—namely, the reality considered in itself, disregarding what is peculiar to either.

If it is said, “What is common to both is an unrestricted universal, and universals exist only in minds, not in concrete entities,” the reply is:

“Raising this point here is mistaken. It would apply only if a man had uttered Labīd’s poetry without knowing his poetry. We would then say: these are two things that share a universal kind, each distinguished from the other by what is peculiar to it. A universal exists as a universal only in the mind, not in the external world.

“Here, however, Labīd’s poetry itself had an existence in the external world. What is meant by the reality of the speech—disregarding Zayd’s voice and ʿAmr’s voice—existed when Labīd uttered it and exists when someone other than Labīd recites it. That same reality exists in both instances. This is not like the existence of humanity in Zayd, ʿAmr and Khālid: Zayd’s humanity is not ʿAmr’s humanity, but is like it, and what they have in common does not exist in the external world.

“Here, the person reciting Labīd’s words utters the very speech that Labīd uttered. We do not say that he composed something like it, or that he recited something like it. Rather, we say that he recited Labīd’s very own poetry. Poetry, however, is an accident, and an accident can subsist only in something else. It must therefore subsist either in Labīd or in someone else. Even if what subsists in him is not like what subsists in someone else, what is intended by both is one and the same. Thus, likeness and difference pertain to the means, while identity pertains to the intended reality. That reality is Labīd’s composition, not anyone else’s. And rational people