 Duns Scotus is also inspired by the Avicennian idea that the common nature (natura communis), as Scotus calls it, is neither truly universal nor truly particular in itself and that it is universal only as an object of the intellect. But Scotus’ account of individuation differs: The common nature is particular only because of a second “reality” in the object, a principle of individuation or contracting difference, which by later authors was called haecceitas (“thisness”). The distinction between the two “realities” nature and thisness is not real, but formal in the sense that the two are different, but never exist apart from each other (Ordinatio II, d. 3, p. 1, q. 6).