knowledge. If knowledge is eternal and inseparable from his essence, he has not acquired it from anyone; if it is originated, he has acquired it from another. He has not, however, acquired knowledge from knowledge. But does he possess a state—namely, his being a knower—caused by knowledge, or is his being a knower identical with knowledge itself? This is disputed between those who affirm states and those who deny them. Those who affirm such a state do not say that it is an existent attribute.

His statement, “Whatever acquires an attribute from another, that attribute”—meaning the attribute from which it is acquired—“has a greater claim to the meaning acquired,” as he illustrated with life, is unsound. The knower did not acquire the attribute of knowledge from the attribute of knowledge. Rather, his knowledge is itself that very attribute. There are not two attributes here, one imparting and the other acquired, unless one says that knowledge establishes being a knower, according to those who affirm states. On that supposition, being a knower is not an existent attribute. He is a knower only by virtue of the knowledge that entails the state, not by virtue of a state that entails knowledge.

If he is a knower by virtue of knowledge, that knowledge did not arise from some other knowledge. Rather, according to these thinkers, knowledge entails his being a knower. The majority hold that knowledge itself is identical with his being a knower; there are not two things here. On either view, if someone characterized by knowledge deserves to be called a knower, knowledge does not thereby have a greater claim to being a knower. No rational person would say this.

As for his statement, “If a body derives its life from a life that inheres in it, then it must