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 [pg 333] 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 [pg 334] 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” [pg 336] 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 [pg 337] 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 [pg 338] 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 [pg 339] 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] [pg 340] 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 [pg 341] 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 [pg 342] 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 [pg 343] 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 [pg 345] 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 [pg 346] 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 [pg 347] 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 [pg 348] 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 [pg 349] 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 [pg 350] 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] [pg 351] 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 [pg 353] 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 [pg 354] 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 [pg 355] 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 [pg 356] 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.