[An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. by John Locke]@TWC D-Link bookAn Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. CHAPTER XXV 5/8
Relation only betwixt two things. Whatsoever doth or can exist, or be considered as one thing is positive: and so not only simple ideas and substances, but modes also, are positive beings: though the parts of which they consist are very often relative one to another: but the whole together considered as one thing, and producing in us the complex idea of one thing, which idea is in our minds, as one picture, though an aggregate of divers parts, and under one name, it is a positive or absolute thing, or idea.
Thus a triangle, though the parts thereof compared one to another be relative, yet the idea of the whole is a positive absolute idea.
The same may be said of a family, a tune, &c.; for there can be no relation but betwixt two things considered as two things.
There must always be in relation two ideas or things, either in themselves really separate, or considered as distinct, and then a ground or occasion for their comparison. 7.
All Things capable of Relation. Concerning relation in general, these things may be considered: First, That there is no one thing, whether simple idea, substance, mode, or relation, or name of either of them, which is not capable of almost an infinite number of considerations in reference to other things: and therefore this makes no small part of men's thoughts and words: v.g.
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