would merely be an empirical generalisation. Moreover if this were all that was meant it would obviously be by no means certain that purely subjective predicates could not satisfy the condition in question; since it would be satisfied by any subjective predicate of which it happened to be true that everything which possessed it was, in fact, unique--that there was nothing exactly like it; and for all I know there may be many subjective predicates of which this is true. It is, therefore, scarcely necessary to say that I am not using "impossible" in this sense. When I say that a kind of value, to be intrinsic, must satisfy the condition that it must be _impossible_ for two things exactly alike to possess it in different degrees, I do not mean by this condition anything which a kind of value could be proved to satisfy, by the mere empirical fact that there was nothing else exactly like any of the things which possessed it. It is, of course, an essential part of my meaning that we must be able to say not merely that no two exactly similar things do _in fact_ possess it in different degrees, but that, _if_ there had been or were going to be anything