realities outside the mind contain neither external universality nor external composition. As we said concerning “the nonexistent,” it is a thing in the mind, not outside it, since it is an object of knowledge and will. A human being existing outside the mind does not contain distinct entities, some constituting animality, others rationality, others the capacity for laughter, and others sensory perception. Rather, the intellect apprehends in him a meaning whose counterpart is also found in another species, and therefore says that he possesses a shared meaning. It also apprehends a meaning peculiar to him, then combines the two meanings and says: “He is composed of them.” Yet when it apprehends these two meanings in him, it does not apprehend either as distinct and separate from the other. Likewise, when it apprehends existence, necessary existence, self-subsistence, and the sustaining of others, it does not apprehend any of these meanings as separate and distinct from the others.

An even clearer example is that the taste, colour, and smell inhering in a body are not distinguished from one another by occupying different locations; rather, the senses distinguish between these realities. This kind of “composition” is therefore unlike the composition of a body from its parts and humours: parts are not like accidents. We do not dispute calling this composite, for that is merely a verbal dispute. The point, however, is that this composition is not of the kind that human beings understand through their original innate disposition, such that the term “parts” may be applied to it.

Once this is understood, there are two approaches to resolving the difficulty, just as there were two approaches to refuting the argument.

(The first is that we do not concede that there is any composition from parts whatsoever. Rather, it is an essence that subsists