44 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



again, the fact that it endormit. In like manner, when we say that 

 snow is white because it has the quality of whiteness, we are only re- 

 asserting in more technical language the fact that it excites in us the 

 sensation of white. If it be said that the sensation must have some 

 cause, I answer, its cause is the presence of the object. When we 

 have asserted that as often as the object is present, and our organs in 

 their normal state, the sensation takes place, we have stated all that 

 we know about the matter. There is no need, after assigning a cer- 

 tain and intelligible cause, to suppose an occult cause besides, for the 

 purpose of enabling the real cause to produce its effect. If I am 

 asked, why does the presence of the object cause this sensation in me, 

 I cannot tell : I can only say that such -is my nature, and the nature 

 of the object : the constitution of things, the scheme of the universe, 

 \vill have it so. And to this we must at last come, even after interpo- 

 lating the imaginary entity. Whatever number of links the chain of 

 causes and effects may .consist of, how any one link produces the one 

 which is next to it remains equally inexplicable to us. It is as easy 

 to comprehend that the object should produce the sensation directly 

 and at once, as that it should produce the same sensation by the aid 

 of something else called \}(\q power of producing it. 



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

 the subject cannot 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 Avith either 

 view of the nature of qualities. I shall say, — what at least admits of 

 no dispute, — that the quality of whiteness ascribed to the object snow, 

 is grounded upon its exciting in us the sensation of white; and, adopt- 

 ing 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 the 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 excites 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 upon 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 attribute called a Relation, the foundation of the 

 attribute must be something 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 cori'elative names are or may be given ; we 

 may expect to discover what constitutes a relation in general, if we 

 enumerate the principal cases in which mankind have imposed coiTel- 

 ative names, and observe what all 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 for foam another ; one thing before, afoer, along with another ; 

 one thing greater, equal, less, than another ; one thing the cause of an- 



