70 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC. 



42. ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE CONCEPTS AND TERMS. A 

 Relative Concept or Term is described as one which, over and above 

 the class of object it denotes , implies in its very signification a refer 

 ence to some other class of object (called correlative], so that with 

 out such reference the meaning of the concept or term in question 

 could not be understood. 



Of course there is in reality not a single thing of which 

 we can have an idea or for which we can have a name, that 

 does not stand in manifold relations to other things asso 

 ciated somehow or other in our minds, whenever we think 

 of it, with other things. The nature of things and the nature 

 of our minds alike demand this. No actual thing is abso 

 lutely isolated and separated from everything else. No object 

 can be thought of except as implying a relation of distinc 

 tion from all other objects. And no thought can apprehend its 

 object out of all relation to all other objects. But these facts are 

 not sufficient to make the concept or term relative in the sense 

 just defined. Thus the mention of the words &quot; king &quot; and &quot; man &quot; 

 immediately associates the two objects in thought, and suggests the 

 facts that kings are men and rule men. Nevertheless, we have 

 not here a pair of relatives, or correlatives ; for neither concept 

 implies a reference to the other in its meaning ; each can be under 

 stood without the other. 



Not so, however, in the case of &quot; king &quot; and &quot; subject &quot; : each 

 of these connotes a reference to the other, nor can either be 

 understood without reference to the other. So, for example, 

 &quot;friend friend,&quot; &quot;partner partner,&quot; &quot;equal equal,&quot; &quot;near 

 near,&quot; &quot;husband wife,&quot; &quot;father son,&quot; &quot;logical subject logical 

 predicate&quot;. All these, therefore, are relative terms. It will be 

 noted that they always go in pairs, that sometimes both correlatives 

 have the same name, sometimes each a distinct name. 



The relation implied in relative terms always arises from 

 some fact or series of facts connoted by both terms alike. These 

 facts constitute what is called the Fundamentum Relationis the 

 basis or foundation of the relation. The series of acts or facts 

 constituting friendship, partnership, paternity and sonship, citizen 

 ship and kingship, etc., are the respective foundations of those 

 relations. Whenever the correlatives have different names, so 

 too, as a rule, has the fundamentum relationis, according to the 

 side from which we regard it e.g. paternity, sonship. 



An Absolute Concept or Term is one which does not imply in 



