a. Two Possible Ways of Solution

33. But as to what the property is by which the nature is a person there seem to be two possible ways: one, that it is a person by something positive in final nature (final as that by which it is a nature and an individual nature), and this whether the positive thing is absolute or relative; in another way, that it is a person by mere addition of negation.

34. The first could be posited in some way proportionally to what was said in Book II on individuation, in distinction 3 nn.168-188, that just as there is some proper reality by which a nature is a ‘this’ over and above that by which it is nature, and that the latter is not formally the former, so over and above each of these there would be some reality by which it is a person; and so neither of these would be formally the same as person.

35. The second denies that any positive reality is the person, and it posits the reality - by which it is a ‘this’ - to be the final positive entity, and that over and above this there is only some negation, by which it is said to be ‘subsistent in intellectual nature’ and a person.