many; hence nothing existing externally is universal. Since the universal cannot exist in external reality, it must exist in the mind.” This argument, which al-Rāzī presents here and attributes to the philosophers, is sound.

Had they accepted its implications, they would not have said that there is something shared and universal in external reality, or that universal humanity exists externally. Nor would they have said that, when two necessary beings or two existent beings share the designation of existence or necessity, this shared universal is realized in external reality and consequently requires something by which they are distinguished.

Their contradictions are too numerous to recount here. Whoever grasps this meaning knows necessarily that this particular human being is a particular animal, a particular body, and a particular rational being. There is nothing in him that is an absolute universal shared with others; nor is the absolute universal shared by concrete individuals a part of him existing in external reality. Whoever regards absolute universals as existing externally and forming part of determinate individuals, and affirms that absolute entities exist within determinate individuals, has undoubtedly either failed to conceive what he is saying or is unsound of mind, however he expresses it.

For example, he may say, “The universal essence acquires individuation,” or “It is the subject of individuation,” or “It does not preclude individuation.” Or they may make universality an attribute of individuation, as when they say, “The subject of the universal exists in external reality.” For, having supposed that both a universal and a determinate individual exist in external reality, they sometimes