63

as something that has no being at all except so
far as it actually gets embodied in an event of thought,
and you regard this logical necessitation as a sort
of actual compulsion, since the meaning must
actually be embodied, what you are thinking of is a
Secondness involved in Thirdness.

A Firstness is exemplified in
every quality of a total feeling. It is perfectly simple and
without parts; and everything has its quality. Thus
the Tragedy of King Lear has its Firstness, its flavor sui generis. That wherein
all such qualities agree is universal Firstness, the
very being of Firstness. The word possibility fits it,
except that possibility implies a relation to what
exists, while universal Firstness is the mode of being of itself.
That is why a new word was required for it. Otherwise,