As for some attributes being included in the essence and others being external to it, if this means that some are included in what the mind conceives and the tongue expresses, this is true. In that case, however, inclusion and exclusion concern what falls within one’s knowledge and speech and what falls outside them. But if this means that, within an externally existing thing itself, some of its inseparable attributes are included in its true nature while others are external to it, this is false, as has already been explained at length.

According to the method of the logicians, inseparable attributes are either essential, such that the subject cannot be known without them, or concomitants of its quiddity, or concomitants of its existence. These concomitants must include an unmediated concomitant, lest an infinite regress follow, as Ibn Sīnā established in al-Ishārāt (Pointers). A mediated concomitant is one mediated by a proof, not by a cause that establishes it. Thus, all concomitants belong to the essence without anything in external reality mediating between them. This is what he means.

If, however, what is meant is that some concomitant requires an intermediary in external reality, then that intermediary is itself a concomitant of something else. On every account, therefore, there must be something that is concomitant in its own right; and a concomitant itself has a concomitant, and so on.

Thus, when He knows Himself—His essence having concomitants without which it cannot exist—His knowledge of Himself necessarily entails knowledge of its concomitants, just as the existence of His essence entails the existence of its concomitants. Otherwise, that knowledge would not truly be knowledge of His essence. Thus, just as a thing cannot exist without its necessary concomitant,