§ 138. This division does not properly come within the scope of logic, since it is a question of language, not of thought. From the logician's point of view an equivocal term is two or more different terms, for the definition in each sense would be different.
§ 139. Sometimes a third member is added to the same division under the head of Analogous Terms. The word 'sweet,' for instance, is applied by analogy to things so different in their own nature as a lump of sugar, a young lady, a tune, a poem, and so on. Again, because the head is the highest part of man, the highest part of a stream is called by analogy 'the head.' It is plainly inappropriate to make a separate class of analogous terms. Rather, terms become equivocal by being extended by analogy from one thing to another.
Absolute and Relative Terms.
§ 140. An Absolute term is a name given to a thing without reference to anything else.
§ 141. A Relative term is a name given to a thing with direct reference to some other thing.
§ 142. 'Hodge' and 'man' are absolute terms. 'Husband' 'father,' 'shepherd' are relative terms. 'Husband' conveys a direct reference to 'wife,' 'father' to 'Child,' 'shepherd' to 'sheep.' Given one term of a relation, the other is called the correlative, e.g. 'subject' is the correlative of 'ruler,' and conversely 'ruler' of 'subject.' The two terms are also spoken of as a pair of correlatives.
§ 143. The distinction between relative and absolute applies to attributives as well as subject-terms. 'Greater,' 'near, 'like,' are instances of attributives which everyone would recognise as relative.
§ 144. A relation, it will be remembered, is a kind of attribute, differing from a quality in that it necessarily involves more substances than one. Every relation is at bottom a fact, or series of facts, in which two or more substances play a part. A relative term connotes this fact or facts from the point of view of one of the substances, its correlative from that of the other. Thus 'ruler' and 'subject' imply the same set of facts, looked at from opposite points of view. The series of facts itself, regarded from either side, is denoted by the corresponding abstract terms, 'rule 'and 'subjection.'
§ 145. It is a nice question whether the abstract names of relations should themselves be considered relative terms. Difficulties will perhaps be avoided by confining the expression 'relative term' to names of concrete things. 'Absolute,' it must be remembered, is a mere negative of 'relative,' and covers everything to which the definition of the latter does not strictly apply. Now it can hardly be said that 'rule' is a name given to a certain abstract thing with direct reference to some other thing, namely, subjection. Rather 'rule' and 'subjection' are two names for identically the same series of facts, according to the side from which we look at them. 'Ruler' and 'subject,' on the other hand, are names of two distinct substances, but each involving a reference to the other.
§ 146. This division then may be said to be based on the number of things involved in the name.