actual contrast has been expressed by its assertion. The hypothetical judgment is now experienced as true, although the possibility that it asserts is experienced as unreal.
Still more obvious is the matter, when we treat of an intention. “If you ask me no questions, I will tell you no lies,” says a person more concerned to be discreet than to be truthful. Here, in experience, the possibility suggested may or may not be realised. But in either case the hypothetical judgment may express the essence of this person’s intent. “I could not do that,” says a conscientious man in presence of a rejected temptation; “that, if I did it, would be a crime.” Here is the very contrast between what the intent expresses, as the purpose of this man, and the actions, perhaps common enough in other men, with which he contrasts his intent, — it is this very contrast, I say, which is expressed by an hypothesis whose possible reality, if given, would destroy this contrast.
In general, if I am describing situations or other really experienced data, whose characters are relatively individual, that is, unique, and are sundered out from a background, so that the individual objects that I am describing are to be contrasted definitely with other individuals, then I can and do express one aspect, at least, of the very nature of this individuality, of this contrast, by making hypotheses contrary to fact concerning the way in which this contrast might be reduced or annulled, and this individuality lost in the mere background of universality from which it is differentiated. And the more completely
