 Anything that is common to many things in the required manner has to be simultaneously, and as a whole, in the substance of these many things. But these many things are several beings precisely because they are distinct from one another in their being, that is to say, the act of being of one is distinct from the act of being of the other. However, if the universal constitutes the substance of a particular, then it has to have the same act of being as the particular, because constituting the substance of something means precisely this, namely, sharing the act of being of the thing in question, as the thing’s substantial part. But the universal is supposed to constitute the substance of all of its distinct particulars, as a whole, at the same time. Therefore, the one act of being of the universal entity would have to be identical with all the distinct acts of being of its several particulars at the same time, which is  impossible.[8]