It is clear that Our examples – to
Let us ask the following question: “If || suppose on one such ground or another B had said ‘I can continue the series’ & on being asked to continue it had stopped & shown himself unable to go on should we say that this proved that his previous statement that he could go on || continue was wrong or should we say that he could continue when he said he could but that he can't now?” Should B himself say “I see I was wrong” or “I was right at the time I said it … || but …”. There are cases in which he would correctly say the one & cases in which he would correctly say the other.
     Suppose he said the formula & forgot it later. Or he continued & can't continue the same numbers now. Or he says I now know the numbers I got then but I couldn't get them now. Or then I felt I could continue. Or my arm didn't hurt then.
     In other cases we shall say, I thought I could lift this weight but I couldn't || was mistaken. I thought I knew it || could say it by heart but I couldn't. || was mistaken. We may say that then it was a conjecture that I could.
     Another class of cases is: I can but I won't. I can if I try hard but I won't.
     One might also say I could then do it if I actually did it, otherwise I ought to say || only “I could do it as far as … was concerned”. || survey the cases of trying & forgetting.
     This is the use of such a phrase as that if something happens it can happen. One of the most useless phrases there are. It sounds as though it had a very clear & deep meaning but is like most of these general philosophical propositions meaningless except in very special cases.
     Imagine this language it has two expressions for ‘I lift a weight” one of them is used as a test, one otherwise. ¥ There is the element || feature of conjecture, that of the description of a state, that of an account of certain tests passed & others.
     We see that the cases || uses of ‘can’ have a vast net of family likenesses & that certain features can be said to be blended in the different cases in various degrees.
⍈ There are on the other hand various obvious reasons why we should be || are inclined to look at the fact of someone being able to do something etc. as the fact that he is in a peculiar state. And this way of looking at it or this particular metaphor is embodied in such expressions as he is capable of, in the present tense he is in the state of … We talk of states of mind not meaning conscious mental occurrences. We regard the memory under the picture of a storehouse etc.
      ¤ (If a metaphor is embodied in one of our typical sayings that shows how immensely natural it comes to us.)
     And we now see that it wasn't at all a final answer to say that a man is led by the signs
– ∙ ∙ … if he could also have followed other signs. In fact if we imagine this to describe a state we could make clear to ourselves what we have in mind by constructing this kind of example. Consider this mechanism.

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