shared by both. No rational person would say that what distinguishes one thing from another is due to what they have in common. For a cause entails its effect, while that which entails something is a broader category than a cause. Thus, if what is shared does not entail what is distinctive, then all the more reason why it cannot cause it: wherever that which entails something exists, what it entails also exists.

It is well known that a distinctive property does not exist wherever a shared property exists. For the shared property exists in one thing, while the property distinctive to the other is absent from it.

In short, rational people do not dispute this. The distinctive properties that distinguish one body from another cannot therefore arise merely from their shared corporeality. Rather, those properties cannot belong to all other bodies.

It may then be said:

It is well known that every body has distinctive properties, and that these properties do not arise from shared corporeality. This rules out bodies being identical in nature. For if they were identical in nature, the distinctive properties of some would necessarily be due to an agent determining them. That agent would be either the Lord or someone other than Him. Their determination by someone other than Him would be impossible, since that agent would itself be one of the bodies, and the same argument would apply to it as to the others. Moreover, the supposition is that they are identical in nature, so one would be no more entitled than another to determine those properties. Their determination by Him would likewise be impossible,