  But non-reductivists need not take this line. Some, more sympathetic to the reductive realist position on relational change, take cases like that involving Simmias and Socrates as an opportunity to further clarify the nature of relations. Albert the Great, for example, argues that relational accidents are so closely tied to their foundations that they are acquired along with them (cf. Metaphysica, 266b-267a, ad 1 and Brower 2001). Thus, if Socrates comes into existence in a world all by himself at a height of five-feet-ten-inches-tall, not only will he possess a certain quantity (namely, his height), but also, in virtue of it, he will possess a sui generis relational accident. Obviously, in such a world, the relational accident will not actually relate Socrates to anyone or anything (since there’s nothing for it to relate him to)—though it will explain his being potentially related to other things.  Suppose, however, that Simmias now comes into existence in this world at six-feet-tall. In that case, Socrates’s relational accident will come actually to relate him to Simmias as shorter. Even so, Albert insists, Socrates himself will not have undergone any real change, relative or absolute. Not surprisingly these sorts of consideration lead Albert to distinguish sharply between relational accidents and relations (which are just relational accidents in certain circumstances), and to suggest that strictly speaking we should think of the relevant Aristotelian category as comprised, not of relations, but of relational accidents. These same considerations also help to explain why, in referring to the members of this category, Albert prefers the concrete terms ‘toward something’ (ad aliquid) and ‘relative’ (relativum) to the abstract term ‘relation’ (relatio)—for relational accidents are ‘toward something’ or outwardly directed even if they are not actually relating their subject to anything.  (Metaphysica, 267a, ad. 3.)