§ 11. In a somewhat similar position are two other sorts of relations,
Likeness and Unlikeness. I have two sensations; we will suppose them to be
simple ones; two sensations of white, or one sensation of white and
another of black. I call the first two sensations _like_; the last two
_unlike_. What is the fact or phenomenon constituting the _fundamentum_ of
this relation? The two sensations first, and then what we call a feeling
of resemblance, or of want of resemblance. Let us confine ourselves to the
former case. Resemblance is evidently a feeling; a state of the
consciousness of the observer. Whether the feeling of the resemblance of
the two colors be a third state of consciousness, which I have _after_
having the two sensations of color, or whether (like the feeling of their
succession) it is involved in the sensations themselves, may be a matter
of discussion. But in either case, these feelings of resemblance, and of
its opposite dissimilarity, are parts of our nature; and parts so far from
being capable of analysis, that they are presupposed in every attempt to
analyze any of our other feelings. Likeness and unlikeness, therefore, as
well as antecedence, sequence, and simultaneousness, must stand apart
among relations, as things _sui generis_. They are attributes grounded on
facts, that is, on states of consciousness, but on states which are
peculiar, unresolvable, and inexplicable.
But, though likeness or unlikeness can not be resolved into any thing
else, complex cases of likeness or unlikeness can be resolved into simpler
ones. When we say of two things which consist of parts, that they are like
one another, the likeness of the wholes does admit of analysis; it is
compounded of likenesses between the various parts respectively, and of
likeness in their arrangement. Of how vast a variety of resemblances of
parts must that resemblance be composed, which induces us to say that a
portrait, or a landscape, is like its original. If one person mimics
another with any success, of how many simple likenesses must the general
or complex likeness be compounded: likeness in a succession of bodily
postures; likeness in voice, or in the accents and intonations of the
voice; likeness in the choice of words, and in the thoughts or sentiments
expressed, whether by word, countenance, or gesture.