For if the abstract object of intellectual apprehension exists only in the mind, how can there be such an abstract object in external reality, with sense-perceptible particulars conjoined to it one after another, or conjoined to it at one time and separated from it at another?

As for his statement:

“Such as location, position, quality, and a particular magnitude: if you imagined another in its place, it would not affect the essential nature of its humanity.”

He may be answered as follows:

Yes, if we conceive of another meaning in place of this one, that does not affect the abstract, universal conception of a human being in the mind, for it corresponds to this particular individual just as it corresponds to that one. Likewise, this does not affect the unqualified term “human being,” for it corresponds to this particular individual just as it corresponds to that one. Thus the term and its meaning in the mind have the same scope. Yet if we imagine another in place of that particular individual, nothing of the original individual exists in the replacement at all. Rather, the replacement is its counterpart, resembling it and like it. To suppose either that it is identical to the original, or that a particular reality exists externally in this individual and is itself the reality existing in that individual—this is where the error lies.

Anyone who supposes this may be asked:

When Allah created this particular individual, did that reality already exist before it, or did it come into being with it?

If it came into being with it, then it is particular, not absolute and universal, because the universal does not depend on the existence of this particular individual. If, however, it existed before it, then if it was