but this common universal exists only in his heart and mind; he apprehends it in his heart. There is no common, universal human being in the external world in which this person and that person participate (1). Rather, every human being has his own essence and attributes, and no one else ever shares with him anything that inheres in him.

When it is said, “Humanity is common,” or, “Animality is common,” what is meant is that the animality and humanity in one individual resemble the animality and humanity in another. They share in what is denoted by humanity and animality, but that denotation, when conceived as a common universal, exists only in the mind.

Sometimes it exists (2) as an absolute with absoluteness stipulated. In that sense, according to rational people generally, it exists only in the mind—except for those who affirm that the Platonic Forms exist in the external world. At other times, it exists (3) as an absolute without absoluteness being stipulated, such that it encompasses determinate particulars. This may be said to exist in the external world, but there it exists only as something determinate, qualified, and particular. Thus one says, “This human being,” “this animal,” and “this horse.” As for its existing in the external world [while] (4) also being common there, that is false.

Hence, it is well known among them that universals subsist in minds, not in concrete entities. When someone says that the natural universal exists in the external world, the correct meaning is that what is universal when in the mind is also found in the external world, though it is not found there as a universal. This is like saying (5), “What the mind conceives may exist in