extraneous to it, which do not attach to its essence by virtue of that essence, is intelligible in itself. It needs no operation performed upon it to prepare it, for the intellect is that which is capable of apprehending it. Rather, perhaps the operation belongs on the side of that which is capable of apprehending it.”

I say:

This statement is one of the foundations of their doctrines. Through it they fell into confusion and ambiguity, until they came to be profoundly misguided.

[Detailed refutation of Ibn Sīnā’s statement]

The following may be said concerning his statement:

“It may also be intelligible when, from Zayd, for example, one conceives the meaning of ‘human being,’ which is also present in others.”

Do you mean that this intelligible human being, shared by this person and that and existing in external reality, is the very same in both particular individuals, while being distinct from the particular human being and the attributes inhering in him? Or do you mean the universal human being existing in the intellect, which encompasses particular individuals just as a general expression encompasses the individual instances to which it applies?

If you mean the former, this is false and has no reality. We know necessarily that this particular human being contains nothing of the other particular human being. Rather, each