Page:Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases (1894).djvu/26

xx In ruanj cases, two ideas which are completely opposed to each other, admit of an intermediate or neutral idea, equidistant from both ; all these being expressible by corresponding definite terms. Thus, in the following examples, the words in the first and third columns, which express opposite ideas, admit of the intermediate terms contained in the middle column, having a neutral sense with reference to the former.

Identity, Difference, Contrariety. Beginning, Middle, End. Past, Present, Future.

In other cases, the intermediate word is simply the negative to each of two opposite positions ; as, for example, —

Convexity, Flatness, Concavity. Desire, Indifference, Aversion.

Sometimes the intermediate word is properly the standard with which each of the extremes is compared ; as in the case of

Insufficiency, Sufficiency, Redundance ;

for here the middle term. Sufficiency, is equally opposed, on the one hand to Insifficiency, and on the other to Redundance.

These forms of correlative expressions would suggest the use of triple, instead of double, columns, for tabulating this threefold