Note 85 — Chapter IV · THE WORLD OF THINGS—(1) SUBSTANCE, QUALITY, AND RELATION

Thus, e.g., so fundamental a proposition in our current mechanical science as the “first law of motion” is avowedly a statement as to what would be the behaviour of things under a condition which, so far as we know, is never actually realised. On the thing as the “law of its states,” see Lotze, Metaphysic, I. 3. 32 ff. (Eng. trans., vol. i. p. 88 ff.), and L. T. Hobhouse, The Theory of Knowledge, pp. 545-557.