§ 13. Thus, then, all the attributes of bodies which are classed under
Quality or Quantity, are grounded on the sensations which we receive from
those bodies, and may be defined, the powers which the bodies have of
exciting those sensations. And the same general explanation has been found
to apply to most of the attributes usually classed under the head of
Relation. They, too, are grounded on some fact or phenomenon into which
the related objects enter as parts; that fact or phenomenon having no
meaning and no existence to us, except the series of sensations or other
states of consciousness by which it makes itself known; and the relation
being simply the power or capacity which the object possesses of taking
part along with the correlated object in the production of that series of
sensations or states of consciousness. We have been obliged, indeed, to
recognize a somewhat different character in certain peculiar relations,
those of succession and simultaneity, of likeness and unlikeness. These,
not being grounded on any fact or phenomenon distinct from the related
objects themselves, do not admit of the same kind of analysis. But these
relations, though not, like other relations, grounded on states of
consciousness, are themselves states of consciousness: resemblance is
nothing but our feeling of resemblance; succession is nothing but our
feeling of succession. Or, if this be disputed (and we can not, without
transgressing the bounds of our science, discuss it here), at least our
knowledge of these relations, and even our possibility of knowledge, is
confined to those which subsist between sensations, or other states of
consciousness; for, though we ascribe resemblance, or succession, or
simultaneity, to objects and to attributes, it is always in virtue of
resemblance or succession or simultaneity in the sensations or states of
consciousness which those objects excite, and on which those attributes
are grounded.
§ 14. In the preceding investigation we have, for the sake of simplicity,
considered bodies only, and omitted minds. But what we have said, is
applicable, _mutatis mutandis_, to the latter. The attributes of minds, as
well as those of bodies, are grounded on states of feeling or
consciousness. But in the case of a mind, we have to consider its own
states, as well as those which it produces in other minds. Every attribute
of a mind consists either in being itself affected in a certain way, or
affecting other minds in a certain way. Considered in itself, we can
predicate nothing of it but the series of its own feelings. When we say of
any mind, that it is devout, or superstitious, or meditative, or cheerful,
we mean that the ideas, emotions, or volitions implied in those words,
form a frequently recurring part of the series of feelings, or states of
consciousness, which fill up the sentient existence of that mind.