 Unital contraction positivity criterion

A real-linear contraction on $C(X)$ that preserves $1$ is positive: for $0\le f\le 1$, $\Vert 1-Tf{\Vert }_{\infty }\le 1$ forces $Tf\ge 0$, then scale. In the complex case, a unital norm-one functional is real on real functions, since $|1+it\varphi (g)|\le \Vert 1+itg{\Vert }_{\infty }=1+O(t^2)$ for both signs of $t$. The same positivity argument applies pointwise to $\varphi (f)=Tf(x)$. This turns a unital contraction semigroup into a Feller semigroup.