 Bradley’s treatment of relations originates in Chapter II with a discussion of the problem of what makes the unity of an individual thing. How can we make sense of the fact that a single thing, such as, say, a lump of sugar, is capable of holding a plurality of different properties into a unity, such as its sweetness, whiteness and hardness? We cannot postulate the existence of an underlying substance distinct from its qualities, for this would commit us to the existence of a naked, bare particular, the absurd conception of a something devoid of all qualities. Moreover, the original difficulty as to the unity of the thing is left unsolved by this move, since it becomes possible to ask what it is that binds the qualities to their substance. The alternative is to conceive the thing as a collection of qualities, yet what is the nature of the ontological tie that binds them into the unity of the thing? We are left with an aggregate of independent, substance-like qualities, rather than with an individual thing. At this point, the problem of relations emerges in its full ontological significance, for it now looks as if only a relation could provide the required nexus.