composite, with two distinct parts of which it is composed, then he speaks out of ignorance. Rather, it is one thing possessing two attributes: it exists only with its two attributes, and its two attributes exist only in it.

The following meaning, however, is correct: a human being is truly described as an animal and as rational, and is an essence that necessarily entails its attributes. The thing described cannot exist without its inseparable attribute. But this is not composition in external reality.

Nor is there in external reality an inseparable essential attribute, another accidental attribute inseparable from the quiddity, and yet another inseparable from its existence. Rather, there is only the particular existent, whose attributes fall into two categories: inseparable and incidental. It cannot exist without any one of its inseparable attributes. Thus, none of these attributes is inseparable from the essence existing in external reality yet not inseparable from that essence, being instead inseparable from the externally existing thing—as some logicians suppose.

Their fundamental error is that they confused what is conceived in the mind with what exists in concrete reality. The mind conceives a triangle before it exists externally, and they supposed that quiddity is distinct from existence. This is correct if quiddity is understood as what the mind conceives.

But to suppose that a triangle in external reality has a quiddity established externally that is distinct from the thing existing externally is a manifest error. Once this is understood concerning the attributes of a created being, the Creator is even further removed from what these people call composition.