CHAPTER XII. RELATION; THE RELATIVE AND THE ABSOLUTE.

87. IMPORTANCE OF THE PRESENT CATEGORY.—An analysis of the concept of _Relation_ will be found to have a very direct bearing both on the Theory of Being and on the Theory of Knowledge. For the human mind knowledge is embodied in the mental act of judgment, and this is an act of _comparison_, an act whereby we _relate_ or _refer_ one concept to another. The act of cognition itself involves a relation between the knowing subject and the known object, between the mind and reality. Reality itself is understood only by our mentally recognizing or establishing relations between the objects which make up for us the whole knowable universe. This universe we apprehend not as a multitude of isolated, unconnected individuals, but as an _ordered whole_ whose parts are _inter-related_ by their mutual _co-ordinations_ and _subordinations_. The _order_ we apprehend in the universe results from these various inter-relations whereby we apprehend it as a _system_. What we call a _law of nature_, for instance, is nothing more or less than the expression of some constant relation which we believe to exist between certain parts of this system. The study of _Relation_, therefore, belongs not merely to Logic or the Theory of Knowledge, but also to the Theory of Being, to Metaphysics. What, then, is a relation? What is the object of this mental concept which we express by the term _relation_? Are there in the known and knowable universe of our experience _real_ relations? Or are all relations _merely logical_, pure creations of our cognitive activity? Can we classify relations, whether real or logical? What constitutes a relation formally? What are the properties or characteristics of relations? These are some of the questions we must attempt to answer.

Again, there is much ambiguity, and not a little error, in the use of the terms “absolute” and “relative” in modern philosophy. To some of these sources of confusion we have referred already (5). It is a commonplace of modern philosophy, a thing accepted as unquestioned and unquestionable, that we know, and can know, only the relative. There is a true sense in this, but the true sense is not the generally accepted one.

Considering the order in which our knowledge of reality progresses it is unquestionable that we first simply perceive “things” successively, things more or less _similar_ or _dissimilar_, without realizing _in what_ they agree or differ. To realize the latter involves _reflection_ and _comparison_. Similarly we perceive “events” in succession, events some of which _depend on_ others, but without at first noting or realizing this dependence. In other words we apprehend at first _apart from their relations_, or _as absolute_, things and events which are really relative; and we do so spontaneously, without realizing even that we perceive them as absolute.

The seed needs soil and rain and sunshine for its growth; but these do not need the seed. The turbine needs the water, but the water does not need the turbine. When we realize such facts as these, _by reflection_, contrasting what is dependent with what is independent, what is like or unlike, before or after, greater or less than, other things, with what each of these is in itself, we come into conscious possession of the notion of “the relative” and oppose this to the notion of “the absolute”.

What we conceive as dependent we conceive as relative; what we conceive, by negation, as independent, we conceive as absolute. Then by further observation and reflection we gradually realize that what we apprehended as independent of certain things is dependent on certain other things; that the same thing may be independent in some respects and dependent in other respects. The rain does not depend on the seed which it causes to germinate, but it does depend on the clouds. The water which turns the turbine does not depend on the turbine, but it does depend on the rain; and the rain depends on the evaporation of the waters of the ocean; and the evaporation on the solar heat; and this again on chemical and physical processes in the sun; and so on, as far as sense experience will carry us: until we realize that everything which falls directly within this sense experience is dependent and therefore relative. Similarly, the accident of quantity, in virtue of which we pronounce one of two bodies to be _larger_ than the other, is something _absolute_ as compared with this _relation_ itself; but as compared with the substance in which it inheres, it is dependent on the latter, or _relative_ to the latter, while the substance is _absolute_, or free from dependence on it. But if substance is absolute as compared with accident, in the sense that substance is not dependent on a subject in which to inhere, but exists _in itself_, it is not absolute in the sense understood by Spinoza, in the sense of existing _of itself_, independently of any efficient cause to account for its origin (64). All the substances in the universe of our direct sense experience are contingent, dependent _ab alio_, and therefore in this sense relative, not absolute.

This is the true sense in which relativity is an essential note of the reality of all the data of the world of our sense experience. They are all contingent, or relative, or conditioned existences. And, as Kant rightly taught, this experience forces us inevitably to think of a Necessary, Absolute, Unconditioned Being, on whom these all depend. But, as can be proved in _Natural Theology_ against Kant, this concept is not a mere regulative idea of the reason, a form of thought whereby we systematize our experience: it is a concept the object of which is not merely a necessity of thought but also an objectively existing reality.(391)

But in the thought of most modern philosophers relativism, or the doctrine that “we can know only the relative,” is something very different from all this. For positivists, disciples of Auguste Comte (1798-1857), it means that we can know only the phenomena which fall under the notice of our senses, and the laws of resemblance, succession, etc., according to which they occur. All “theological” quests for supra-mundane causes and reasons of these events, and all “metaphysical” quests for suprasensible forces, powers, influences, in the events themselves, as explaining or accounting for these latter, are according to this theory necessarily futile: the mind must rest content with a knowledge of the _positive facts_ of sense, and their relations. Relativism is thus another name for Positivism.

For the psychological sensism of English philosophers from Hobbes [1588-1679] and Locke [1632-1704] down to Mill [1806-73] and Bain [1818-1903] relativism means that all conscious cognition—which they tend to reduce to modes and complexes of _sensation_—must be, and can only be, a cognition of the changing, the transitional, the relative.(392) According to an extreme form of this theory the mind can apprehend only relations, but not the terms of any of these relations: it can apprehend nothing as absolute. Moreover the relations which it apprehends it creates itself. Thus all reality is reduced to a system of relations. For Mill the supreme category of real being was _Sensation_: but sensation can be only a feeling of a relation: thus the supreme category of real being would be _Relation_.(393)

But the main current of relativism is that which has issued from Kant’s philosophy and worked itself out in various currents such as Spencer’s Agnosticism, Hegel’s Monism, and Renouvier’s Neo-criticism.(394) The mind can know only what is related to it, what is present to it, what is in it; not what is apart from it, distinct from it. The mind cannot know the real nature of the extramental, nor even if there be an extramental real. Subject and object in knowledge are really one: individual minds are only self-conscious phases in the ever-evolving reality of the One Sole Actual Being.

These are but a few of the erroneous currents of modern relativism. A detailed analysis of them belongs to the _Theory of Knowledge_. But it may be pointed out here that they are erroneous because they have distorted and exaggerated certain profound truths concerning the scope and limits of human knowledge.

It is true that we have no positive, proper, intuitive knowledge of the Absolute Being who is the First Cause and Last End of the universe; that all our knowledge of the nature and attributes of the Infinite Being is negative, analogical, abstractive. In a certain sense, therefore, He is above the scope of our faculties; He is Incomprehensible. But it is false to say that He is Unknowable; that our knowledge of Him, inadequate and imperfect as it is, is not genuine, real, and instructive, as far as it goes.

Again, a _distinct_ knowledge of any object implies _defining_, _limiting_, _distinguishing_, _comparing_, _relating_, _judging_; _analysing and synthesizing_. It implies therefore that we apprehend things _in relations_ with other things. But this supposes an antecedent, if indistinct, apprehension of the “things” themselves. Indeed we cannot help pronouncing as simply unintelligible the contention that all knowledge is of relations, and that we can have no knowledge of things as absolute. How could we become aware of relations without being aware of the terms related? Spencer himself admits that the very reasoning whereby we establish the “relativity of knowledge” leads us inevitably to assert as necessary the existence of the non-relative, the Absolute:(395) a necessity which Kant also recognizes.

Finally, the fact that reality, in order to be known, must be present to the knowing mind—or, in other words, that knowledge itself is a relation between object and subject—in no way justifies the conclusion that we cannot know the real nature of things as they are in themselves, absolutely, but only our own subjective, mental impressions or representations of the absolute reality, in itself unknowable.(396) The obvious fact that any reality in order to be known must be related to the knowing mind, seems to be regarded by some philosophers as if it were a momentous discovery. Then, conceiving the “thing-in-itself,” the absolute, as a something standing out of all relation to mind, they declare solemnly that we cannot know the absolute: a declaration which may be interpreted either as a mere truism—that we cannot know a thing without knowing it!—or as a purely gratuitous assertion, that besides the world of realities which reveal themselves to our minds there is another world of unattained and unattainable “things-in-themselves” which are as it were the _real_ realities! These philosophers have yet to show that there is anything absurd or impossible in the view that there is simply one world of realities—realities which exist absolutely in themselves apart from our apprehension of them and which in the process of cognition come into relation with our minds.(397) Moreover, if besides this world of known and knowable realities there were such a world of “transcendental” things-in-themselves as these philosophers discourse of, such a world would have very little concern for us,(398) since by definition and _ex hypothesi_ it would be _for us_ necessarily as if it were not: indeed the hypothesis of such a transcendental world is self-contradictory, for even did it exist we could not think of it.

The process of cognition has indeed its difficulties and mysteries. To examine these, to account for the possibility of truth and error, to analyse the grounds and define the scope and limits of human certitude, are problems for the _Theory of Knowledge_, on the domain of which we are trenching perhaps too far already in the present context. But at all events to conceive reality as absolute in the sense of being totally unrelated to mind, and then to ask: Is reality so transformed in the very process of cognition that the mind cannot possibly apprehend it or represent it as it really is?—this certainly is to misconceive and mis-state in a hopeless fashion the main problem of Epistemology.

88. ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPT OF RELATION.—Relation is one of those ultimate concepts which does not admit of definition proper. And like other ultimate concepts it is familiar to all. Two lines, each measuring a yard, are _equal_ to each other _in length_: _equality_ is a _quantitative_ relation. The number 2 is _half_ of 4, and 4 is _twice_ 2: _half_ and _double_ express each a _quantitative_ relation of _inequality_. If two twin brothers are _like_ each other we have the _qualitative_ relation of _resemblance_ or _similarity_; if a negro and a European are _unlike_ each other we have the _qualitative_ relation of _dissimilarity_. The steam of the locomotive moves the train: a relation of _efficient causality_, of efficient cause to effect. The human eye is adapted to the function of seeing: a relation of _purpose_ or _finality_, of means to end. And so on.

The objective concept of relation thus establishes a _conceptual unity_ between a pair of things in the domain of some other category. Like quantity, quality, _actio_ and _passio_, etc., it is an ultimate mode of reality as apprehended through human experience. But while the reality of the other accident-categories appertains to substances considered absolutely or in isolation from one another, the reality of this category which we call _relation_ appertains indivisibly to two (or more) together, so that when one of these is taken or considered apart from the other (or others) the relation formally disappears. Each of the other (absolute) accidents is formally “something” (“_aliquid_”; “τι”), whereas the formal function of _relation_ is to refer something “to something” else (“_ad aliquid_”; “πρός τι”). The other accidents formally inhere in a subject, “habent _esse in_ subjecto”; relation, considered formally as such, does not inhere in a subject, but gives the latter a respect, or bearing, or reference, or ordination, _to_ or _towards_ something else: “relatio dat subjecto respectum vel _esse ad_ aliquid aliud”. The length of each of two lines is an _absolute_ accident of that line, but the _relation_ of equality or inequality is intelligible only of both together. Destroy one line and the relation is destroyed, though the other line retains its length absolutely and unaltered. And so of the other examples just given. Relation, then, considered formally as such, is not an absolute accident inhering in a subject, but is a reference of this subject to some other thing, this latter being called the _term_ of the relation. Hence relation is described by the scholastics as the _ordination or respect or reference of one thing to another_: _ordo vel respectus vel habitudo unius ad aliud_. The relation of a subject to something else as term is formally not anything absolute, “_aliquid_” in that subject, but merely refers this subject to something else as term, “_ad aliquid_”. Hence Aristotle’s designation of relation as “πρός τι,” “_ad aliquid_,” “to or towards something”. “We conceive as relations [πρός τι],” he says, “those things whose very entity itself we regard as being somehow _of_ other things or _to_ another thing.”(399)

To constitute a relation of whatsoever kind, three elements or factors are essential: the _two extremes_ of the relation, viz. the _subject_ of the relation and the _term_ to which the subject is referred, and what is called the _foundation_, or basis, or ground, or reason, of the relation (_fundamentum_ relationis). This latter is the cause or reason on account of which the subject bears the relation to its term. It is always something absolute, in the extremes of the relation. Hence it follows that we may regard any relation in two ways, either _formally_ as the actual bond or link of connexion between the extremes, or _fundamentally_, _i.e._ as in its cause or foundation in these extremes. This is expressed technically by distinguishing between the relation _secundum esse in_ and _secundum esse ad_, _i.e._ between the absolute entity of its foundation in the subject and the purely relative entity in which the relation itself formally consists. Needless to say, the latter, whatever it is, does not add any _absolute entity_ to that of either extreme. But in what does this relative entity itself consist? Before attempting an answer to this question we must endeavour to distinguish, in the next section (89), between _purely logical_ relations and relations which are in some true sense _real_. Here we may note certain corollaries from the concept of relation as just analysed.

Realities of which the objective concept of relation is verified derive from this latter certain _properties_ or special characteristics. The _first_ of these is _reciprocity_: two related extremes are as such intelligible only in reference to each other: father to son, half to double, like to like, etc., and _vice versa_: _Correlativa se invicem connotant_. The _second_ is that things related to one another are collateral or concomitant in _nature_: _Correlativa sunt simul natura_: neither related extreme is as such naturally prior to the other. This is to be understood of the relation only in its _formal_ aspect, not fundamentally. Fundamentally or _materialiter_, the cause for instance is _naturally prior_ to its effect. The _third_ is that related things are concomitant _logically_, or in the order of knowledge: _Correlativa sunt simul cognitione_: a reality can be known and defined as relative to another reality only by the simultaneous cognition of both extremes of the relation.

89. LOGICAL RELATIONS.—Logical relations are _those which are created by our own thought, and which can have no being other than the being which they have in and for our thought_. That there are such relations, which are the exclusive product of our thought-activity, is universally admitted. The mind can reflect on its own direct concepts; it can compare and co-ordinate and subordinate them among themselves; it thus forms ideas of relations between those concepts, ideas which the scholastics call _reflex_ or _logical_ ideas, or “_secundæ intentiones mentis_”. These relations are _entia rationis_, purely logical relations. Such, for instance, are the relations of _genus_ to _species_, of predicate to subject, the relations described in Logic as the _prædicabilia_. Moreover we can compare our direct universal concepts with the individual realities they represent, and see that this feature or mode of _universality_ in the concept, its “_intentio universalitatis_” is a _logical relation_ of the concept to the reality which it represents: a logical relation, inasmuch as its _subject_ (the concept) and its _foundation_ (the _abstractness_ of the concept) are in themselves pure products of our thought-activity. Furthermore, we are forced by the imperfection of the thought-processes whereby we apprehend reality—conception of _abstract_ ideas, _limitation_ of concepts in extension and intension, _affirmation_ and _negation_, etc.—to apprehend _conceptual_ limitations, negations, comparisons, etc., in a word, all _logical entities_, as if they were _realities_, or after the manner of realities, _i.e._ to conceive what is really “nothing” as if it were really “something,” to conceive the _non-ens_ as if it were an _ens_, to conceive it _per modum entis_ (3). And when we compare these logical entities with one another, or with real entities, the relations thus established by our thought are all _logical relations_. Finally, it follows from this same imperfection in our human modes of thought that we sometimes understand things only by attributing to these certain logical relations, _i.e._ relations which affect not the reality of these things, their _esse reale_, but only the mode of their presence in our minds, their _esse ideale_ (4).

In view of the distinction between logical relations and those we shall presently describe as real relations, and especially in view of the prevalent tendency in modern philosophy to regard all relations as merely logical, it would be desirable to classify logical relations and to indicate the ways in which they are created by, or result from, our thought-processes. We know of no more satisfactory analysis than that accomplished by St. Thomas Aquinas in various parts of his many monumental and enduring works. In his _Commentaries on the Sentences_(400) he enumerates four ways in which logical relations arise from our thought-processes. In his _Quaestiones Disputatae_(401) he reduces these to two: some logical relations, he says, are invented by the intellect reflecting on its own concepts and are attributed to these concepts; others arise from the fact that the intellect can understand things only by relating, grouping, classifying them, only by introducing among them an _arrangement_ or _system of relations_ through which alone it can understand them, relations which it could only erroneously ascribe to these things as they really exist, since they are only projected, as it were, into these things by the mind. Thus, though it consciously thinks of these things as so related, it deliberately abstains from asserting that these relations really affect the things themselves. Now the mistake of all those philosophers, whether ancient, medieval or modern, who deny that any relations are real, seems to be that they carry this abstention too far. They contend that all relations are simply read into the reality by our thought; that none are in the reality in any true sense independently of our thought. They thus exaggerate the rôle of thought as a _constitutive_ factor of known or experienced reality; and they often do so to such a degree that according to their philosophy human thought not merely _discovers_ or _knows_ reality but practically _constitutes_ or _creates_ it: or at all events to such a degree that cognition would be mainly a process whereby reality is assimilated to mind and not rather a process whereby mind is assimilated to reality. Against all such idealist tendencies in philosophy we assert that not all relations are logical, that there are some relations which are not mere products of thought, but which are themselves real.

90. REAL RELATIONS; THEIR EXISTENCE VINDICATED.—A real relation is _one which is not a mere product of thought, but which obtains between real things independently of our thought_. For a real relation there must be (_a_) a _real_, individual _subject_; (_b_) a _real foundation_; and (_c_) a _real_, individual _term_, really distinct from the subject. If the subject of the relation, or its foundation, be not real, but a mere _ens rationis_, obviously the relation cannot be more than logical. If, moreover, the term be not a really distinct entity from the subject, then the relation can be nothing more than a mental comparison of some thing with itself, either under the same aspect or under mentally distinct aspects. A relation is real in the fullest sense when the extremes are _mutually_ related in virtue of a foundation really existing in both. Hence St Thomas’ definition of a real relation as a _connexion between some two things in virtue of something really found in both_: _habitudo inter aliqua duo secundum aliquid realiter conveniens utrique_.(402)

Now the question: Are there in the real world, among the things which make up the universe of our experience, relations which are not merely logical, which are not a mere product of our thought?—can admit of only one reasonable answer. That there are relations which are in some true sense real and independent of our thought-activity must be apparent to everyone whose mental outlook on things has not been warped by the specious sophistries of some form or other of Subjective Idealism. For _ex professo_ refutations of Idealist theories the student must consult treatises on the _Theory of Knowledge_. A few considerations on the present point will be sufficiently convincing here.

First, then, let us appeal to the familiar examples mentioned above. Are not two lines, each a yard long, _really equal_ in length, whether we know it or not? Is not a line a yard long _really greater than_ another line a foot in length, whether we know it or not? Surely our thought does not _create_ but _discovers_ the equality or inequality. The twin brothers _really resemble_ each other, even when no one is thinking of this resemblance; the resemblance is there whether anyone adverts to it or not. The motion of the train _really depends_ on the force of the steam; it is not our thought that produces this relation of dependence. The eye is _really_ so constructed as to perceive light, and the light is really such by nature as to arouse the sensation of vision; surely it is not our thought that produces this relation of mutual adaptation in these realities. Such relations are, therefore, in some true sense real and independent of our thought: unless indeed we are prepared to say with idealists that the lines, the brothers, the train, the steam, the eye, and the light—in a word, that not merely relations, but all accidents and substances, all realities—are mere products of thought, ideas, states of consciousness.

Again, _order_ is but a system of relations of co-ordination and subordination between really distinct things. But there is real order in the universe. And therefore there are real relations in the universe. There is real order in the universe: In the physical universe do we not experience a real subordination of effects to causes, a real adaptation of means to ends? And in the moral universe is not this still more apparent? The domestic society, the family, is not merely an aggregate of individuals any one of whom we may designate indiscriminately husband or wife, father or mother, brother or sister. These relations of order are real; they are obviously not the product of our thought, not produced by it, but only discovered, apprehended by it.

It is a profound truth that not all the reality of the universe which presents itself to the human mind for analysis and interpretation, _not all_ the reality of this universe, is to be found in the mere sum-total of the individual entities that constitute it, considering these entities each absolutely and in isolation from the others. Nor does _all_ its real perfection consist in the mere sum-total of the absolute perfections intrinsic to, and inherent in, those various individual entities. Over and above these individual entities and their absolute perfections, there is a domain of reality, and of real perfections, consisting in the real _adaptation_, _interaction_, _interdependence_, _arrangement_, _co-ordination_ and _subordination_, of those absolute entities and perfections among themselves. And if we realize this profound truth(403) we shall have no difficulty in recognizing that, while the thought-processes whereby we interpret this universe produce logical relations which we utilize in this interpretation, there is also in this universe itself a system of relations which are real, which are not invented, but are merely detected, by our minds.

According to idealists, relation is a subjective category of the mind. It belongs to phenomena only on the introduction of the latter into the understanding. “Laws no more exist in phenomena,” writes Kant,(404) “than phenomena exist in themselves; the former are relative to the subject in which the phenomena inhere, in so far as this subject is endowed with understanding; just as the latter are relative to this same subject in so far as it is endowed with sensibility.” This is ambiguous and misleading. Of course, laws or any other relations do not exist _for us_, are _not known_ by us, are not _brought into relation to our understanding_, as long as we do not consciously grasp the two terms and the foundation on which the law, or any other relation, rests. But there are relations whose terms and foundations are anterior to, and independent of, our thought, and which consequently are not a product of thought.

“Sensations, or other feelings being given,” writes J. S. Mill,(405) “succession and simultaneousness are the two conditions to the alternative of which they are subjected by the nature of our faculties.” But, as M. Boirac pertinently asks,(406) “why do we apply in any particular case the one alternative of the two-faced category rather than the other? Is it not because in every case the concrete application made by our faculties is determined by the objects themselves, by an objective and real foundation of the relation?”

91. MUTUAL AND MIXED RELATIONS; TRANSCENDENTAL RELATIONS.—There are, then, relations which are in some true sense real. But in what does the reality of a real relation consist? Before answering this question we must examine the main classes of real relations.

We have already referred to the _mutual_ relation as one which has _a real foundation in both_ of the extremes, such as the relation between father and son, or between a greater and a lesser quantity, or between two equal quantities, or between two similar people.(407) Such a relation is called a _relatio aequiperantiae_, a relation of _the same denomination_, if it has the same name on both sides, as “_equal—equal_,” “_similar—similar_,” “_friend—friend_,” etc. It is called a _relatio disquiperantiae_, of _different denomination_, if it has a different name, indicating a different kind of relation, on either side, as “_father—son_,” “_cause—effect_,” “_master—servant_,” etc.

Distinct from this is the _non-mutual_ or _mixed_ relation, which has a real foundation only in one extreme, so that the relation of this to the other extreme is real, while the relation of the latter to the former is only logical.(408) For instance, the relation of every creature to the Creator is a real relation, for the essential dependence of the creature on the Creator is a relation grounded in the very nature of the creature as a contingent being. But the relation of the Creator to the creature is only logical, for the creative act on which it is grounded implies in the Creator no reality distinct from His substance, which substance has no necessary relation to any creature. Similarly, the relation of the (finite) knowing mind to the known object is a real relation, for it is grounded in a new quality, _viz._ knowledge, whereby the mind is perfected. But the relation of the object to the mind is not a real relation, for by becoming actually known the object itself does not undergo any real change or acquire any new reality or perfection. We have seen already (42, 50) that all reality has a _transcendental_ or _essential_ relation to intellect and to will, ontological truth and ontological goodness. These relations of reality to the _Divine_ Intellect and Will are _formally_ or _actually_ verified in all things; whereas the transcendental truth and goodness of any thing in regard to any created intellect and will are formal or actual only when that thing is _actually_ known and willed by such created faculties: the relations of a thing to a mind that does not actually know and desire that thing are only _fundamental_ or _potential_ truth and goodness. This brings us to a second great division of relations, into _essential_ or _transcendental_ and _accidental_ or _predicamental_.

An essential or transcendental relation is _one which is involved in the very essence itself of the related thing_. It enters into and is inseparable from the concept of the latter. Thus in the concept of the _creature_ as such there is involved an _essential_ relation of the latter’s dependence on the _Creator_. So, too, every individual reality involves essential relations of _identity_ with itself and _distinction_ from other things, and essential relations of _truth_ and _goodness_ to the Divine Mind and created minds. Knowledge involves an essential relation to a known object. _Accidents_ involve the essential relation of an aptitude to inhere in _substances_. _Actio_ involves an essential relation to an _agens_, and _passio_ to a _patiens_; matter to form and form to matter. And so on. In general, wherever any subject has an intrinsic and essential exigence or aptitude or inclination, whereby there is established a connexion of this subject with, or a reference to, something else, an ordination or “_ordo_” to something else, there we have an “essential” relation.(409) Such a relation is termed “transcendental” because it can be verified of a subject in any category; and, since it adds nothing real to its subject it does not of itself constitute any new category of real being. Like the logical relation it is referred to here in order to bring out, by way of contrast, the accidental or predicamental relation which is the proper subject-matter of the present chapter.

92. PREDICAMENTAL RELATIONS; THEIR FOUNDATIONS AND DIVISIONS.—An accidental or predicamental relation is one which is _not essential to the related subject, but superadded to, and separable from, the latter_. Such, for instance, are relations of equality or inequality, similarity or dissimilarity. It is not involved in the nature of the subject itself, but is superinduced on the latter by reason of some real foundation really distinct from the nature of this subject. Its sole function is to refer the subject to the term, while the essential or transcendental relation is rather an intrinsic attribute or aptitude of the nature itself as a principle of action, or an effect of action. The real, accidental relation is the one which Aristotle placed in a category apart as one of the ultimate accidental modes of real being. Hence it is called a “predicamental” relation. What are its principal sub-classes?

Real relations are divided according to the nature of their foundations. But some relations are real _ex utraque parte_—mutual relations, while others are real only on the side—mixed relations. Moreover, some real relations are transcendental, others predicamental. Aristotle in assigning three distinct grounds of predicamental relations seems to have included some relations that are transcendental.(410) He distinguishes(411) (_a_) relations grounded in unity and multitude; (_b_) relations grounded in efficient causality; and (_c_) relations grounded in “commensuration”.

(_a_) By “unity and multitude” he is commonly interpreted to mean identity or diversity not merely in _quantity_, but in any “formal” factor, and therefore also in _quality_, and in _nature_ or _substance_. Things that are one in quantity we term _equal_; one in quality, _similar_; one in substance, _identical_. And if they are not one in these respects we call them _unequal_, _dissimilar_, _distinct_ or _diverse_, respectively. About quantity as a foundation for real, predicamental relations there can be no difficulty. Indeed it is in a certain sense implied in all relations—at least as apprehended by the human mind. For we apprehend relations, of whatsoever kind, by mental comparison, and this involves the consciousness of _number_ or _plurality_, of _two_ things compared.(412) And when we compare things on the basis of any _quality_ we do so only by distinguishing and measuring _intensive grades_ in this quality, after the analogy of _extensive_ or _quantitative_ measurement (80). Nevertheless just as quality is a distinct accident irreducible to quantity (77), so are relations based on quality different from those based on quantity. But what about substance or nature as a foundation of _predicamental_ relations? For these, as distinct from transcendental relations, some accident really distinct from the substance seems to be required. The substantial, individual _identity_ of any real being with itself is only a logical relation, for there are not two really distinct extremes. The specific identity of John with James in virtue of their common human nature is a real relation but it would appear to be transcendental.(413) The relation of the real John and the real James to our knowledge of them is the transcendental relation of any reality to knowledge, the relation of ontological truth. This relation is _essentially_ actual in regard to the Divine mind, but only potential, and _accidentally_ actual, in regard to any created mind (42). The relation of real distinction between two individual substances is a real but _transcendental_ relation, grounded in the transcendental attribute of _oneness_ which characterizes every real being (26, 27).

(_b_) Efficient causality, _actio et passio_, can undoubtedly be the ground of real predicamental relations. If the action is transitive(414) the _patiens_ or recipient of the real change acquires by this latter the basis of a relation of real dependence on the cause or _agens_. Again, if the action provokes reaction, so that there is real interaction, each _agens_ being also _patiens_, there arises a mutual predicamental relation of interdependence between the two agencies. Furthermore, if the agent itself is in any way really perfected by the action there arises a real predicamental relation which is mutual: not merely a real relation of effect to agent but also of agent to effect. This is true in all cases of what scholastics call “univocal” as distinct from “equivocal” causation. Of the former, in which the agent produces an effect _like in nature to itself_, the propagation of their species by living things is the great example. Here not only is the relation of offspring to parents a real relation, but that of parents to offspring is also a real relation. And this real relation is permanent because it is grounded not merely in the transient generative processes but in some real and abiding result of these processes—either some physical disposition in the parents themselves,(415) or some _specific_ perfection attributed by extrinsic denomination to the _individual_ parents: the parents are in a sense continued in their offspring: “generation really perpetuates the species, the specific nature, and in this sense may be said to perfect the individual parents”.(416) In cases of “equivocal” causation—_i.e._ where the effect is different in nature from the cause, as when a man builds a house—the agent does not so clearly benefit by the action, so that in such cases, while the relation of the effect to the cause is real, some authors would regard that of the cause to the effect as logical.(417) When, however, we remember that the efficient activity of all _created_ causes is necessarily dependent on the Divine _Concursus_, and necessarily involves _change in the created cause itself_, we can regard this change as in all cases the ground of a real relation of the created cause to its effect. But the creating and conserving activity of the Divine Being cannot ground a real relation of the latter to creatures because the Divine Being is Pure and Unchangeable Actuality, acquiring no new perfection, and undergoing no real change, by such activity.(418)

(_c_) By commensuration as a basis of real relations Aristotle does not mean quantitative measurement, but the determination of the perfection of one reality by its being essentially conformed to, and regulated by, another: as the perfection of knowledge or science, for instance, is determined by the perfection of its object. This sort of commensuration, or essential ordination of one reality to another, is obviously the basis of _transcendental_ relations. Some authors would consider that besides the transcendental relation of science to its object, a relation which is independent of the actual existence of the latter, there also exists an accidental relation in science to its object as long as this latter is in actual existence. But rather it should be said that just as the transcendental truth-relation of any real object to intellect is fundamental (potential) or formal (actual) according as this intellect merely _can_ know this object or actually _does_ know it, so also the transcendental relation of knowledge to its object is fundamental or formal according as this object is merely possible or actually existing.

We gather from the foregoing analysis that the three main classes of predicamental relations are those based on _quantity_, _quality_, and _causality_, respectively.

93. IN WHAT DOES THE REALITY OF PREDICAMENTAL RELATIONS CONSIST?—We have seen that not all relations are purely logical. There are real relations; and of these some are not merely aspects of the other categories of real being, not merely transcendental attributes virtually distinct from, but really identical with, these other absolute modes of real being which we designate as “substance,” “quantity,” “quality,” “cause,” “effect,” etc. There are real relations which form a distinct accidental mode of real being and so constitute a category apart. The fact, however, that these predicamental relations have been placed by Aristotle and his followers in a category apart does not of itself prove that the predicamental relation is a special reality _sui generis_, really and adequately distinct from the realities which constitute the other categories (60). If the predicamental relation be not a _purely logical entity_, if it be an _ens rationis cum fundamento in re_, or, in other words, if the object of our concept of “predicamental relation,” has a foundation in reality (_e.g._ like the concepts of “space” and “time”), then it may reasonably be placed in a category apart, even although it may not be itself formally a reality. We have therefore to see whether or not the predicamental relation is, or embodies, any mode of real being adequately distinct from these modes which constitute the other categories.

The predicamental relation is real in the sense that it implies, in addition to two really distinct extremes, a real foundation in one or both of these extremes, a real accident such as quantity, quality, or causality. That is to say, considered in its foundation or cause, considered fundamentally or _secundum suum esse in subjecto_, the predicamental relation is real, inasmuch as its foundation is a reality independently of the consideration of the mind. No doubt, if the predicamental relation, adequately considered, implies no other reality than that of its foundation and terms, then the predicamental relation does not contain any special reality _sui generis_, distinct from substances, quality, quantity, and other such absolute modes of real being. This, however, does not prevent its ranking as a distinct category provided it adds a virtually distinct and altogether peculiar aspect to those absolute realities. Now, considered adequately, the predicamental relation adds to the reality it has in its foundation the _actual reference_ of subject to term. In fact, it is in this reference of subject to term, this “_esse ad_,” that the relation _formally_ consists. The question therefore may be stated thus: Is this formal relation of subject to term, this “_esse ad_” a real entity _sui generis_, really distinct from the absolute entities of subject, term and foundation, and in contradistinction to these and all absolute entities a “relative entity,” actually existing in the real universe independently of our thought? Or is it, on the contrary, itself formally a mere product of our thought, a product of the mental act of comparison, an _ens rationis_ an aspect superadded by our minds to the extremes compared, and to the foundation in virtue of which we compare them?

A good many scholastics, and some of them men of great name,(419) have espoused the former alternative, considering that the reality of the predicamental relation cannot be vindicated—against idealists, who would reduce all relations to mere logical entities—otherwise than by according to the relation considered _formally_, _i.e._ _secundum suum_ “_esse ad_,” an entity in the actual order of things independent of our thought: adding as an argument that if relation formally as such is anything at all, if all relation be not a mere mental fabrication, it is essentially a “relative” entity, and that manifestly a “relative” entity cannot be really identical with any “absolute” entity. And they claim for this view the authority of St Thomas.(420)

The great majority of scholastics, however, espouse the second alternative: that the relation, considered _formally_, “secundum _esse ad_,” is a product of our mental comparison of subject with term. It is not itself a real entity or a real mode, superadded to the reality of extremes and foundation.

In the first place there is no need to suppose the reality of such a relative entity. _Entia non sunt multiplicanda præter necessitatem._ It is an abuse of realism to suppose that the _formal_ element of a relation, its “_esse ad_,” is a distinct and separate reality. The reality of the praedicamental relation is safeguarded without any such postulate. Since the predicamental relation, considered _adequately_, _i.e._ not merely formally but fundamentally, not merely _secundum esse ad_ but _secundum esse in_, involves as its foundation an absolute accident which is real independently of our thought, the predicamental relation is not a _mere ens rationis_. It has a foundation in reality. It is an _ens rationis cum fundamento in re_. This is a sufficient counter-assertion to Idealism, and a sufficient reason for treating relation as a distinct category of real being.

That there is no need for such a relative entity will be manifest if we consider the simple case of two bars of iron each a yard long. The length of each is an absolute accident of each. The length of either, considered absolutely and in itself, is not formally the _equality_ of this with the other. Nor are both lengths considered separately the formal relation of equality. But both considered together are the adequate foundation of this formal relation; both considered together are this relation _potentially_, _fundamentally_, so that all that is needed for the _actual_, _formal_ relation of _equality_ is the mental apprehension of the two lengths together. The mental process of comparison is the only thing required to make the potential relation actual; and the product of this mental process is the _formality_ or “_esse ad_” of the relation, the actual reference of the extremes to each other. Besides the absolute accidents which constitute the foundation of the relation something more is required for the constitution of the adequate predicamental relation. This “something more,” however, is a mind capable of comparing the extremes, and not any real entity distinct from extremes and foundation. Antecedently to the act of comparison the formally relative element of the relation, its “_esse ad_,” was not anything actual; it was the mere _comparability_ of the extremes in virtue of the foundation. If the “_esse ad_” were a separate real entity, a relative entity, really distinct from extremes and foundation, what sort of entity could it be? Being an accident, it should inhere in, or be a mode of its subject. But if it did it would lose its formally relative character by becoming an inherent mode of an absolute reality. While to conceive it as an entity astride on both extremes, and bridging or connecting these together, would be to substitute the crude imagery of the imagination for intellectual thought.

In the second place, if a subject can acquire a relation, or lose a relation, _without undergoing any real change_, then the relation considered formally as such, or _secundum_ “_esse ad_,” cannot be a reality. But a subject can acquire or lose a relation without undergoing any real change. Therefore the relation considered formally, as distinct from its foundation and extremes, is not a reality.

The minor of this argument may be proved by the consideration of a few simple examples. A child already born is neither larger nor smaller than its brother that will be born two years hence.(421) But after the birth of the latter child the former can acquire those relations successively _without any real change in itself_, and merely by the growth of the younger child. Again, one white ball _A_ is similar in colour to another white ball _B_. Paint the latter black, and _eo ipso_ the former loses its relation of resemblance _without any real change in itself_.

And this appears to be the view of St. Thomas. If, he writes, another man becomes equal in size to me by growing while I remain unchanged in size, then although _eo ipso_ I become equal in size to him, thus acquiring a new relation, _nevertheless I gain or acquire nothing new_: “nihil advenit mihi de novo, per hoc quod incipio esse alteri aequalis per ejus mutationem”. Relation, he says, is an extramental reality _by reason of its foundation or cause_, whereby one reality is referred to another.(422) Relation itself, considered formally as distinct from its foundation, is not a reality; it is real only inasmuch as its foundation is real.(423) Again, relation is something inherent, but not formally as a relation, and hence it can disappear without any real change in its subject.(424) A real relation may be destroyed in one or other of two ways: either by the destruction or change of the foundation in the subject, or by the destruction of the term, entailing the cessation of the reference, _without any change in the subject_.(425) Hence, too, the reason alleged by St. Thomas why relation, unlike the other categories of real being, can be itself divided into logical entity and real entity, _ens rationis_ and _ens reale_: because formally it is an _ens rationis_, and only fundamentally, or in virtue of its foundation, is it an _ens reale_.(426) And hence, finally, the reason why St. Thomas, following Aristotle, describes relation as having a “lesser reality,” an “esse debilius,”(427) than the other or absolute categories of real being: not as if it were a sort of diminutive entity, intermediate between nothingness and the absolute modes of reality, but because being dependent for its formal actuality not merely on a foundation in its subject, but also on a term to which the latter is referred, it can perish not merely by the destruction of its subject like other accidents, but also by the destruction of its term while subject and foundation remain unchanged.

If, then, the real relation, considered formally or “secundum _esse ad_” is not a reality, the relation under this aspect is a _logical_, not a _real_, accident.

To constitute a mutual real relation there is needed a foundation in _both_ of the extremes. As long as the term of the relation does not actually exist, not only does the relation not exist formally and actually, but it is not even _adequately potential_: the foundation in the subject alone is not an adequate foundation.

To this view, which denies any distinct reality to the predicamental relation considered formally, it has been objected that the predicamental relation is thus confounded with the transcendental relation. But this is not so; for the transcendental relation is always essential to its subject, whatever this subject may be, while the predicamental relation, considered formally, is a logical accident separable from its subject, and considered fundamentally it is some absolute accident really distinct from the substance of the related extremes. For instance, the _action_ which mediates between cause and effect is itself transcendentally related to both; while it is at the same time the adequate foundation whereby cause and effect are predicamentally related to each other.(428)

If what we have called the formal element of a relation be nothing really distinct from the extremes and foundation, it follows that some real relations between creatures are really identical with their substances;(429) and to this it has been objected that no relation _in creatures_ can be, _quoad rem_, substantial: “Nulla relatio,” says St. Thomas,(430) “est substantia secundum rem in creaturis”. To this it may be replied that even in these cases the relation itself, considered adequately, is not wholly identical with the substance of either extreme. It superadds a separable logical accident to these.(431)

Finally it is objected that the view which denies a distinct reality to the formal element of a real relation, to its “_esse ad_,” equivalently denies all reality to relations, and is therefore in substance identical with the idealist doctrine already rejected (90). But this is a misconception. According to idealists, relations grounded on quality, quantity, causality, etc., are exclusively in the intellect, in our mental activity and its mental products, in our concepts alone, and are in no true sense characteristic of reality. This is very different from saying that our concepts of such relations are grounded in the realities compared, and that these realities are really endowed with everything that constitutes such relations, the comparative act of the intellect being required merely to apprehend these characteristics and so to give the relation its formal completeness.(432) There is all the difference that exists between a theory which so exaggerates the constitutive function of thought as to reduce all intellectual knowledge to a knowledge of mere subjective mental appearances, and a theory which, while recognizing this function and its products, will not allow that these cast any cloud or veil between the intellect and a genuine insight into objective reality. These mental processes are guided by reality; the _entia rationis_ which are their products are grounded in reality; moreover we can quite well distinguish between these _mental_ modes and products of our intellectual activity and the _real_ contents revealed to the mind in these modes and processes. So long, therefore, as we avoid the mistake of ascribing to the objective reality itself any of these mental modes (as, for instance, extreme realists do when they assert the extramental reality of the _formal_ universal), our recognition of them can in no way jeopardize the objective validity of intellectual knowledge. Perhaps an excessive timidity in this direction is in some degree accountable for the “abuse of realism” which ascribes to the formal element of a relation a distinct extramental,(433) objective reality.