506 A BRIEF SCHEME OF ONTOLOGY. of walking, dancing, 'singing; in inanimate beings they are principles. Powers of moral action are called also principles or habits, as temperance, justice. Note 1. Though we can draw no inferences from the power to the act, or that any thing is because it can be ; yet inferences may be justly drawn from the act to the power, or that such a thing can be because it is. 2. Whatsoever power the agent has to act, yet the action can be received by the patient no further than the power of the patient reaches. This is exprest in scholastic language, quicquid recipitur, recipitur ad ntodam recipientis. A gallon may pour out its liquor into a pint bottle, but the bottle can receive but a pint : And if the neck be narrow it can receive liquor but slowly how fast soever the larger vessel may pour it. A. tutor may teach a child all the rules of reading in a day, but a child cannot learn them in a month. 3. Neither the power of. creatures nor of God himself ex. tends to things which are inconsistent in nature and self-contra- dictory : What his infinite wisdom cannot join, his power cannot ptoduce. Nor does this impossibility in things argue any impo- tence in the blessed God. Yet let it be observed, that it isa much more modest way of speaking generally, to say such things can- not be done, than that God cannot do them. CHAP. VII.-Of relative Affections or Relations. ARELATIVE affection is the same with a relation : This arises from the respect that one thing bears to some other thing or things in the universe, or to some part or parts, property or properties of itself. The same relation is not confined to two ;things, but it may belong to many. Paternity, and sonship, ,greatness, and smallness, are relative ideas ; and so are apart and awhole ; aking and his subjects; beginning, middle, and end. In relations we consider first the subject of them, that is the thing of which we are speaking; this is called the relate; and ,then the term to which this thing is related, which is called the :correlate. So if we speak of a father, that is the subject of the relation and the term or correlate is the son ; but if we are first speaking of the son, then the son is the relate or subject of the relation, and thefather is the term or correlate. Some relations arise from the mere existence of the twobe- ings, so the likeness of two eggs. Others require a foundation of the relation distinct from the mere existence of the relate and correlate ; as in master and scholar, instruction is the faun- Olden ; in buyer and seller, the foundation is compact. Relations are of several kinds. 1. They are natural or moral, accidental or voluntary. Na- tural relations are between root and. branches, father and ail- siren, kindred by birth, tko. Moral are those relations which
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=