THEORY OF KNOWING.
369
PROP. XIX.————
Its fallacy shown.only the relative? This would happen, that we should be able to apprehend the relative out of relation to the correlative, and the correlative out of relation to the relative. But this supposition is absurd, because it is equivalent to supposing that we can apprehend something as relative, without having any cognisance of that which it is related to. We can know objects only in relation to ourselves; and we can know ourselves only in relation to objects (some thing or thought); but we cannot know only the relative, because this would imply that we could apprehend each factor by itself and out of relation to the other,—and this we know to be impossible. These considerations may be sufficient to unmask the contradiction involved in this counter-proposition, and to refute the psychological averment that we can know only the relative. The psychological fallacy consists in the supposition that the relative and correlative, taken together or collectively, constitute the mere relative. We shall see immediately that they constitute the Absolute.
