For
there are no things so remote, nor so contrary, which the mind cannot,
by this art of composition, bring into one idea; as is visible in that
signified by the name universe.
Chapter XXV
Of Relation
1. Relation, what. Besides the ideas, whether simple or complex,
that the mind has of things as they are in themselves, there are
others it gets from their comparison one with another. The
understanding, in the consideration of anything, is not confined to
that precise object: it can carry an idea as it were beyond itself, or
at least look beyond it, to see how it stands in conformity to any
other. When the mind so considers one thing, that it does as it were
bring it to, and set it by another, and carries its view from one to
the other- this is, as the words import, relation and respect; and the
denominations given to positive things, intimating that respect, and
serving as marks to lead the thoughts beyond the subject itself
denominated to something distinct from it, are what we call relatives;
and the things so brought together, related. Thus, when the mind
considers Caius as such a positive being, it takes nothing into that
idea but what really exists in Caius; v.g. when I consider him as a
man, I have nothing in my mind but the complex idea of the species,
man.
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