Literary notes about Relation (AI summary)
The term "relation" is deployed in literature with remarkable versatility, functioning as both a descriptor of familial or personal connection and as a marker of abstract, conceptual ties. In narrative prose, it often emphasizes intimate bonds or social hierarchies, as seen when it denotes family ties or interpersonal associations [1] [2] [3]. In philosophical and sociological discourse, however, "relation" takes on a more analytical role, outlining causal links or logical structures, whether connecting the human mind to broader phenomena [4] or delineating mathematical or scientific associations [5] [6]. Even in poetic or rhetorical contexts, the word surfaces to underline contrasts, dependencies, and the inherent dynamics between ideas or characters, proving its capacity to bridge the concrete and the abstract [7] [8] [9].
- ‘If he is not a beggar himself, his near relation’s one,’ said Steerforth.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - It was the offer of a small house, on very easy terms, belonging to a relation of her own, a gentleman of consequence and property in Devonshire.
— from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen - A little girl, I was told, would shortly be my companion: the daughter of a friend and distant relation of the late Dr. Bretton's.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë - He has a clearer conception of the divisions of science and of their relation to the mind of man than was possible to the ancients.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato - How to calculate the moment of inertia of a body in relation to a straight line, when the moment in relation to a parallel straight line is known.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - That three times five is equal to the half of thirty , expresses a relation between these numbers.
— from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume - The Judiciary Continued in Relation to Trial by Jury From MCLEAN's Edition, New York.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay and James Madison - Plato appreciated the value of this faculty, and saw that it might be quickened by the study of number and relation.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato - For if, in relation to this law, I have nothing more than opinion, my judgement is but a play of the imagination, without the least relation to truth.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant