RELATIVE TERMS. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Cause means “something causing;” effect, “something caused.” Causingness, therefore, is the proper abstract of cause; and causedness, the proper abstract of effect. Of two objects, A, and B, we call the one causing, the other caused, when they are not only prior and posterior, but parts of the same series; and, if we speak strictly, proximate parts. Of proximate parts of the same series, we call the antecedent, causing; the consequent, caused. Causingness, and causedness, therefore, mean antecedence and consequence, and something more. The ideas are more complex. Causingness and causedness, mean, not only antecedence and consequence, but also sameness of series, and proximity of parts.
As we have seen, that priority and posteriority, taken together, form a compound name of a certain complex idea, so causingness and causedness, taken together, form the compound name of a still more complex idea. Having frequent occasion to express that idea, a separate name for it was found necessary. Accordingly, we have the term Power, which means precisely what is meant by causingness and causedness taken together. Causation has the same meaning with Power, except that it connotes present time; Power connotes indefinite time.20
The connotation of Time, by abstract terms, is a circumstance almost always overlooked, but of which the observation is of the utmost importance to accuracy of thought.
When we have invented a number of marks to be taken in pairs, as like, like; equal, equal; antecedent, consequent; master, servant; husband, wife; father, son; owner, property; author, book; cause, effect; and so on; we have occasion for a name by which to speak of that class of names. We have invented such a name. We call those terms “Relative Terms.”
The word “Relative,” thus belongs to that class of names, which have been called “Names of Names.” As man, tree, stone, are names of things, of those clusters which we call objects; as red, green, hard, soft, are names of sensations; as courage, wisdom, anger, love, are names of complex ideas arbitrarily composed; so adjective is the name of one class of names, verb the name of another class of names; syllable, is the name of one part of a word, letter of another; and so, also, relative is the name of the class of words which have this peculiarity, that they are taken in pairs. Thus, father and son, are relative terms; prior and posterior, are relative terms; like and like, are relative terms; so equal, equal; unequal, unequal; brother, brother; friend, friend; and so on.
Relative itself corresponds with the names which it marks, in its being one of a pair; of that species of pairs, which are formed by a double use of the same word, as like, like. When we say of father and son, that they are relative terms, we mean that father is relative to son, and son relative to father.
As relative is the name of all concrete names, taken in pairs, such as like, like; friend, friend; causing, caused; so the abstract relation, formed from relative, is the name given to all the abstract terms formed from the concrete relatives: thus, equality, inequality, friendship, power, are abstract terms, which we call by a general name, relation. As Noun is the name of a certain class of words, so “Relation,” is the name of a certain class of words.
It is not, however, meant to be affirmed, that relative and relation, are not names which are also applied to things. In a certain vague, and indistinct way, they are very frequently so applied. This, however, is strictly speaking, an abuse of the terms, and an abuse which has been a great cause of confusion of ideas. In this way, it is said, of two brothers, that they are relative; of father and son, that they are relative; of two objects, that they are relative in position, relative in time; we speak of the relation between two men, when they are father and son, master and servant; between two objects, when they are greater, less, like, unlike, near, distant, and so on.
What, however, we really mean, when we call two objects relative (and that is a thing which it is of great importance to mark) is, that these objects have, or may have, relative names. On what accounts we give them relative names, has just been explained, and the explanation need not be repeated. When we say that Socrates and the Emperor Napoleon are unlike, the men are, each, a man, distinct, separate, absolute. We only give them a pair of related names, for the convenience of discourse. In like manner, Charles I. and George IV. are separate, distinct, absolute individuals. We only give them the relative names Predecessor, Successor, for the convenience of discourse, to mark the place which they occupied in a certain series of events. From this appears also what is meant, when we say of two objects, that they have a relation to one another. The meaning is, that the objects may have relative names, and that these names may have abstracts which we call relation. Thus we say that two brothers have a relation to one another. That relation is brotherhood. But brotherhood is merely the abstract of the relative names. We say that father and son have a relation. That relation is fathership and sonship. These are merely the abstracts of the two relative names. We say of two events, a stab with a sword, and death of the person stabbed, that they have a relation to one another. That relation is causingness and causedness, the abstract of cause and effect, or, in one word, power.21