This insight was recognized by a number of speculative thinkers—among the philosophers and others—and they used it to expose the mistake that arose when mental quiddities were confused with external realities. For how could the human being that exists outside the mind be a compound of “animal” and “rational,” or of “animality” and “rationality”? If the composition were of two accidents, it would contradict the principle that a substance is not made up of accidents; and if it were of two substances, the human being in the external world would have to comprise several distinct substances—one corporeal, another sensitive, another nutritive, another self-moving by volition, and another rational. The truth, however, is that the subject described by each of these attributes is one and the same: it is itself a body, sensitive, nutritive, self-moving by volition, and rational. Some of these attributes are simply more general than others: the most general is shared by every body; the nutritive is shared with plants; the sensitive is shared with non-rational animals; and the rational is shared with no creature other than man. As for the concrete individual, the attributes that inhere in him are particularized and shared by no one else. Whenever it is said that another “shares” them, the sharing concerns only the universal concept, which is universal solely in the mind; once it exists externally, it exists only as a particular.

Thus, man is an essence qualified by attributes, and it is clear that an attribute of a subject does not precede that subject—neither in thought nor in existence—nor is the subject composed of it. Yet they claim that the parts of a composite are prior to the composite itself, which is impossible when dealing with an attribute of a subject. However, if by “composite” one intends merely the notion formed in the mind when someone says, “a body, sensitive, nutritive, self-moving by volition, rational,” then there is no doubt that this