[7] It is, of course, possible to say significantly that two elements, A and B, are related as universal and individual, or as surface and volume, if we are trying to explain what we mean by 'universal and individual' or 'surface and volume'; but in that case we are elucidating the relationship through the already known relation of A and B, and are not giving information about the hitherto unknown relation of A and B.
[8] Professor Cook Wilson has pointed out that the distinction between these two kinds of relation is marked in language in that, for instance, while we speak of the 'relation _of_ universal _and_ individual', we speak of 'the relation _between_ one man _and_ another', or of 'the relation _of_ one man _to_ another', using, however, the phrase 'the relation _of_ doctor _and_ patient', when we consider two men only as in that relation.
I owe to him recognition of the fact that the use of the word 'relation' in connexion with such terms as 'universal and individual' is really justified.
What is, however, at least a strong presumption against this view is to be found in the fact that while relations of the second kind are essentially non-temporal, the relation of knowing is essentially temporal. The relation of a universal and its individuals, or of a surface and the volume which it bounds, does not either come to be, or persist, or cease. On the other hand, it is impossible to think of a knowing which is susceptible of no temporal predicates and is not bound up with a process; and the thought of knowing as something which comes to be involves the thought that the elements which become thus related exist independently of the relation. Moreover, the real refutation of the view lies in the fact that, when we consider what we really think, we find that we think that the relation between a knower and reality is not of the second kind. If we consider what we mean by 'a reality', we find that we mean by it something which is not correlative to a mind knowing it. It does not mean something the thought of which disappears with the thought of a mind actually knowing it, but something which, though it can be known by a mind, need not be actually known by a mind. Again, just as we think of a reality as something which _can_ stand as object in the relation of knowledge, without necessarily being in this relation, so, as we see when we reflect, we think of a knowing mind as something which _can_ stand as subject in this relation without necessarily being in the relation. For though we think of the capacities which constitute the nature of a knowing mind as only recognized through their actualizations, i. e. through actual knowing, we think of the mind which is possessed of these capacities as something apart from their actualization.