Note note 21 — ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OF THE HUMAN MIND James Mill

21 The application of the word Relative to Things is not only an offence against philosophy, but against propriety of language. The correct designation for Things which are called by relative names, is not Relative, but Related. A Thing may, with perfect propriety both of thought and of language, be said to be related to another thing, or to have a relation with it—indeed to be related to all things, and to have a prodigious variety of relations with all; because every fact that takes place, either in nature or in human thought, which includes or involves a plurality of Things, is the fundamentum of a special relation of those Things with one another: not to mention the relations of likeness or unlikeness, of priority or posteriority, which exist between each Thing and all other Things whatever. It is in this sense that it is said, with truth, that Relations exhaust all phenomena, and that all we know, or can know, of anything, is some of its relations to other things or to us.—Ed.