There are, on the other hand, various reasons which incline us to look at the fact of something being possible, someone being able to do something, etc., as the fact that he or it is in a particular || peculiar state. Roughly speaking, this comes to saying that “A is in the state of being able to do something” is the form of representation we are most strongly tempted to adopt, or, as one could also put it, we are strongly inclined to use the metaphor of something being in a peculiar state for saying that something can behave in a particular way. And this way of representation, or this metaphor, is embodied in the expressions, “He is capable of … ”, “He is able to multiply large numbers in his head”, “He can play chess”: in these sentences the verb is used in the present tense, suggesting that the phrases are descriptions of states which exist at the moment when we speak.