But the question may be repeated regarding these accidents...

But the question may be repeated regarding these accidents, for they are also existents, and according to our assumption all existents possess a unitary reality, so how, on the one hand, can any difference appear between accidents and that which possesses them, and among accidents themselves, on the other hand, so that with such differences there should be different individual existents?

In other words, if it is supposed that there is something in common among entified existents, this will either be a complete sharing, meaning that existence has a specific whatness, and has multiple individuals, or it will be a partial sharing, which implies that existence has a generic whatness, and has different species. Both assumptions are invalid. Hence there is no other option but to admit that entified existences are completely distinct.

But this argument is not perfect, because the threefold alternatives we assumed regarding the entified reality of existence, were taken from the principles governing whatness. An effort was made to establish the essential distinction among existences, like the distinction among simple whatnesses, by denying that existence is composed of genus and difference, and likewise by denying that it is composed of specific nature and individuating accidents.

Nevertheless, what is common among existences in the reality of existence is not a common genus or species, nor is their distinction of the sort that distinguishes simple species. It follows that such an argument is unable to refute the co-participation of entified existences in any form other than that of having a common species or genus. It will soon become clear that another kind of unity and participation can be established for entified realities.

The fourth position is one which Ṣadr al-Muta’allihīn has ascribed to the ancient Iranian sages, and is one which he himself has accepted, and has tried to explain and establish. It has become known as ‘unity in plurality itself.’ According to this view, entified realities of existence both have unity and commonness with one another and also have differences and distinctions.

However that which is held in common and that which distinguishes them is not of such a kind as to cause composition in entified existence or to make it analyzable into genus and difference. Their differences result from weakness and intensity, like the difference between intense light and weak light, where the weakness and intensity here is nothing other than the light.