[An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. by John Locke]@TWC D-Link book
An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I.

CHAPTER XXV
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one single man may at once be concerned in, and sustain all these following relations, and many more, viz.

father, brother, son, grandfather, grandson, father-in-law, son-in-law, husband, friend, enemy, subject, general, judge, patron, client, professor, European, Englishman, islander, servant, master, possessor, captain, superior, inferior, bigger, less, older, younger, contemporary, like, unlike, &c., to an almost infinite number: he being capable of as many relations as there can be occasions of comparing him to other things, in any manner of agreement, disagreement, or respect whatsoever.

For, as I said, relation is a way of comparing or considering two things [*dropped line] from that comparison; and sometimes giving even the relation itself a name.
8.

Our Ideas of Relations often clearer than of the Subjects related.
Secondly, This further may be considered concerning relation, that though it be not contained in the real existence of things, but something extraneous and superinduced, yet the ideas which relative words stand for are often clearer and more distinct than of those substances to which they do belong.

The notion we have of a father or brother is a great deal clearer and more distinct than that we have of a man; or, if you will, PATERNITY is a thing whereof it is easier to have a clear idea, than of HUMANITY; and I can much easier conceive what a friend is, than what God; because the knowledge of one action, or one simple idea, is oftentimes sufficient to give me the notion of a relation; but to the knowing of any substantial being, an accurate collection of sundry ideas is necessary.


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