Page:Enneads (IA enneads05plot).pdf/20

and similarly with sensation as related to the sense-object. The active will perform some constant function in relation to the passive, as will the measure in relation to the measured.

But what will emerge from the relation of like to like? Nothing will emerge. Likeness is the inherence of qualitative identity; its entire content is the quality present in the two objects.

From equality, similarly, nothing emerges. The relation merely presupposes the existence of a quantitative identity; it is nothing but. our judgment comparing objects essentially independent and concluding, "This and that have the same magnitude, the same quality; this has produced that; this is superior to that."

Again, what meaning can sitting and standing have apart from sitter and stander? The term "habit" either implies a having, in which case it signifies possession, or else it arises from something had, and so denotes quality; and similarly with disposition.

What then in these instances can be the meaning of correlatives apart from our conception of their juxtaposition? "Greater" may refer to very different magnitudes; "different" to all sorts of objects: the comparison is ours; it does not lie in the things themselves.

Right and left, before and behind, would seem to belong less to the category of Relation than to that of Situation. Right means "situated at one point," left means "situated at another." But the right and left are in our conception, nothing of them in the things themselves.

Before and after are merely two times; the relation is again of our making.

7.

Now if we do not mean anything by Relation but are victims of words, none of the relations mentioned can exist: Relation will be a notion void of content.

Suppose however that we do possess ourselves of objective truth when in comparing two points of time we pronounce one prior, or posterior, to the other, that priority does entail something distinct from the objects to which it refers; admit an objective truth behind