, whereof I
shall have occasion to speak more at large in the following chapters.
4. Relation different from the things related. This further may be
observed, That the ideas of relation may be the same in men who have
far different ideas of the things that are related, or that are thus
compared: v.g. those who have far different ideas of a man, may yet
agree in the notion of a father; which is a notion superinduced to the
substance, or man, and refers only to an act of that thing called
man whereby he contributed to the generation of one of his own kind,
let man be what it will.
5. Change of relation may be without any change in the things
related. The nature therefore of relation consists in the referring or
comparing two things one to another; from which comparison one or both
comes to be denominated. And if either of those things be removed,
or cease to be, the relation ceases, and the denomination consequent
to it, though the other receive in itself no alteration at all: v.g.
Caius, whom I consider to-day as a father, ceases to be so
to-morrow, only by the death of his son, without any alteration made
in himself. Nay, barely by the mind's changing the object to which
it compares anything, the same thing is capable of having contrary
denominations at the same time: v.g. Caius, compared to several
persons, may be truly be said to be older and younger, stronger and
weaker, &c.
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