, such as love and power. Such a relation may arise from a feature in its subject, a feature in its object, or a feature in both. Love, power, and the like illustrate this: love entails a feature in both the lover and the beloved, and the same applies to power. This is why they relate specifically to some things rather than others. Knowledge, however, entails a feature in the knower without entailing a feature in what is known. Knowledge can relate to everything: it is not confined to what exists rather than what does not exist, nor to what is possible rather than what is impossible. Any restriction in knowledge therefore comes from the knower, not from what is known. The same applies to speech and the like.

As for being above, this may arise from a feature in the higher thing, as when a person climbs onto a roof. It is he who has made the movement that caused him to be above it, while the roof has not changed. The man is sometimes above it and sometimes below it because he changes position, not the roof. Likewise, if a bird is directly above a person’s head and then descends until it is beneath the place he occupies, the bird is at one time above him and at another below him because the bird changes position, not the person.

Relational matters do not require the existence of a feature in anything beyond the two related things, although such a feature may exist. A feature in just one of them may suffice even for intrinsic attributes to which a relation is incidental; how much more so, then, for pure relations? Thus, whether being above is a positive attribute entailing a relation, an act entailing a relation, both of these, or a pure relation, its realization requires only a feature in the higher thing in some cases and in the lower thing in others, without