[81] Trendelenburg (Kategorienlehre, p. 184) admits a certain degree of interference and confusion between the Categories of Quantum and Ad Aliquid; but in very scanty measure, and much beneath the reality.
[82] The following passages from Mr. James Mill (Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, vol. ii. ch. xiv. sect. ii. pp. 48, 49, 56, 1st ed.) state very clearly the Relativity of the predicates of Quantity and Quality:—
“It seems necessary that I should say something of the word Quantus, from which the word Quantity is derived. Quantus is the correlate of Tantus. Tantus, Quantus, are relative terms, applicable to all the objects to which we apply the terms Great, Little.� — “Of two lines, we call the one tantus, the other quantus. The occasions on which we do so, are when the one is as long as the other.� — “When we say that one thing is tantus, quantus another, or one so great, as the other is great; the first is referred to the last, the tantus to the quantus. The first is distinguished and named by the last. The Quantus is the standard.� — “On what account, then, is it that we give to any thing the name Quantus? As a standard by which to name another thing, Tantus. The thing called Quantus is the previously known thing, the ascertained amount, by which we can mark and define the other amount.�
“Talis, Qualis, are applied to objects in the same way, on one account, as Tantus, Quantus, on another; and the explanation we gave of Tantus, Quantus, may be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the pair of relatives which we have now named. Tantus, Quantus, are names applied to objects on account of dimension. Talis, Qualis, are names applied to objects on account of all other sensations. We apply Tantus, Quantus, to a pair of objects when they are equal; we apply Talis, Qualis, to a pair of objects when they are alike. One of the objects is then the standard. The object Qualis is that to which the reference is made.�
Compare the same work, vol. i. ch. ix. p. 225:— “The word Such is a relative term, and always connotes so much of the meaning of some other term. When we call a thing such, it is always understood that it is such as some other thing. Corresponding with our words such as, the Latins had Talis, Qualis.�
We thus see that all the predicates, not only under the Category which Aristotle terms Ad Aliquid, but also under all the last nine Categories, are relative. Indeed the work of predication is always relative. The express purpose, as well as the practical usefulness, of a significant predicate is, to carry the mind of the hearer either to a comparison or to a general notion which is the result of past comparisons. But though each predicate connotes Relation, each connotes a certain fundamentum besides, which gives to the Relation its peculiar character. Relations of Quantity are not the same as relations of Quality; the predicates of the former connote a fundamentum different from the predicates of the latter, though in both the meaning conveyed is relative. In fact, every predicate or concrete general name is relative, or connotes a Relation to something else, actual or potential, beyond the thing named. The only name not relative is the Proper name, which connotes no attributes, and cannot properly be used as a predicate (so Aristotle remarks), but only as a Subject.[83] Sokrates, Kallias, Bukephalus &c., denotes the Hoc Aliquid or Unum Numero, which, when pronounced alone, indicates some concrete aggregate (as yet unknown) which may manifest itself to my senses, but does not, so far as the name is concerned, involve necessary reference to anything besides; though even these names, when one and the same name continues to be applied to the same object, may be held to connote a real or supposed continuity of past or future existence, and become thus to a certain extent relative.
[83] You may make Sokrates a predicate, in the proposition, τὸ λευκὸν ἐκεῖνο Σωκράτης ἐστίν, but Aristotle dismisses this as an irregular or perverse manner of speaking (see Analytic. Priora, i. p. 43, a. 35; Analyt. Poster. i. p. 83, a. 2-16).
Alexander calls these propositions αἱ παρὰ φύσιν προτάσεις (see Schol. ad Metaphys. Δ. p. 1017, a. 23).
Mr. James Harris observes (Philosophical Arrangements, ch. x. p. 214; also 317, 348):— “Hence too we may see why Relation stands next to Quantity; for in strictness the Predicaments which follow are but different modes of Relation, marked by some peculiar character over their own, over and above the relative character, which is common to them all.â€� To which I would add, that the first two Categories, Substance and Quantity, are no less relative or correlative than the eight later Categories; as indeed Harris himself thinks; see the same work, pp. 90, 473: “Matter and Attribute are essentially distinct, yet, like convex and concave, they are by nature inseparable. We have already spoken as to the inseparability of attributes; we now speak as to that of matter. Ἡμεῖς δὲ φαμὲν μὲν εἶναί τινα ὕλην τῶν σωμάτων τῶν αἰσθητῶν, ἀλλὰ ταύτην οὐ χωριστὴν ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ μετ’ ἐναντιώσεως — ὕλην τὴν ἀχώριστον μὲν, ὑποκειμένην δὲ τοῖς ἐναντίοις (Aristot. De Gen. et Corr. p. 329, a. 24). By contraries, Aristotle means here the several attributes of matter, hot, cold, &c.; from some one or other of which matter is always inseparable.â€�
We must observe that what the proper name denotes is any certain concrete One and individual,[84] with his attributes essential and non-essential, whatever they may be, though as yet undeclared, and with his capacity of receiving other attributes different and even opposite. This is what Aristotle indicates as the most special characteristic of Substance or Essence, that while it is Unum et Idem Numero, it is capable of receiving contraries. This potentiality of contraries, described as characterizing the Unum et Idem Numero,[85] is relative to something about to come; the First Essence is doubtless logically First, but it is just as much relative to the Second, as the Second to the First. We know it only by two negations and one affirmation, all of which are relative to predications in futuro. It is neither in a Subject, nor predicable of a Subject. It is itself the ultimate Subject of all predications and all inherencies. Plainly, therefore, we know it only relatively to these predications and inherencies. Aristotle says truly, that if you take away the First Essences, everything else, Second Essences as well as Accidents, disappears along with them. But he might have added with equal truth, that if you take away all Second Essences and all Accidents, the First Essences will disappear equally. The correlation and interdependence is reciprocal.[86] It may be suitable, with a view to clear and retainable philosophical explanation, to state the Subject first and the predicates afterwards; so that the Subject may thus be considered as logically prius. But in truth the Subject is only a substratum for predicates,[87] as much as the predicates are superstrata upon the Subject. The term substratum designates not an absolute or a per se, but a Correlatum to certain superstrata, determined or undetermined: now the Correlatum is one of the pair implicated directly or indirectly in all Relation; and it is in fact specified by Aristotle as one variety of the Category Ad Aliquid.[88] We see therefore that the idea of Relativity attaches to the first of the ten Categories, as well as to the nine others. The inference from these observations is, that Relation or Relativity, understood in the large sense which really belongs to it, ought to be considered rather as an Universal, comprehending and pervading all the Categories, than as a separate Category in itself, co-ordinate with the other nine. It is the condition and characteristic of the work of predication generally; the last analysis of which is into Subject and Predicate, in reciprocal implication with each other. I remark that this was the view taken of it by some well-known Peripatetic commentators of antiquity;[89] by Andronikus, for example, and by Ammonius after him. Plato, though he makes no attempt to draw up a list of Categories, has an incidental passage respecting Relativity;[90] conceiving it in a very extended sense, apparently as belonging more or less to all predicates. Aristotle, though in the Categoriæ he gives a narrower explanation of it, founded upon grammatical rather than real considerations, yet intimates in other places that predicates ranked under the heads of Quale, Actio, Passio, Jacere, &c., may also be looked at as belonging to the head of Ad Aliquid.[91] This latter, moreover, he himself declares elsewhere to be Ens in the lowest degree, farther removed from the Prima Essentia than any of the other Categories; to be more in the nature of an appendage to some of them, especially to Quantum and Quale;[92] and to presuppose, not only the Prima Essentia (which all the nine later Categories presuppose), but also one or more of the others, indicating the particular mode of comparison or Relativity in each case affirmed. Thus, under one aspect, Relation or Relativity may be said to stand prius naturâ, and to come first in order before all the Categories, inasmuch as it is implicated with the whole business of predication (which those Categories are intended to resolve into its elements), and belongs not less to the mode of conceiving what we call the Subject, than to the mode of conceiving what we call its Predicates, each and all. Under another aspect, Relativity may be said to stand last in order among the Categories — even to come after the adverbial Categories Ubi et Quando; because its locus standi is dim and doubtful, and because every one of the subordinate predicates belonging to it may be seen to belong to one or other of the remaining Categories also. Aristotle remarks that the Category Ad Aliquid has no peculiar and definite mode of generation corresponding to it, in the manner that Increase and Diminution belong to Quantum, Change to Quale, Generation, simple and absolute, to Essence or Substance.[93] New relations may become predicable of a thing, without any change in the thing itself, but simply by changes in other things.[94]