| There are seven [Part I. SECT. 5.] different kinds of philosophical relation, viz. |
| RESEMBLANCE, IDENTITY, RELATIONS OF TIME AND PLACE, PROPORTION IN QUANTITY OR NUMBER, DEGREES IN ANY QUALITY, CONTRARIETY and CAUSATION. |
| These relations may be divided into two classes; into such as depend entirely on the ideas, which we compare together, and such as may be changed without any change in the ideas. |
| It is from the idea of a triangle, that we discover the relation of equality, which its three angles bear to two right ones; and this relation is invariable, as long as our idea remains the same. |
| On the contrary, the relations of contiguity and distance betwixt two objects may be changed merely by an alteration of their place, without any change on the objects themselves or on their ideas; and the place depends on a hundred different accidents, which cannot be foreseen by the mind. |
| It is the same case with identity and causation. |
| Two objects, though perfectly resembling each other, and even appearing in the same place at different times, may be numerically different: And as the power, by which one object produces another, is never discoverable merely from their idea, it is evident cause and effect are relations, of which we receive information from experience, and not from any abstract reasoning or reflection. |
| There is no single phaenomenon, even the most simple, which can be accounted for from the qualities of the objects, as they appear to us; or which we coued foresee without the help of our memory and experience. |
| It appears, therefore, that of these seven philosophical relations, there remain only four, which depending solely upon ideas, can be the objects of knowledge said certainty. |
| These four are RESEMBLANCE, CONTRARIETY, DEGREES IN QUALITY, and PROPORTIONS IN QUANTITY OR NUMBER. |
| Three of these relations are discoverable at first sight, and fall more properly under the province of intuition than demonstration. |
| When any objects resemble each other, the resemblance will at first strike the eve, or rather the mind; and seldom requires a second examination. |
| The case is the same with contrariety, and with the degrees of any quality. |
| No one can once doubt but existence and non-existence destroy each other, and are perfectly incompatible and contrary. |
| And though it be impossible to judge exactly of the degrees of any quality, such as colour, taste, heat, cold, when the difference betwixt them is very small: yet it is easy to decide, that any of them is superior or inferior to another, when their difference is considerable. |
| And this decision we always pronounce at first sight, without any enquiry or reasoning. |
| We might proceed, after the same manner, in fixing the proportions of quantity or number, and might at one view observe a superiority or inferiority betwixt any numbers, or figures; especially where the difference is very great and remarkable. |
| As to equality or any exact proportion, we can only guess at it from a single consideration; except in very short numbers, or very limited portions of extension; which are comprehended in an instant, and where we perceive an impossibility of falling into any considerable error. |
| In all other cases we must settle the proportions with some liberty, or proceed in a more artificial manner. |
| I have already I observed, that geometry, or the art, by which we fix the proportions of figures; though it much excels both in universality and exactness, the loose judgments of the senses and imagination; yet never attains a perfect precision and exactness. |
| It's first principles are still drawn from the general appearance of the objects; and that appearance can never afford us any security, when we examine, the prodigious minuteness of which nature is susceptible. |