 But there is a less acknowledged influence of first-order predicate logic—an influence that is not entirely salutary. It is undoubtedly tempting, for philosophers steeped in the use of first-order logic as a clarifying tool, to assume that the proper representation of the ultimate structure of reality must be by means of some (interpreted) first-order language—a language whose various predicates could be taken to express the various fundamental properties and relations that characterize reality at its most basic level. But if we look to physics instead—as we surely ought to—we find that the basic representational tools are variables, that correspond to physical magnitudes. Taking seriously the picture of fundamental ontology suggested by these representations turns out to matter quite a bit: in particular, there are reasons to think that none of the first three theses about natural properties and relations—that they are minimal, non-modal, and intrinsic—is tenable without some modification. This issue—which we will mostly pass over in what follows, except where it matters—is explored in more detail in the supplementary document on