is existence distinct from necessity. Rather, the mind apprehends the similarity in colour between this blackness and all other colours, and distinguishes from this what it apprehends of the similarity in colour between this blackness and all other colours, and distinguishes from this what it apprehends of the similarity between it and all other instances of blackness. It combines the two, producing a mental, conceptual composition. Likewise, it apprehends the similarity in animality between this human being and other animals, and the similarity in humanity between him and all other human beings. It combines the two, producing a mental, conceptual composition.
Anyone who says, “A human being is composed of animality and rationality,” and understands what he is saying, means only this composition or something similar. This is not a composition in external reality. Nor does such a composite have, in external reality, a part distinct from its whole, or a part prior to the whole. Rather, these things exist only in minds, not in concrete entities. These composites therefore consist of those universals.
The five universals—genus, species, differentia, property, and common accident—exist as universals only in minds, not in concrete entities.
The same applies to the composition formed by combining some of these with others. Since the parts of the composite, namely the universals, exist only in the mind, there is all the more reason for a composite of mental universals to exist only in the mind.
These philosophizing logicians denied the reality of the Necessary Being and His attributes, believing that they were affirming the oneness of His essence. They said that He is free of composition, since a composite depends on its parts.