8. Our ideas of relations often clearer than of the subjects related.
Secondly, This further may be considered
concerning relation, that though it be not contained in the real existence of things, but something extraneous and
superinduced, yet the ideas which relative words stand for are often clearer and more distinct than of those
substances to which they do belong. The notion we have of a father or brother is a great deal clearer and more
distinct than that we have of a man; or, if you will, paternity is a thing whereof it is easier to have a clear idea,
than of humanity; and I can much easier conceive what a friend is, than what God; because the knowledge of one
action, or one simple idea, is oftentimes sufficient to give me the notion of a relation; but to the knowing of any
substantial being, an accurate collection of sundry ideas is necessary. A man, if he compares two things together,
can hardly be supposed not to know what it is wherein he compares them: so that when he compares any things
together, he cannot but have a very clear idea of that relation. The ideas, then, of relations, are capable at least of
being more perfect and distinct in our minds than those of substances Because it is commonly hard to know all
the simple ideas which are really in any substance, but for the most part easy enough to know the simple ideas that
make up any relation I think on, or have a name for: v.g. comparing two men in reference to one common parent,
it is very easy to frame the ideas of brothers, without having yet the perfect idea of a man. For significant relative
words, as well as others, standing only for ideas; and those being all either simple, or made up of simple ones, it
suffices for the knowing the precise idea the relative term stands for, to have a clear conception of that which is
the foundation of the relation; which may be done without having a perfect and clear idea of the thing it is
attributed to. Thus, having the notion that one laid the egg out of which the other was hatched, I have a clear idea
of the relation of dam and chick between the two cassiowaries in St. James's Park; though perhaps I have but a
very obscure and imperfect idea of those birds themselves.
