Postulate

A Postulate would be a proposition necessary as a premiss for a course of deductive reasoning and predicating a contingent character of the hypothetical subject of that course of reasoning; and any proposition of that description would be a Postulate.

A postulate is an initial hypothesis in general terms. It may be arbitrarily assumed provided that (the definitions being accepted) it does not conflict with any principle of substantive possibility or with any already adopted postulate. By a principle of substantive possibility, I mean, for example, that it would not be admissible to postulate that there was no relation whatever between two points, or to lay down the proposition that nothing whatever shall be true without exception. For though what this means involves no contradiction, it is in contradiction with the fact that it is itself asserted.