46 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



asserts more or asserts less than the other. The paternity of 

 A and the filiety of B are not two facts, but two modes of 

 expressing the same fact That fact, when analysed, consists 

 of a series of physical events or phenomena, in which both A 

 and B are parties concerned, and from which they both derive 

 names. What those names really connote, is this series of 

 events : that is the meaning, and the whole meaning, which 

 either of them is intended to convey. The series of events may 

 be said to constitute the relation ; the schoolmen called it the 

 foundation of the relation, fundamentum relationis. 



In this manner any fact, or series of facts, in which two 

 different objects are implicated, and which is therefore pre- 

 dicable of both of them, may be either considered as consti- 

 tuting an attribute of the one, or an attribute of the other. 

 According as we consider it in the former, or in the latter 

 aspect, it is connoted by the one or the other of the two cor- 

 relative names. Father connotes the fact, regarded as consti- 

 tuting an attribute of A : son connotes the same fact, as con- 

 stituting an attribute of B. It may evidently be regarded 

 with equal propriety in either light. And all that appears 

 necessary to account for the existence of relative names, is, 

 that whenever there is a fact in which two individuals are con- 

 cerned, an attribute grounded on that fact may be ascribed to 

 either of these individuals. 



A name, therefore, is said to be relative, when, over and 

 above the object which it denotes, it implies in its signification 

 the existence of another object, also deriving a denomination 

 from the same fact which is the ground of the first name. Or 

 (to express the same meaning in other words) a name is rela- 

 tive, when, being the name of one thing, its signification 

 cannot be explained but by mentioning another. Or we may 

 state it thus when the name cannot be employed in discourse 

 so as to have a meaning, unless the name of some other thing 

 than what it is itself the name of, be either expressed or under- 

 stood. These definitions are all, at bottom, equivalent, being 

 modes of variously expressing this one distinctive circum- 

 stance that every other attribute of an object might, without 

 any contradiction, be conceived still to exist if no object be- 



