  Perhaps, however, the important point is rather that SM sign-inference is concerned with the relation between an individual object and its properties, a relation of metaphysical necessity (e.g., §1, viii 32–6; §4, xxxiii 35, xxxv 22–9). It is these necessary properties that epilogismos seeks to identify (e.g., §1, xvii 3–11; §4, xxxv 4–31) and that sign-inference should project: they help constitute the nature of a thing (cf. §1, xv 11–12; §3, xxiv 6–8). When he rebuts the opponents’ objection that SM sign-inferences are not necessitating, therefore, Zeno adduces the kind of property from which a sign-inference should proceed. Thus whatever necessity an SM sign-inference has comes from the metaphysical necessity of a property-property pairing, which is expressed in a qua truth: “For when we say that, since those hereabouts are such, those in the unknown realm are also such, insofar as those hereabouts are such, in this way we believe that something unknown is conjoined with them. For example: since humans hereabouts, qua humans, are mortal, then if there are humans anywhere, they too are mortal” (§4, xxxiii 24–32). Each of the four senses of ‘qua’ discussed in the next lines joins properties with the force of necessity and is used in sign-inferences (xxxiii 24–29).