3. Scotus’ own Opinion

323. As concerns this article [n.285] I say that no respect is a ratification, or what a thing is a firm or true or certain being by, in the case of any entity at all. For every respect has something that it is founded on, which something is not in itself related to another thing; and if in that first something, where it is essentially for itself, there is not essentially a being that is certain, that is firm, it is not capable of any respect by which it may become a ratified being, because if a non-ratified thing become ratified, either it will become ratified from itself, which includes a contradiction (for whatever is of itself a somethingness is necessarily such), or it will become ratified by something causing it so; and if this latter, something absolute can be the term of the action naturally before a relation can be, because the formal idea of whatever is the first term of something produced is not, necessarily, a respect.