 Next, take (2). Maurin and Simons argue that if we reject Bradley’s assumption that relations are general entities, i.e. universals, and hold instead that relations are a special class of particular entities, i.e., non-transferable tropes, then we can avoid Bradley’s Regress. What is a relation conceived as a “non-transferable trope”? It’s a relation \(r_1\) that’s borne essentially by the things it relates and which could not have been borne by anything else (Simons 2002/3: 6). Suppose \(r_1\) is borne by \(a\) to \(b\). Then \(r_1\) is a trope in the sense that it is non-repeatable and so is not a “one-over many”, not a universal. And \(r_1\) is non-transferable in the sense that it could not be transferred from one pair of particulars to another, i.e., \(r_1\) could not be borne by \(c\) to \(d\) where \(c \ne a\) and \(d \ne b\). So, necessarily, if \(r_1\) exists then (i) \(a\) and \(b\) exist and (ii) \(a\mathbin{r_1} b\). So in virtue of the manner in which \(r_1\) depends upon the things it relates it follows that the mere existence of \(r_1\) accounts for \(a\) and \(b\)’s being related without having to go down the route of appealing to subsidiary relations to glue them together. But again, this proposal assumes that relations really do relate, and therefore that Bradley’s regress has already been disarmed. By way of analogy, consider the Problem of Evil: the difficulty of theoretically squaring God’s omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, etc., with the (apparent) fact of unnecessary evil in the world. Of course if God exists then there cannot be any unnecessary evil, i.e., there must be a solution to the Problem of Evil. But we don’t provide a theoretical solution to the Problem by simply positing God. That doesn’t make any easier the theoretical task of squaring what appears to be unnecessary evil with the nature of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent deity. Similarly we don’t provide an effective theoretical response to Bradley’s argument by simply positing relational tropes. Positing them doesn’t provide an explanation of how a relation can succeed in relating some things without requiring to be related by a further relation to them.