 The common essence and the singular entity are distinguished, then, not on the basis of the nature of the thing (ex natura rei), but by reason; hence, again, there is no world-given distinction between something’s existing as an individual and its existing as this or that kind of individual: reason makes this distinction. This permits Suárez to insist that formal unity, as it exists in a thing, is incommunicable (unitas formalis prout in re existit, incommunicabilis est) (DM VI 1.11). The formal unity marches in step with the nature of a thing, and in real things there is no common nature; instead, ‘nature and essence are multiplied as many times as there are individuals’ (DM VI 1. 12). So, while formal unity at the individual level is mind- and language-independent, formal unity as common is not: it is supplied by the operations of the mind.