 In a clear expression of his realist commitment, Kilwardby points out that universals are not fictions of the mind: they are found in individual existing things as their essences; otherwise there would be no univocal predication or definition, and science would be about fictions of the mind (QLIIS 17, 69; 73). Universals can be said of many because they exist in the many that exemplify them (QLIIS 78, 220).