Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 100

76

ORGANIC RELATION

§ 39.

[Div. II

upon them. That these relations can be grasped by thought alone and not by presentation lies in a certain stimulus their nature.

If these relations

were like our nerves, that

ramify through our body, or like telephone lines, that stretch across our cities, they should themselves be elements and But this is not so. Nerves and lines of not relations.

communications may be the vehicles for the working of the relations, but they are not the relations themselves. The relations themselves are not only entirely immaterial, and therefore formless, but they are also void of entity in themselves.

For and

can be grasped by our thoughts alone, our thinking consists of the knowledge of these relaWhether we form a conception of a tree, lion, star,

this reason they all

tions.

apart from every representation of them, this conception can never bring us anything but the knowledge of the relations in which such a tree, lion, or star stand to other etc.,

objects, or the knowledge of the relations in which the component parts of such a tree, lion, or star stand to each other.

To

a certain extent

it

can be said, therefore, that the relations

phenomena as well as the elements which we perceive, and which either by our organs of sense or in some other way occasion a certain stimulus in our consciousness, and

are

in this

way

elements.

place our consciousness in relation

Without other

aids,

to

science

therefore,

enter into our consciousness in two ways only.

these

would

First, as

the science of the elements, and, secondly, as the science

The of the relations which appear between these elements. astronomer would obtain science of the starry heavens by looking at the stars that reveal themselves to his eye, and the science of their mutual relations and of the relations between their parts by entering into those relations with his

thoughts.

But

the activity of our consciousness Avith ref-

erence to the relations

is

Our thinking does not

not confined to this.

confine itself exclusively to play-

ing the part of the observer of relations,

more or

less passive,

but also carries in

which

itself

an

is

active

always power.

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