7. If, when we speak of things, we utter nothing true, then there is
nothing real in the relation, and this kind of being has no foundation.
But if, when we compare two moments, we say, This one is anterior,
and that one is posterior, we speak truly, then we conceive that the
anterior and the posterior are something independent of the subjects in
which they exist. Likewise with the left and the right, as well as with
sizes; we admit that in these, besides the quantity which is suitable
to them, there is a certain habituation, as far as the one surpasses
and the other is surpassed. If, without our enunciating or conceiving
anything, it be real that such a thing is the double of another; if the
one possess while the other is possessed, even if we had known nothing
about it; if the objects had been equal before we had noticed them; if
they be likewise identical in respect of quality; finally if, in all
relative things, there be a habituation which is independent of the
subjects in which it is found; and if we limit ourselves to noticing
its existence (without creating it); if the same circumstances obtain
in the relation of knowledge to what can be known, a relation which
evidently constitutes a real habituation; if it be so, there is nothing
left to do but to ask whether this habituation (named a relation) be
something real. We shall have to grant, however, that this habituation
subsists in certain subjects as long as these subjects remain such as
they were, and even if they were separate; while, in other subjects,
this habituation is born only when they are brought together. We shall
also have to grant that, in the very subjects that remain, there are
some in which this habituation is annihilated or altered (such as, for
example, the left direction, or proximity). This has led people to
believe that in all these relations there is nothing real. This point
having been granted, we shall have to seek what common element there
is in all these relations, and to examine whether what is common to
them all constitutes a kind, or an accident; and last, we shall have to
consider how far that which we have discovered corresponds to reality.