54 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



the opposite of ecclesiastical, the opposite of military, 

 the opposite of political, in short, the opposite of any 

 positive word which wants a negative. 



Relative names are such as father, son ; ruler, 

 subject; like; equal; unlike; unequal; longer, shorter; 

 cause, effect. Their characteristic property is, that 

 they are always given in pairs. Every relative name 

 which is predicated of an object, supposes another 

 object (or objects), of which we may predicate either 

 that same name or another relative name which is 

 said to be the correlative of the former. Thus, when 

 we call any person a son, we suppose other persons 

 who must be called parents. When we call any event 

 a cause, we suppose another event which is an effect. 

 When we say of any distance that it is longer, we 

 suppose another distance which is shorter. When we 

 say of any object that it is like, we mean that it is 

 like some other object, which is also said to be like 

 the first In this case, both objects receive the same 

 name ; the relative term is its own correlative. 



It is evident that these words, when concrete, are, 

 like other concrete general names, connotative : they 

 denote a subject, and connote an attribute : and each 

 of them has or might have a corresponding abstract 

 name to denote the attribute connoted by the concrete. 

 Thus the concrete like has its abstract likeness; the 

 concretes, father and son, have the abstracts, paternity 

 and filiation. The concrete name connotes an attri- 

 bute, and the abstract name which answers to it 

 denotes that attribute. But of what nature is the 

 attribute? Wherein consists the peculiarity in the 

 connotation of a relative name ? 



The attribute signified by a relative name, say 

 some, is a relation; and this they give, if not as a 

 sufficient explanation, at least as the only one attain- 



