 The easy way to address this commitment, of course, would simply be to embrace realism about universals. Suárez does not take the easy route. Instead, when he considers an argument for the existence of universals conceived as mind- and language-independent entities (in, for instance DM VI 1.4), he offers in response the ‘true and contrary opinion’ (DM VI 1.8–12). This is that in all real things, there is a formal unity per se, belonging to each essence or nature (DM VI 1.8). As a result, every individual is not only one in number but one essentially. Formal unity is distinguished from singular unity by reason (per rationem) (DM VI 1.9). An individual unity does not belong to some common essence just by itself; something must be added, namely formal unity. That is to say, then, nothing is a φ, a human being say, merely in virtue of its being one thing; that one thing must have in addition some definite formal character, namely being-φ. The claim that something is a unity tells us nothing determinate about an individual beyond that it is some one thing or other. By contrast, formal unity takes us directly to an essence, without any addition, even by reason. This is what Suárez means when he says that formal unity and singular unity are not one and the same. Even so, this difference is not given by the extra-mental individual (ex parte rei), but by reason alone (sed ratione tantum) (DM VI 1.10)