THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. 59 



But, as the difficulties which may be felt in adopting this view of the 

 subject can not be removed without discussions transcending the bounds 

 of our science, I content myself with a passing indication, and shall, for the 

 purposes of logic, adopt a language compatible with either view of the na- 

 ture of qualities. I shall say — what at least admits of no dispute — that 

 the quality of whiteness ascribed to the object snow, is grounded on its 

 exciting in us the sensation of white ; and adopting the language already 

 used by the school logicians in the case of the kind of attributes called 

 Relations, I shall term the sensation of white XkiQ foundation of the quality 

 whiteness. For logical purposes the sensation is the only essential part of 

 what is meant by the word ; the only part which we ever can be concerned 

 in proving. When that is proved, the quality is proved ; if an object ex- 

 cites a sensation, it has, of course, the power of exciting it. 



IV. Relations. 



§ 10. The qualities of a body, we have said, are the attributes grounded 

 on the sensations which the presence of that particular body to our organs 

 excites in our minds. But when we ascribe to any object the kind of at- 

 tribute called a Relation, the foundation of the attribute must be some- 

 thing in which other objects are concerned besides itself and the percipient. 



As there may with propriety be said to be a relation between any two 

 things to which two correlative names are or may be given, we may ex- 

 pect to discover what constitutes a relation in general, if we enumerate the 

 principal cases in which mankind have imposed correlative names, and ob- 

 serve what these cases have in common. 



What, then, is the character which is possessed in common by states of 

 circumstances so heterogeneous and discordant as these: one thing like 

 another; one thing unlike another; one thing near another; one thing 

 far from another; one thing before, after, along with another; one thing 

 greater, equal, less, than another ; one thing the cause of anothei", the effect 

 of another ; one person the master, servant, child, parent, debtor, creditor, 

 sovereign, subject, attorney, client, of another, and so on ? 



Omitting, for the present, the case of Resemblance, (a relation which re- 

 quires to be considered separately,) there seems to be one thing common 

 to all these cases, and only one ; that in each of them there exists or occurs, 

 or has existed or occurred, or may be expected to exist or occur, some fact 

 or phenomenon, into which the two things which are said to be related to 

 each othei-, both enter as parties concerned. This fact, or phenomenon, is 

 what the Aristotelian logicians called i\\Q fundamentum relationis. Thus 

 in the relation of greater and less between two nmgmiudes, the fundamen- 

 tum relationis is the fact that one of the two magnitudes could, under cer- 

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

 by the other magnitude. In the relation of master and servant, the fun- 

 damentum relationis is the fact that the one has undertaken, or is com- 

 pelled, to perform certain services for the benefit and at the bidding of the 

 other. Examples might be indefinitely multiplied ; but it is already obvi- 

 jus 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 

 hose two things a mutual relation grounded on the fact. Even if they 

 lave nothing in common but what is common to all things, that they are 

 nembers of the universe, we call that a relation, and denominate them 

 fellow-creatures, fellow-beings, or fellow-denizens of the universe. But in 



