The Commens Dictionary

Quote from ‘Lowell Lectures. 1903. Lecture 3’

These substantive possibilities, – that is, qualities, relations, and the like, – are prior to existence, in the sense that non-existence is not a necessary proof of non-possibility, but non-possibility is a necessary proof of non-existence. For it is logically impossible that existence should exhaust pure possibilities of any kind. These truths are strictly deducible from the facts of phenomenology, or the analysis of the phenomenon; meaning by the phenomenon whatever is present in the mind in any kind of thought.