they are particular accidents, each of which is a particular accident inhering in a particular soul, just as a particular spoken expression occurs in a particular mouth, and particular writing on a particular sheet of paper. The writing corresponds to the spoken expression, the spoken expression to the meaning in the mind, and that meaning to what exists externally. Each of the first three may be called general, universal, and absolute because it encompasses individual entities existing externally. In itself, however, it is a particular, individuated thing.

Since this is so, the absolute human being as such, as conceived by the mind, is knowledge—a particular accident in a particular substrate.

If it is supposed that the substrate of knowledge and other human attributes, such as love, pleasure, hatred, and so forth, is something that can be pointed to perceptibly, as most people maintain, then pointing to the accidents within it is like pointing to any accident inhering in its substrate.

Accordingly, if what is perceptibly pointed to has a particular magnitude and occupies a particular space, then the substrate of the mental image has a particular magnitude and occupies a particular space; it also has a direction.

Universals are present in the soul just as particulars are present in it. The soul knows both the absolute human being and the particular human being, and pointing to one is like pointing to the other. Thus, in this respect, there is no difference between conceiving of the human being as a shared universal and conceiving of a particular, individual human being. However, the former exists only in the soul, whereas the latter exists externally, and its conception exists in the soul.

[The third response]

It may be said:

This absolute essence, considered in itself,