THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. 73 



related to each other, both enter as parties concerned. This 

 fact, or phenomenon, is what the Aristotelian logicians called 

 the fundamentum relationis. Thus in the relation of greater 

 and less between two magnitudes, the fundamentum relationis 

 is the fact that one of the two magnitudes could, under certain 

 conditions, be included in, without entirely filling, the space 

 occupied by the other magnitude. In the relation of master 

 and servant, the fundamentum relationis is the fact that the 

 one has undertaken, or is compelled, to perform certain services 

 for the benefit and at the bidding of the other. Examples 

 might be indefinitely multiplied; but it is already obvious 

 that whenever two things are said to be related, there is some 

 fact, or series of facts, into which they both enter ; and that 

 whenever any two things are involved in some one fact, or 

 series of facts, we may ascribe to those two things a mutual 

 relation grounded on the fact. Even if they have nothing in 

 common but what is common to all things, that they are 

 members of the universe, we call that a relation, and deno- 

 minate them fellow-creatures, fellow-beings, or fellow-denizens 

 of the universe. But in proportion as the fact into which the 

 two objects enter as parts is of a more special and peculiar, or 

 of a more complicated nature, so also is the relation grounded 

 upon it. And there are as many conceivable relations as there 

 are conceivable kinds of fact in which two things can be jointly 

 concerned. 



In the same manner, therefore, as a quality is an attribute 

 grounded on the fact that a certain sensation or sensations are 

 produced in us by the object, so an attribute grounded on some 

 fact into w r hich the object enters jointly with another object, 

 is a relation between it and that other object. But the fact in 

 the latter case consists of the very same kind of elements as 

 the fact in the former; namely, states of consciousness. In 

 the case, for example, of any legal relation, as debtor and 

 creditor, principal and agent, guardian and ward, the funda- 

 mentum relationis consists entirely of thoughts, feelings, and 

 volitions (actual or contingent), either of the persons them- 

 selves or of other persons concerned in the same series of trans- 

 actions ; as, for instance, the intentions which would be formed 



