or the corresponding posteriority. If this were innate, our innate disposition would apprehend it without imitation, just as it apprehends other innate matters. What our innate disposition recognizes is that all these inseparable attributes belong inseparably to the subject; they may or may not occur to the mind. But to claim that one lies outside the essence while another is included within it is sheer arbitrariness, supported neither by external reality nor by our innate disposition.
The second ground:
Whether an attribute is essential to its subject is determined by the reality that makes that subject what it is, whether our minds conceive it or not. Thus, if one of two attributes is essential while the other is not, the difference between them must arise from their external reality, which exists independently of the mind. For there to be something among external realities whose reality consists solely in precedence or posteriority in the mind would be possible only if reality and essence were what is posited in the mind, rather than what exists outside it. That, however, depends on what the individual mind supposes. The substance of this argument would then amount to things posited in minds that have no external reality: groundless imaginings and suppositions. This is common in their fundamental principles.
Seventh:
It may be asked: For a definition to be complete and to yield a conception of a thing’s reality, do they require that all its essential attributes shared with other things be conceived, or not? If they do, they must include all the attributes. If they do not, and deem the proximate genus alone sufficient, this is sheer arbitrariness. If they are challenged by someone who requires the mention of all