When we say “I can't feel his
pain”, the idea of an
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insurmountable barrier
suggests itself to us. Let us think straight away of a
similar case: “The colours green and blue
can't be in the same place simultaneously”.
Here the picture of physical impossibility which suggests
◇ || itself is, perhaps, not that of a
barrier; rather we feel that the two colours are in each
other's way. What is the origin of this
idea? ‒ ‒ ‒ We say three people can't sit
side by side on this bench; they have no room. Now the
case of the colours is not analogous to this; but it is somewhat
analogous to saying: “3 × 18 inches
won't go into 3 feet”. This is a
grammatical rule and states a logical impossibility. The
proposition “three men can't sit side by side on
a bench a yard long” states a physical impossibility; and
this example shows clearly why the two impossibilities are
confused. (Compare the proposition,
“He is six inches taller than I” with
“6 feet are 6 inches longer than 5 foot
6”. These propositions are of utterly different
kinds, but look exactly alike.) The reason why in
these cases the idea of physical impossibility suggests itself to
us is that on the
◇ || one hand we
decide against using a particular form of expression, on the
other hand we are strongly tempted to use it, as, firstly, it
sounds English, or German, etc. all
right, and
, secondly, there are closely similar forms of expression used in
other departments of our language. We have decided
against using the phrase, “They are in the same
place, etc.”; on the other hand this
phrase strongly recommends itself to us through the analogy with
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other cases, so
that, in a sense, we have to turn out this form of expression by
force. And this is why we seem to ourselves to be
rejecting a universally false proposition. We make a
picture like that of the two colours being in each other's
way, or that of a barrier which doesn't allow one person
to come closer to another's experience than observing his
behaviour; but on looking closer we find that we can't
apply the picture which we have made.