and “unqualified slave”; it may also be unqualified without the condition of being unqualified, as when we say “human being.” An absolute subject to the condition of absoluteness does not include anything qualified in a way incompatible with that absoluteness. Thus, rose water does not fall within “unqualified water.” An absolute without any condition, however, includes what is qualified, just as a deficient human being falls within the designation “human being.” It is therefore clear that an absolute meaning subject to the condition of absoluteness has no existence in external reality. No absolute human being exists there; rather, a human being must be individuated as this person or that. Nor does an absolute animal exist there, or absolute rain subject to the condition of absoluteness.

As for expressions that are unqualified subject to the condition of being unqualified, such as “unqualified water,” their referents do exist in external reality. Here, the condition of being unqualified applies to the expression, so it does not prevent its meaning from being determinate. In the former case, however, the condition of absoluteness applies to the meaning. A referent that is absolute subject to the condition of absoluteness cannot be conceived, for every existent has a reality by which it is distinguished, and whatever has no reality by which it is distinguished is nothing. If it has a reality by which it is distinguished, that distinction prevents it from being absolute in every respect, since what is absolute in every respect has no distinguishing feature. There is therefore no existent that is absolute subject to the condition of absoluteness.

Pure nonexistence, however, may be said to be absolute subject to the condition of absoluteness, since there is neither a distinct reality nor an actual entity of which one could say that its reality, by its defining limits, prevents anything else from being identical with it.