the mind. The mind abstracts them only after perceiving them through the senses as particular, existing, individuated entities in external reality. It may, however, be argued that the mind can abstract them from certain individual things: for example, someone may conceive of animal through his knowledge of the horse without conceiving that a human is likewise an animal. He is then told: “The meaning predicated of the horse has its counterpart in the thing being defined for you, namely the human.”

But this too entails circularity. A person’s knowledge that one species falls under “animal” has no greater claim to priority than his knowledge that another species possesses that attribute. Those who employ these definitions do not say that the subject being defined is the human species rather than the horse, or vice versa. Rather, definitions apply equally to all these species. Indeed, by their own account, a person’s knowledge of himself, his species, and his attributes is prior and clearer to him than his knowledge of the attributes of other species.

In any case, this is not the place to discuss this matter. The point here is that we do not give that answer. Rather, we say: Granted that, if knowledge that He is above is innate and self-evident, there is all the more reason for knowledge of His very existence to be innate and self-evident. What objection could there be to that?

His statement, “The view commonly held among speculative thinkers is that knowledge of the Maker is attained only