the unity of a body does not depend upon another unity inhering in that body. At most, the unity of a body is accompanied by other unities inhering in a substance when considered separately. This unity is neither a condition for the existence of the first unity nor prior to it; the first does not depend upon it, nor is it the unity of the body as characterized in the first instance. The infinite regress you mentioned only precludes a thing’s unity from depending upon another unity of that same thing. That is not the case here. Rather, alongside the unity of a body there is the unity of every entity described as possessing unity, whether bodies, substances, or anything else. If something described as one necessarily admits of division into things themselves described as one, its unity is not thereby dependent upon another unity inhering in it.

Let the discerning reader consider how he advanced an argument whose substance is to deny every unity in the world and declare it impossible, then took the existence of unity for granted and claimed that unity without an intermediary negates the unity of a body. Both points are astonishing: denying unity altogether, and claiming that unity unmediated by another unity negates the unity of a body.

Furthermore, this unsound and feeble objection may be answered as follows: the determinate identity of a single entity—whether a body or something else—and its distinction from other things must either constitute its unity or not. If this is not the unity of the body, your statement, “We understand nothing by its unity other than its being determinate in itself and distinct from other things,” is invalid, and the argument therefore fails. If this is its unity, then your statement is invalid: “It cannot possess