Kitap 9
1
Now if, as we have said, that is possible which does not involve an impossibility, obviously it cannot be true to say that so-and-so is possible, but will not be, this view entirely loses sight of the instances of impossibility.If it is true to say that a thing which is possible will not be, anything may be possible, and nothing impossible. I mean, suppose that someone—i.e. the sort of man who does not take the impossible into account—were to say that it is possible to measure the diagonal of a square, but that it will not be measured, because there is nothing to prevent a thing which is capable of being or coming to be from neither being nor being likely ever to be.
2
But from our premisses this necessarily follows: that if we are to assume that which is not, but is possible, to be or to have come to be, nothing impossible must be involved. But in this case something impossible will take place; for the measuring of the diagonal is impossible.
2
The false is of course not the same as the impossible; for although it is false that you are now standing, it is not impossible.
