It is well known that likeness entails plurality, for two things that are alike are not one thing, but more than one. Since likeness entails plurality, if it also entailed that the two were numerically identical, it would entail both unity and plurality. This would mean combining two contradictories: plurality affirms something beyond the one, while unity denies anything beyond the one. Combining affirmation and negation is to combine two contradictories. Thus, asserting that one of two like things is the very same individual as the other, or that it occupies the other’s very spatial location and bears its very same attribute, is incompatible with likeness. This is evident.

Given this, it is clear that, in a single body said to have parts and components—such as its sides and centre—even if it is assumed to possess the utmost simplicity, which entails that its parts and components are alike, as with simple fire, simple air, a simple celestial sphere, or something still simpler, there must be a distinction