And thus also all moral
words terminate at last, though perhaps more remotely, in a collection
of simple ideas: the immediate signification of relative words,
being very often other supposed known relations; which, if traced
one to another, still end in simple ideas.
19. We have ordinarily as clear a notion of the relation, as of
the simple ideas in things on which it is founded. Secondly, That in
relations, we have for the most part, if not always, as clear a notion
of the relation as we have of those simple ideas wherein it is
founded: agreement or disagreement, whereon relation depends, being
things whereof we have commonly as clear ideas as of any other
whatsoever; it being but the distinguishing simple ideas, or their
degrees one from another, without which we could have no distinct
knowledge at all. For, if I have a clear idea of sweetness, light,
or extension, I have, too, of equal, or more, or less, of each of
these: if I know what it is for one man to be born of a woman, viz.
Sempronia, I know what it is for another man to be born of the same
woman Sempronia; and so have as clear a notion of brothers as of
births, and perhaps clearer. For if I believed that Sempronia digged
Titus out of the parsley-bed, (as they used to tell children), and
thereby became his mother; and that afterwards, in the same manner,
she digged Caius out of the parsley-bed, I had as clear a notion of
the relation of brothers between them, as if I had all the skill of
a midwife: the notion that the same woman contributed, as mother,
equally to their births, (though I were ignorant or mistaken in the
manner of it), being that on which I grounded the relation; and that
they agreed in that circumstance of birth, let it be what it will.
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