Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

WE MUST PRESUPPOSE the definition of intuitive and abstractive cognition that we gave in book 1 of the Summulae, ch. 3: intuitive cognition is “cognition of a present thing,” whereas abstractive cognition is “cognition of an absent thing.” Here presence and absence are not taken intentionally, as the presence or union of the object with the faculty. For it is clear that this presence cannot be lacking to any cognition, since no cognition can arise in a faculty without an object united to and present to that faculty. Rather, cognition is called of a present or absent thing by taking presence and absence as what belongs to the thing in itself. Hence St Thomas says in q. 3 of On Truth, a. 3, ad 8,¹ that the knowledge of vision—which is the same as intuitive cognition—adds something beyond simple cognition that is outside the genus of cognition, namely the existence of things. Therefore it adds real existence, since intentional and objective existence is not outside the genus of cognition. And in Sentences III, d. 14, q. 1, a. 2, q. 2,² he says that “that is properly seen which has being outside the one who sees.” Therefore the existence required by intuitive cognition must be real and physical.

Regarding the proposed difficulty, VARIOUS OPINIONS OF AUTHORS are in circulation. Some considered the distinction between these cognitions on the side of the principle, namely the impressed species. Thus some, as reported by Ferrariensis in Against the Gentiles II, ch. 66, said that cognition made without an intelligible species is intuitive, while cognition made through some species is abstractive.

But this position must be entirely rejected, since no cognition can be elicited without a species. For every cognition depends on an object and a faculty, and this object cannot intentionally inform the faculty, however present it may be in itself, except through a species, unless the object itself has intentional and spiritual being in itself, conjoined to the faculty.

Others say that intuitive cognition is that which knows a thing through its own species, while abstractive cognition knows it through another’s species. Intuitive and abstractive cognition also seem distinguishable on the side of evidence: intuitive cognition is always evident, since it is of the thing in itself, while abstractive cognition abstracts from obscurity and evidence. If it sometimes has evidence, it is not immediately of the thing in itself but of the thing as contained in something else—for example, in its causes and principles, or something similar, or in an image independently of presence.

Others distinguish intuitive cognition on the side of the terminus, or of the object insofar as it terminates cognition, according to the definitions given: one is of an absent thing, the other of a present thing. This position is more common among Thomists. For the distinction on the side of the species—whether cognition is through its own or another’s species, of a thing in itself or in another, obscure or clear—does not concern formalities that properly belong to the account of intuitive or abstractive cognition. Intuitive cognition can be preserved through mediated cognition, or cognition of a thing in another³; abstractive cognition can also be preserved through cognition as evident and clear as intuitive cognition, and likewise it can occur through immediate cognition and species.

The first part is clearly established, because future creatures are seen in the divine essence as in an alien species, and yet God sees them intuitively. That cognition is likewise mediated and of things in another. Similarly, an angel can see intuitively through its own essence as a species the accidents that are in itself; and through a species representing another substance it can see the accidents present in that substance. In St Thomas’s view, the intellect has no direct species of singulars, yet it can intuitively see singular corporeal things when they are present through sense. Therefore neither an appropriate species nor immediate and direct cognition is required.

An example of the second part is God himself, who knows possible creatures abstractively with as much evidence and clarity on the side of the knower as if they were present. Likewise, he can infuse in someone a cognition of the quiddity of a possible thing outside the Word; then that person will know the thing through its own species, yet will know it abstractively. An angel has its own species of a future eclipse, its futurity, and its existence, yet its cognition is abstractive. So too we can remember through its own species an absent thing that we have seen; indeed, we can be directed to its existence as an object, as when from effects I know that God exists and is present, yet this cognition is abstractive. Therefore intuitive and abstractive cognition are not distinguished by these features; we must instead turn to the known terminus: one reaches a thing under its own presence, which physically terminates cognition, the other under absence.

Therefore only a twofold way of distinguishing these cognitions remains, and these ways too are frequent among Thomists. Some distinguish them as essentially different by presence and absence as diverse accounts that are represented; consequently, the representations themselves differ intrinsically and essentially because they represent diverse objects.

Others, however, say they differ accidentally, because they do not require formally diverse representations. The same thing can be represented in intuitive and abstractive cognition: namely, the thing with its existence and presence, known and represented in the stated act. They differ only accidentally through a different exercise of terminating cognition. For if the object itself is made present in itself and that very presence is represented in cognition, this alone makes the cognition intuitive. But if the physical presence of the thing, through which the object terminates cognition, is removed while all else on the side of cognition and representation remains unchanged, the cognition becomes abstractive. Hence some also say that intuitive and abstractive are only extrinsic denominations arising in cognition from the thing’s own existence or absence. Others say they are intrinsic modes in the cognition itself—although they do not essentially vary the representation—because they truly belong to the cognition’s own tendency toward the object as terminating in this or that way.

THEREFORE, LET THERE BE ONE CONCLUSION. The formal and proper account of intuitive and abstractive cognition does not essentially and intrinsically vary cognition, but varies it accidentally, although by an accident—that is, through something else and by reason of what it is joined to—it can import cognitions diverse in species.

The first part is drawn from the places of St Thomas cited above, in q. 3 of On Truth and in Sentences III, d. 14. For he says that the knowledge of vision, or intuitive cognition, adds something beyond simple or abstractive cognition that is outside the genus of cognition, namely the thing’s existence. Therefore he holds that they do not signify essential and intrinsic differences, since such differences are not outside the genus of cognition but belong to the very order of what is knowable. To add something outside the seer himself and outside the genus of cognition itself is to add something accidental and extrinsic.

THE FOUNDATION is that intuitive and abstractive cognition do not import diversity in the formal principle of knowability itself. For intuitiveness and abstractiveness in cognitions do not arise from the means, motives, or specifying principles themselves, nor from diverse immateriality, which is the root of cognition, nor from a diverse formal account of representing that which or under which. Therefore they do not import accounts that distinguish by themselves and by the force of their formality.

The antecedent is proved as follows: as we will show in the next article, presence and absence do not pertain particularly to intuitive and abstractive cognition as certain represented things, as though they were certain quiddities. They pertain only insofar as they affect and modify the object in itself, making it coexist or not coexist with cognition. This is clear because a species representing presence itself objectively as a represented thing can be found in abstractive cognition—as when I now know that God is present to me, or that a soul or intellect is present to a body, or when we discuss their presence—and yet we do not see either the soul or God intuitively. The same applies to angelic species, which represent things, their existence, and their presence before they exist; yet angels do not see things intuitively unless those things actually exist in themselves. Therefore presence or absence as represented things do not per se and directly distinguish intuitive and abstractive cognition; presence as represented can be found in abstractive cognition. Rather, presence or absence varies the intrinsic knowable genus only insofar as it is represented as a thing and is per se knowable, or is an object per se, not as a modification and accessory of another, as we will show presently. Therefore the formal account of intuition itself is not an essential difference in the knowable genus.

This is confirmed: presence and absence constitute intuitive and abstractive cognition insofar as they function as modes of a knowable or represented thing. Presence itself does not have the character of an object represented first and per se; it only modifies the represented object, so that cognition terminates at the object insofar as it is present—that is, insofar as it is made coexistent with the knowing faculty—not insofar as presence itself is a represented thing. For, as we said, presence itself can also be reached through abstractive cognition, since it is represented by way of a quiddity, which is proper to abstractive cognition. Therefore presence belongs to intuitive cognition only insofar as it modifies the object, not insofar as it constitutes the object. Hence it is not per se an essential difference, since it does not belong on the side of the specifying principle, which is the object or the account of what is representable, whether that which or under which; rather, it presupposes the principal represented object, of which it is a mode. For it modifies the object’s termination; it does not constitute the motive account. It belongs to that account insofar as it coexists with it terminatively, or on the side of the terminus. All this varies cognition accidentally, as in vision the modification of a common sensible in relation to a proper sensible—for example, whether white is seen in motion or at rest, in this or that position—does not essentially vary vision, since it belongs not on the side of the object per se and formally but on the accidental side of the object. In the same way, with respect to cognition, termination is modified by presence or absence.

From this it follows that if cognitions differ because one regards presence as directly represented and known while the other does not, such cognitions can differ essentially because of a diverse object in its being as a representable object. But they do not differ only in the account of intuitiveness and abstractiveness; they differ in the account of diverse objects represented by way of quiddity and thing.

The second part of the conclusion is clearly established, because intuitive and abstractive cognition can sometimes be found in cognitions otherwise distinct in species: either they represent diverse objects or they are under a diverse medium and specifying light. This is clear in the intuitive vision of God in himself as compared with abstractive cognition of him through faith, or in intuitive cognition of Peter as compared with abstractive cognition of a horse. Nevertheless, this essential diversity is not taken formally and precisely from the account of intuitive and abstractive cognition itself, but from other formal accounts that specify these cognitions in the knowable genus. Intuitive and abstractive cognition are joined to them as consequent, accidental accounts, not constitutive ones.

BUT YOU WILL ASK, whether this account of intuitive and abstractive cognition, although not per se an essential difference of cognition, is nevertheless some intrinsic mode in cognition itself, so that it really changes it; whether these are only extrinsic denominations arising from physical coexistence; or what, finally, they are.

It is answered that some think intuitive and abstractive cognition consist only in an extrinsic denomination, insofar as an object is said to be present or coexistent with the cognition itself, or not coexistent. This position can be supported by the example of truth and falsity: the same cognition is called true at one time and false at another solely by an extrinsic denomination, according to whether the object is or is not in itself. Likewise, since intuitive cognition signifies physical coexistence of the object and cognition, while abstractive cognition denies it, cognition is called intuitive or abstractive solely by an extrinsic denomination from such coexistence or noncoexistence. This must without doubt be asserted of God, since the numerically same cognition that is simple intelligence with respect to possibles is made intuitive solely by an extrinsic denomination: the thing itself passes from possibility to futurity or existence, which posits nothing in the divine knowledge itself except an extrinsic denomination. Likewise, that divine knowledge is approving knowledge is only an extrinsic denomination in divine knowledge. St Thomas equates the knowledge of vision with approving knowledge in this respect: that it adds something outside the genus of cognition, in On Truth III, a. 3, ad 8.⁴

This position is probable. Nevertheless, it seems more probable that intuitive and abstractive cognition are something intrinsic in cognitions by their very kind. Thus when a created cognition passes from intuitive to abstractive, or conversely, it is really changed.

The reason is that intuition imports coexistence of the object’s physical presence with cognition, not in any manner whatsoever, but with the attention and tendency of the cognition itself, terminated at such a thing as coexistent with it and modifying the object. But a different termination of cognition through attention to a coexistent thing posits some intrinsic change in the cognition itself; for abstractive cognition does not have such attention and termination to coexistence of presence. Here there is a great difference between the truth or falsity of cognition and the account of intuitive and abstractive cognition. Truth consists in conformity to the thing’s being or nonbeing in such a way that even if someone does not attend to the thing’s being or nonbeing, if he nevertheless makes a judgment, then if the thing does not exist in the way he judges, that judgment thereby loses truth; and if the thing does exist in that way, it acquires truth without any other intrinsic change intervening in the cognition. But for someone to see intuitively, it does not suffice that, while he is cognizing something, that thing be made present in itself. The knower must attend to its presence as coexistent with him, not merely as represented. If this attention is lacking, intuition is destroyed, even though the thing is present in itself, because it is not present in terminating attention and cognition. Thus God is present in himself to the cognition I have of him, and the soul and things in the soul are present in themselves, yet I do not see them intuitively. Therefore a different attention, with such termination of the object as present and coexistent, is intrinsic to cognition; yet it does not essentially vary cognition itself, because it is an accidental modification of the object, like the modification of a common sensible with respect to a proper sensible, which does not vary cognitions essentially, although it requires a different attention and termination. In this way presence as coexistent per se modifies the object, but does not distinguish it essentially; nevertheless, because it requires a different attention, it belongs intrinsically to the act.

As for the objection about intuitive cognition of God, it is answered that just as the same act of God’s will, because of its eminence, is necessary and free through its intrinsic perfection, although it connotes some relation of reason or extrinsic denomination with respect to the object, so the same knowledge, because of its eminence, is intrinsically abstractive and intuitive, approving as well, and at once practical and speculative, effective and ineffective with respect to diverse things, although it connotes some relation of reason or extrinsic denomination with respect to the object. This is not what it formally consists in, but that knowledge or act is not denominated intuitive or free without it. What one act has eminently in God, we have in several acts because of our limitation.

THE ARGUMENTS ARE RESOLVED.

First it is argued from the teaching of St Thomas, 1–2, q. 67, a. 5, where he says that the numerically same cognition of faith cannot remain in the fatherland, because “when the difference of a species is removed, the substance of the genus does not remain numerically the same”; and thus “it cannot be that the numerically same cognition, which was formerly enigmatic, later becomes open vision.” From this an argument is formed: St Thomas denies that the numerically same cognition that was enigmatic can become open vision because, when the difference of a species is removed, the substance of the genus does not remain numerically the same. Therefore St Thomas presupposes that open vision is a specific difference of cognition; otherwise his reasoning would prove nothing, since if the account of intuition or vision adds only an accidental difference, the whole substance of that cognition could remain when that difference is removed.

This is confirmed because intuitive and abstractive cognition are formally opposed and formally expel one another from a subject. They are opposed by clarity and obscurity concerning the thing’s presence, since intuitive cognition intrinsically imports evidence and certainty about the thing’s presence, which abstractive cognition does not import. Because of this evidence and certainty, intuitive cognition expels abstractive cognition. They are not merely opposed in a subject as two accidents of the same species; otherwise intuitive and abstractive cognition would be no more opposed to one another than two intuitive cognitions or two abstractive cognitions are among themselves. Hence faith is opposed to the vision of glory in no other way than because faith is abstractive and that vision intuitive.

THE ANSWER IS THAT St Thomas is speaking of open vision and enigmatic cognition, which rest on diverse means and do not include only the mode of intuitive or abstractive cognition. We have already said that although intuitive and abstractive cognition are not essential differences of cognition, they can nevertheless follow and presuppose cognitions distinct in species, to which they are joined when they are found in cognitions constituted by diverse means, lights, or representations. St Thomas explains very well that enigmatic cognition and open vision differ through diverse means in his commentary on 1 Corinthians, ch. 13, lect. 4.⁵

In reply to the confirmation, it is said that intuitive and abstractive cognition do not always differ by evidence and lack of evidence essential to the cognition itself, namely evidence derived from the formal account of the medium by which the specific account of cognition is constituted. For an abstractive cognition can be evident concerning everything represented by an intuitive cognition, although it does not have evidence of presence itself as coexistent with it. But this evidence does not essentially distinguish one cognition from another, because it does not belong on the side of the specifying formal account, but on the side of the object’s coexistence and application. Hence St Thomas says in Sentences III, d. 14, q. 1, a. 2, q. 3,⁶ that “the clarity of vision comes from three things: either from the efficacy of the cognitive power, as one with stronger sight cognizes more clearly than one whose sight is weak; or from the efficacy of light, as one sees more clearly in sunlight than in moonlight; or finally from the conjunction or application of the object, as things nearby are seen more clearly than things far away.” Therefore evidence in intuitive cognition proceeds from the precise and formal force of intuition only in this last way. But such clarity or evidence is accidental and extrinsic, since it depends only on the application and coexistence of presence that is more or less near.

As for what is said about the opposition of intuitive and abstractive cognition in the same subject, it is answered that they are indeed opposed to each other formally by a formality accidental to the cognition itself, but essential to the account of intuition. For example, being terminated or not terminated by a point is not essential to a line, and yet a line cannot have both at once. The same cognition cannot be both true and false because of its opposed termination toward objects, and yet truth and falsity belong to cognition accidentally. Faith and the vision of the fatherland differ not only precisely through abstractive and intuitive cognition, but also through diverse means: faith rests on the testimony of one who speaks, while vision rests on the representation of the thing in itself. In the same way, the vision of the divine essence by St Paul and his memory of having seen it differed not only through abstractive and intuitive cognition but through diverse means of representation. He saw God through God’s representation immediately in himself, but remembered having seen him through a created species immediately representing some created effect, namely the vision itself with respect to whether it exists.

Second it is argued: Intuitive and abstractive cognition differ through diverse formal objects and diverse represented things; therefore they import essential differences in the genus of cognition.

The consequence is clear, because there is no other principle for essentially distinguishing cognitions than their formal objects; and representations are distinguished by the diverse things represented. The antecedent is proved as follows: intuitive cognition, precisely as intuitive, regards an object as formally present to it, and it differs from abstractive cognition by this formality. In intuitive cognition the thing’s presence itself is represented, since it is known and reached as a thing known; it does not suffice that presence be in the object itself unless it is also represented in the cognition. This is clear in someone who does not notice a thing passing before him, and in the other examples given above. Therefore intuitive cognition does not import the thing’s presence as purely entitative and physical, outside the genus of cognition, but as represented and cognitively attained.

If it is said that this presence is represented in an exercised way, not as a thing directly represented, against this there are two counterinstances. The first concerns the cases of nouns and verbs, which, as we said in the Summulae, q. 2, a. 3, have concepts physically distinct from their direct concepts, though not categorematically distinct; nevertheless, they do not differ through diverse represented things, but through a diverse exercised connotation of the same represented thing. The second counterinstance concerns the formal account under which one cognition is essentially distinguished from another; yet it is neither represented nor reached by direct cognition, for then it would be the account that, not under which.

This is confirmed because present and absent essentially distinguish acts of appetite; therefore they also distinguish acts of cognition.

The consequence follows from the parity of reason between good and true with respect to present and absent. The antecedent is proved as follows: fear and sadness differ only by reason of an absent or present evil, just as hope and joy differ by reason of what is present and absent. Therefore presence and absence alone diversify these acts in species.

THE ANSWER to the principal argument is that intuitive and abstractive cognition do not differ through diverse formal objects in their being and formality as knowable, but in the being and formality of some accidental condition and mode. It is one thing for something to be formal and essential to intuitive cognition itself, another for it to be formal and essential to cognition itself. For example, the capacity to disperse sight is essential to white insofar as white is essentially distinguished from black, but it is not essential to a human being. Similarly, an object insofar as present or absent, with respect to its coexistence with the cognition itself and the object’s application, is essential to intuitive and abstractive cognition, but not to cognition itself. Thus intuitive and abstractive cognition are essentially distinguished from each other and differ by definition, as white and black do; but these differences are accidental to cognition itself. For, as was said, they do not regard presence and absence as grounding diverse knowability and immateriality, but as grounding the application of the object’s physical coexistence in terminating cognition.

As for what is said about diverse representation, it is answered that intuitive and abstractive cognition do not formally and by their own force differ through diverse represented things. For abstractive cognition too can represent presence on the side of the represented thing. Thus I now think of God as present to me, and I know evidently through effects that the soul is present to me, yet I see neither God nor the soul intuitively. Therefore these representations do not differ through diverse represented things, through connotation or relation to a distinct represented thing, or through distinct formal accounts under which things are represented, which essentially contribute to representation; they differ only through a diverse termination at presence as coexistent with cognition itself, as has been explained. Hence not every variation in representation is an essential variation unless it is reduced to a diverse account of that which or under which in the representation itself. Likewise, in external vision not every change essentially varies vision—for example, a change only in a diverse common sensible, such as seeing white in motion or at rest, with this or that position or shape, does not essentially vary vision itself but varies it accidentally, as we said. In the same way, presence or absence does not essentially vary cognition insofar as it imports a diverse termination of cognition toward presence as coexistent with it. But if presence and absence also function as represented things, they can vary cognitions as their diverse objects; this is not so when they only serve as a condition pertaining to the coexistence of the object’s presence with cognition.

From this the answer to the counterinstances given is also clear. For if the different cases of nouns distinguish concepts essentially, this is because they import some diverse relation or connotation in the object to the thing represented—for example, to the thing by way of agent or possessed, in the manner of “what,” “whose,” or “to whom.” Such relations are understood to affect the represented thing itself and to be founded in it; all the more so does a diverse account under which. But intuitive and abstractive cognition, according to their precise formality, do not signify presence or absence itself as representable things. As we have already said, the presence of a thing can be a thing represented through abstractive cognition, as when I know abstractively that God is present. If some abstractive cognition does not represent presence as a represented thing, while intuitive cognition does, then those representations differ essentially not by the precise force of intuitive and abstractive cognition, but because of the general account of representing diverse objects. Therefore, keeping to the precise formality of intuitive and abstractive cognition—which does not require diverse represented things or a diverse relation or connotation founded in the represented thing itself, but only a diverse termination and application of the object according to coexistence with cognition—they do not essentially vary concepts, just as white does not when seen in motion or at rest, or cognition does not when made true or false by coexistence with the thing’s being.

In reply to the confirmation, it is said that there is a different account in acts of appetite and acts of cognition, because appetite tends toward good or evil, and the account of good or evil varies essentially according to diverse suitability or unsuitability. Suitability or unsuitability depends especially on presence or absence of the thing, because a present object makes appetite rest, whereas an absent one makes it move, since appetite is in the manner of inclination and weight. But weight behaves one way at the center and another outside the center. Therefore the presence or absence of an object greatly contributes to varying the formal account of the object in what functions by way of inclination. Cognition, however, is perfected within the faculty itself by drawing things to itself; it is always perfected through their presence in knowable and intentional being. Hence unless this kind of presence varies, there is no variation in the essential account of cognition. Thus what remains of the object’s physical presence—whether it coexists or does not coexist with cognition—belongs outside the genus of that cognition and is considered per accidens, because it no longer pertains to intentional presence.

Finally it is argued, that if intuitive and abstractive cognition do not vary cognition essentially but accidentally, they are either extrinsic or intrinsic denominations. They are not extrinsic, for then the same numerically identical cognition could at one time be intuitive and at another abstractive, just as the same cognition can be true or false. And if presence and absence are compared with respect to intuitive and abstractive cognition as a common sensible is compared with respect to vision, it is clear that presence and absence cannot function as an extrinsic denomination; for the tendency toward a common sensible is not an extrinsic denomination in vision. But if intuitive and abstractive cognition are intrinsic modes, they can be nothing other than a tendency and order toward the object, which essentially varies cognition. Nor can it be understood how these intrinsic modes vary the concept accidentally without varying the representation itself in its relation to the represented thing.

Indeed, there is no division of cognition by intrinsic modes unless there is also an essential division, just as distinction by clarity and obscurity essentially varies cognition, although obscurity is not the formal account but an intrinsic mode of cognition.

Finally, some examples can be offered that seem to prove this essential distinction. The practical and speculative are essential differences, yet the practical signifies an order toward an operation, which is outside its account. Good and evil are essential differences of a human act, yet evil can be taken from some intrinsic circumstance.

THE ANSWER IS THAT intuitive and abstractive cognition are accidental modes that belong to the genus of cognition reductively as modes, not as essential species; and, as we said, it seems more probable that they are intrinsic modes. When it is said that they are the very order or tendency toward the object, we say that formally and directly they are not the order toward the object in its account as a represented object, but modifications of that order insofar as they make cognition tend toward the object not only as represented but as coexistent with cognition. Thus the account toward the object, as represented and known, formally constitutes cognition; toward the object represented in this way as coexistent with cognition there is instead a modifying relation. When we compare the account of intuition with the order and relation to a common sensible, the example holds in this respect: a common sensible is not represented primarily, but is represented as modifying color by an accidental modification related to visibility. Likewise, in intuitive cognition presence does not function as a thing directly represented—for it can also be represented in abstractive cognition—but as modifying the represented object by an accidental modification, as was said. Yet this example does not hold with respect to the coexistence involved.

When it is said that division by intrinsic modes is also essential, it is answered that modes can be called intrinsic either because they modify the formal account of the constitutive principle itself, and thus are intrinsic to the constitution, or because they are not extrinsic denominations, although they do not intrinsically modify the constitution. Division by modes of the first kind is also essential, because the mode cannot vary without the constitution depending on it varying; division by modes of the second kind is accidental, as was said.

As for the examples, it is answered that the practical and speculative differ essentially because that order toward an external operation arises from principles and means of knowing different from the formal account of the speculative; it does not signify only a diverse application and coexistence of the object, as intuitive and abstractive cognition do. Rather, it involves diverse formal principles for knowing the object in a compositive or resolutive way. As for what is said about the difference of moral evil, it is indeed an essential difference with respect to an act considered within the moral genus. Nevertheless, a circumstance is not the source of the species of an evil moral act unless that circumstance passes into a principal condition of the object, as is said in 1–2, q. 18, a. 10. Intuitive and abstractive cognition, however, are always circumstances of cognition, because they pertain to that coexistence.

To explain exactly the account of intuitive and abstractive cognition, we must consider the differences that formally belong to them in relation to one another. FOUR DIFFERENCES are usually enumerated. The first is on the side of the cause: intuitive cognition is produced by the presence of the object, whereas abstractive cognition is produced by species left behind in the object's absence. The second is on the side of the effect: intuitive cognition is clearer and more certain than abstractive cognition. The third is on the side of order: intuitive cognition is prior to abstractive cognition, for all our cognition takes its origin from some external sense through intuitive cognition. The fourth is on the side of the subject: intuitive cognition can be found in all powers, whether sensitive or intellectual, whereas abstractive cognition cannot be found in the external senses.

These four differences, however, presuppose the principal difference, which is drawn from the thing touched upon and explained in the definitions of these cognitions: namely, that intuitive cognition concerns a present thing, whereas abstractive cognition concerns an absent thing. The first three differences, however, are not so intrinsic to these cognitions that they cannot sometimes be absent, although they are usually found in us. For God can infuse a species that represents some thing or quiddity abstractively, and even the presence of a thing in the manner of a quiddity, before any thing is represented intuitively; he can also give abstractive cognition no less clarity and certainty than intuitive cognition, just as God himself knows possible things no less clearly than future ones.

Therefore, the principal differences are reduced to two: one on the side of the object, namely, that intuitive cognition concerns the presence of a thing; and the other on the side of the subject in which such cognitions can be found, especially with respect to the external senses—whether abstractive cognition can be found in them.

CONCERNING THE FIRST, most people think that the objective presence of a thing alone suffices for intuitive cognition, and that the thing's physical presence is not required; that is, it suffices for the presence to be known, without requiring it to coexist with the cognition itself. It follows that intuitive cognition of a physically absent thing can be given essentially.

CONCERNING THE SECOND, some think that through God's power a physically absent thing can be reached by an external sense, provided it is represented as present. See the Conimbricenses, On the Soul, book 2, ch. 3, q. 3, arts. 1 and 2.

Briefly, however (since this matter belongs more properly to the books On the Soul), we answer with two conclusions:

THE FIRST IS: Intuitive cognition requires not only the objective presence of its object, but also its physical presence. Thus there is no intuition of the past or future unless it is reduced to some measure in which it is present.

This conclusion is commonly derived from St. Thomas's teaching in 1 p., q. 14, a. 13. His disciples commonly say there that, in order to posit God's vision of future things, those things must be physically present in eternity; for no vision can be given of the future precisely as future. Indeed, St. Thomas's argument in that article necessarily requires this. For St. Thomas proves that God knows all future things as present because he does not know them in their causes, but in themselves, insofar as each is in act in itself; and because his cognition is measured by eternity, while eternity encompasses all time, all things that exist in time are eternally present to God.

If this argument concerns only objective presence, it is entirely ineffective, because it would prove the same thing by the same thing. For it intends to prove that God sees future things as present in themselves—that is, that he has their presence in his cognition and objectively—and would prove this because they are objectively present in eternity, that is, present to cognition. Thus it would prove that they are objectively present because they are objectively present.

AND THE BASIS OF THE CONCLUSION IS TAKEN from this: everyone agrees that intuitive cognition must regard a present object. For vision must reach things in themselves and as they exist outside the one who sees. Intuitive vision is like experiential cognition; indeed, it is experience itself. But it is unintelligible that experience should occur except of a thing's presence: how can an absent thing, precisely as absent, fall under experience? From what is universally acknowledged about vision itself, it is manifestly inferred that the object's physical presence is required and that objective presence alone cannot suffice.

For the presence of a thing can be known in only two ways: either in a signified act, as a certain quiddity, or as it is exercised and affects the thing itself, making that thing present in itself. The first serves abstractive cognition, since it is proper to abstractive cognition to consider things in the manner of a quiddity and nature; thus it also considers presence itself as a thing and a certain quiddity. Abstractive cognition is therefore possible even with respect to presence considered as a certain thing and as an object of discussion. For example, by reasoning or faith I now understand that God is present and that my soul is present in me, and yet I do not see either God or my soul intuitively.

Therefore, a second condition is required for intuitive cognition: some thing must be reached under its very presence, that is, as it is affected by that presence and physically exercised in the thing itself. But if presence is reached in this way, the thing cannot be reached as still within its causes and in the manner of the future, nor as having passed away and bearing the character of the past. Neither case is seeing the thing in itself or being moved or reached by it except insofar as it is in another. For the future, under the character of the future, can be understood only in its causes, in which it is contained. What is essentially called future is that which is not yet outside its causes, but is still within them, though they are ordered to produce the thing itself. Therefore it is impossible to know something as future except insofar as it is within its causes or ordered to them; for as soon as it is conceived in itself and apart from its causes, it ceases to be conceived as future. Likewise, the past as past can be conceived only under the character of an existence that has been lost. Therefore it is no longer conceived as in itself, since it does not have entity and existence in itself; rather, the past is conceived stripped of presence and existence. Hence it can be represented only through some effect left by it, or through a determination of a species to the existence it had. In all this, the thing is not seen in itself according to the being it has in itself outside the one who sees, but according to how it is contained in another and signifies a relation and connotation to another.

Since intuitive vision is directed to a present thing insofar as presence affects that thing in itself—and not insofar as it is contained in another or presence itself is known as a certain thing and quiddity—it is clear that intuition is directed to physical presence, as it is physically on the side of the object, and not merely to what is objectively present to the power. For objective presence is also preserved in abstractive cognition, which can know presence not as terminating cognition through its own presence, but as contained in or inferred from some principle, or as represented in the manner of a quiddity—as when we now know abstractively that God is present to us.

FROM THIS IT IS WELL INFERRED that Cajetan, in 1 p., q. 14, a. 9, rightly posited two conditions for something to be said to be seen in itself and immediately. The first is that it be presented as present to the one who sees: that is, through a presence not contained in another, but affecting the thing itself in itself. The second is that the thing seen have being outside the one who sees, as St. Thomas also posited in the cited passage from 3 Sent., d. 14. That is, it does not suffice for the thing to have being within the one who sees through an intentional representation of itself; it must also have being outside the one who sees, which is physical being, to which the cognition terminates.

If you ask what contradiction there would be in God's infusing someone with a representation of a future thing, for example the Antichrist as future in himself and distinct in being from his causes, while still ordered and related to those causes, just as existing things themselves are related to their causes, we shall answer this in the solution to the first argument below.

SECOND CONCLUSION: It is impossible for abstractive cognition, or cognition of an absent thing, to be found in an external sense.

We discuss this conclusion in the books On the Soul, q. 6, a. 1. The aforementioned Conimbricenses agree with it, although they differ greatly in the reason they give and absolutely hold that by divine power a physically absent thing can be sensed, provided it is represented as present.

Our conclusion, however, is more common among authors, especially Thomists. See St. Thomas, 3 p., q. 76, a. 7, and 4 Sent., d. 10, q. 1, a. 4, question 1.¹ In fact, it is evident that an absent thing cannot be seen, because the external senses must receive species from objects. But if objects are not present to the senses, they cannot move them and impart species. Therefore, physical presence of the object is required at least for this reason.

Moreover, in senses that require physical contact for sensation, such as touch and taste, it is manifest that the object's physical presence is essentially required, because contact is required, and sensation itself is intrinsically effected through contact. But contact essentially requires the presence of the things in contact, because it cannot occur between distant things; therefore, much less can it occur between absent things, since every absent thing is distant in reality. If someone touches not the thing itself but something placed in its stead, then he is said to touch not that thing but what is substituted in its place. Thus someone whose tongue is infected by a bitter fluid tastes that fluid rather than the flavor of another thing that seems bitter to him; hence the bitterness he senses is present.

This is also proved with respect to the other senses. First, from posterior considerations: all sense cognition is experiential and inductive, since the intellect's certainty is ultimately resolved into it. But it is incompatible with experience that it should concern an absent thing, because as long as the thing is absent its cognition must be received through another medium. Something is therefore still lacking for experience, since experience rests on the thing itself insofar as it is in itself; thus a thing is subject to experience when it is reached in itself. It is also proved a priori: external sense cognition must necessarily terminate at some object, not as represented within itself, but as placed outside itself. But what is placed outside the one who sees has physical existence; if it does not exist, the sense lacks the object that terminates it, and hence has no object about which it can operate, which is impossible. The minor premise is proved because the external senses do not form an image within themselves so that cognition may be perfected in it as an intrinsic terminus, as must be shown more fully in the books On the Soul². The reason is that the species that are sensed are outside the sense itself and are actually ultimately sensible, just as color becomes ultimately visible through light; hence no expressed species is needed in which the object would be formed as actually and ultimately sensible. Nor does memory, by which absent things are recalled, belong to the external senses as it does to the internal senses. Therefore there is in them no basis for forming an expressed species or word. This principle, then, is the root of the impossibility of knowing an absent thing through an external sense, lest it lack an object that terminates it, given that it forms no species within itself in which cognition could terminate. If something exists in one of its aspects, as in an image or effect, it will not be seen immediately, but as contained in the image; what is seen is the image itself.

ARGUMENTS ARE ANSWERED.

First it is argued: Intuitive cognition can be preserved without the object's physical presence, with only its objective presence; therefore physical presence is not required.

The antecedent is proved by many examples. First, God can produce a species representing something future, for example the Antichrist as he is in himself, with as much evidence and certainty as if he were present. Indeed, it is probable that Christ the Lord intuitively saw future things through infused knowledge. Therefore intuitive cognition can be given that represents something absent.

The antecedent is proved because there is no contradiction in such a future thing being represented in itself any more than there is in the past being represented; yet a species properly representing the past is given. Then, the species that the Antichrist will emit from himself when he is present can be produced by God independently of the Antichrist; therefore the Antichrist will then be represented intuitively before he exists in himself. The same holds for the angelic species infused into angels before things have been produced, which represent things without any variation in themselves, whether or not those things exist; therefore they always represent intuitively. For intuitive cognition is either the same cognition as abstractive cognition or different from it. If it is the same, intuitive cognition of an absent thing will already be given, because the same cognition continues when the thing is present and when it is absent. If it is different, then the representation in the angel varies when it sees a thing intuitively and abstractively, even though the species is entirely the same.

The second example is God, who sees future things intuitively before they exist in themselves; otherwise his cognition, in order to be intuitive, would depend on the thing's physical presence. Nor can one say that things are present in eternity. First, this is not certain; the contrary is probable. Second, even if things were not in eternity, they would still be seen intuitively. Third, things are in eternity as in a cause on which their duration in time depends, for they exist in another's being and another's measure. Therefore the thing need not physically exist in itself; it suffices that it exist in another for cognition to be intuitive. Finally, things that exist only conditionally are seen intuitively, since they are not reached through simple intelligence; yet they do not actually have presence either in themselves or in eternity, though they would have it if the condition were posited. Therefore intuitive cognition does not require the thing's actual presence in itself.

The final example is our intellect, which knows things intuitively and yet has no species representing an individual thing, and consequently no species of its presence as coexisting, which belongs only to an individual thing. Therefore intuitive cognition does not require reaching physical presence.

I ANSWER that these examples touch on many matters belonging to theology, and therefore we cannot dwell on them at length.

Briefly, however, we answer the first example as follows. No species can be given of a future thing that represents it as it is in itself, if the phrase “in itself” means that the thing's presence coexists with the cognition and immediately terminates it through itself. But such a species can be given if “in itself” means the proper quiddity of the future thing, insofar as this belongs to the motive and specifying principle of cognition. Thus the very quiddity of a future thing can be represented with respect to its substance and accidents in the manner of a quiddity, and with greater certainty and evidence than if it were seen intuitively, because evidence and certainty are taken from the light and medium through which cognition occurs, not from the manner of its termination. Hence a believer is more certain of the mystery of the Incarnation than I am of this paper, which I see. As for the manner of termination, a future or past thing can never be known through its presence as it is in itself, but only in another: either because it is represented in something similar, such as an image formed of that future thing; or in some cause in which that future thing is contained; or through some revelation or testimony of someone speaking; or in some similar way. Therefore this manner of cognition, in which the thing's own presence terminates cognition, is never found except in intuitive cognition, however much abstractive cognition may be clearer because of the medium and light through which cognition occurs.

This answers the proofs given for that example. We say that a proper representation of a past thing in itself can be given, because it has already existed and can terminate its representation; but it cannot terminate it through itself, as intuitive cognition requires, but only in one of its aspects, as was said above.

To the second proof, we say that the species could be produced by God, as it would be produced by the Antichrist, with respect to the species' entity; but it could not have the same exercise of representing the Antichrist as if he were present, as intuition requires, especially with respect to termination through his own presence. It could only terminate at the future thing as it is in another and through another. Therefore it is impossible that cognition of a thing as future, had through such a species, should remain intrinsically unchanged if the thing were made present and the cognition became intuitive: its termination at the thing in itself or in another differs, as does the attention required. Hence in an external sense a species immediately representing the Antichrist as future cannot be posited.

The same is said in reply to the proof concerning angelic species: they cannot represent future things by terminating at those things in themselves, but only as they are contained in causes. Future things begin to be represented in themselves only when they exist in themselves and cease to be future. This does not require a distinct representation on the part of the species, with respect to its character of representing and the thing represented, but only with respect to the manner in which the object terminates cognition. In that termination the likeness of the species is completed extrinsically, as St. Thomas says in 1 p., q. 57, a. 3, and q. 64, a. 1, ad 5. Therefore, if future contingents are contained in their causes contingently, an angel, however fully it comprehends its species, cannot know them as determinate existents, but only indeterminately, because they are contained no otherwise in the cause represented in that species, although it properly knows their quiddity. The fact that an angel's cognition changes when it becomes intuitive does not entail that its impressed species changes essentially; only the termination at the thing represented changes. For the species that represents the thing and its presence also coexists with the thing when it is present.

As to the second example, we reply that the view requiring physical presence for intuition cannot be upheld unless things are posited as physically coexisting in eternity, the only measure in which things can physically coexist with divine cognition before they exist in their proper measure. We therefore now assume this view as more certain. Its explanation can be found in the interpreters of St. Thomas on 1 p., q. 14, a. 13, in Cajetan there, and in Against the Gentiles, book 1, ch. 66. Hence Christ the Lord could not have seen future things intuitively through infused knowledge unless that cognition had been measured by eternity. This, however, does not seem admissible except in the beatific vision, which clearly reveals God himself and consequently his eternity, in which future things are contained.

In proof of this example, we say that things are contained in eternity not merely as in an efficient cause, but as measured by a higher measure that measures the duration of things not yet existing in their proper measure. Otherwise eternity would not be unchangeable and indivisible in measuring if it measured things only when they existed changeably in themselves, and did not measure them when they did not so exist. This is contrary to the character of eternity as a measure, which is also unchangeable and indivisible in measuring. Therefore all things are in eternity as in another's measure. They are not in it as within causes, but as in themselves—not as produced in their proper measure and according to the reception of an effect and change, but as touched by an unchangeable and eternal duration, insofar as they are reached by God's eternal action under the aspect of action, not under the aspect of being acted upon. For God's action is not always joined to a passion and the consequent effect in its proper change, as St. Thomas says in 1 p., q. 46, a. 1, ad 10. Yet in itself God's action is always eternal, and under an eternal aspect it regards its term and raises it to its own measure as an action, not merely as it regards that term within its causes. But theologians treat these matters more fully.

To the other proof, concerning conditionally future things, we reply that God does not reach them intuitively, because they do not truly exist, but would exist. They are reached through simple intelligence, not insofar as it excludes a decree of the will, but insofar as it excludes vision. Simple intelligence is so called either because it does not combine anything of physical presence, which belongs to vision, or because it does not combine anything of an order to the will, which belongs to a decree, as St. Thomas teaches in On Truth, q. 3, a. 3, ad 8.³ With respect to a contingent conditional of determinate truth, there is a decree determining it—not as to the consequence, which, once the condition and the application of God's concurrence are posited, is necessarily true, but considering the nature of the free subject, which is not sufficiently determined merely by positing the condition, but by God's decree and will. Therefore this determination is not reached by simple intelligence insofar as “simple” is opposed to an order to the will; rather, it is simple intelligence insofar as it is opposed to actual physical presence.

As to the final example, we reply first that, although our intellect does not have an impressed species directly representing an individual, it nevertheless has a concept that properly represents it through an association, ordering, and reflection upon the phantasm⁴, as we shall explain more fully in Physics, q. 1⁵, and in the books On the Soul, q. 10⁶. This suffices for it to be said to have intuitive cognition of a present thing, namely, through such a concept.

Or, second, it is said that precisely because the intellect knows with continuation and dependence on phantasms, and phantasms are coordinated with the senses—since phantasy is a motion produced by sense in act, as is said in On the Soul, book 3⁷—the intellect's cognition, although produced by a species that does not directly represent an individual, can nevertheless know it at least indirectly through this coordination and continuation with the senses. This suffices for it to have intuitive cognition in the same way.

Second it is argued, because a pagan or heretic who does not believe that Christ is in the Eucharist after consecration continues his vision and judgment concerning the bread in the same way as before, and is as certain of the bread's presence as before, namely through those accidents. But before consecration there was intuitive cognition not only of the accidents but also of the bread through the accidents. Therefore that intuitive cognition concerning this object remains as before. For if it were abstractive, it would be another cognition or judgment; yet the bread is absent. Therefore there is intuition of an absent thing.

It is confirmed because intuitive cognition of the very thing represented there is given in a mirror, since it occurs through species emitted by the object and reflected from the mirror to the eye. Cognition that occurs through species preserved and imparted by the object itself is intuitive. Yet the person's physical presence is not given in the mirror; for example, the person can be behind the one who sees and not in front when seen in the mirror. Therefore bread seen in a mirror cannot be consecrated, because it is not present.

If it is said that what is seen in a mirror is not the thing itself as represented, but only its image, there stands against this a difficult passage of St. Thomas, On Truth, q. 2, a. 6,⁸, where he says “through the likeness received from the mirror that is in sight, sight is directed straight to knowledge of the reflected thing, but by a certain return through that same likeness it is directed to the likeness itself that is in the mirror.” Therefore, according to St. Thomas, sight sees not only the likeness in the mirror, but also the very thing represented.

I ANSWER that in our case, with respect to consecrated bread, there are two kinds of cognition: one by the external eye itself with respect to the object it sees, and the other the judgment formed in the intellect about the substance of the thing seen. The first cognition remains intuitive as before, both in one who believes and in one who does not believe the mystery of the Eucharist, because it remains unchanged with respect to its primary and proper object, which is the colored thing. But that vision does not remain with respect to the sensible per accidens, which is substance, because sense is not acted upon by a sensible per accidens, as the Philosopher says in On the Soul, book 2, text 65⁹; see also St. Thomas, lecture 13.¹⁰ Therefore, insofar as the external sense is external, it pertains to it to reach intuitively only the colored thing according to its external surface. What is inside, or the substance of the thing itself, is reached intuitively by sense only per accidens, since it is seen per accidens. Once that is removed, the thing is no longer seen per accidens; yet the external vision itself is not thereby changed intrinsically, because what is per accidens does not change cognition intrinsically. The intellect's judgment by which a heretic judges that the substance of the bread is present was never intuitive in itself and immediately, even before consecration, because the substance of a thing is not seen in itself. Nor is a judgment properly intuitive or abstractive except by reason of the terms of which it is composed; for “intuitive” is said of simple cognition, not of judgment, which formally does not regard a thing as present but as belonging to another. Therefore the same judgment about the substance of the bread can continue before and after consecration, even though the true intuition of the bread is discontinued, since its substance was seen per accidens and not in itself. For what is seen and intuitive only per accidens does not belong intrinsically to cognition, but extrinsically, like truth or falsity. Just as, if the accidents were removed and the bare substance remained, the intellect's continued cognition of it would not be intuitive, so conversely, if the accidents remain but the substance does not, its cognition in the intellect is not intuitive, and yet it is the same cognition.

In reply to the confirmation, we say that the thing itself is not seen intuitively in a mirror, but its image, which is formed in the mirror through the refraction of species and light. St. Thomas teaches that this image is generated in 4 Sent., d. 10, q. 1, a. 3, question 3¹¹, and 3 p., q. 76, a. 3, and in Meteorology, book 3, lecture 6, in a certain digression on the colors of the rainbow, concerning question 4, ad 2.¹² Thus, through refracted light together with the species carried along with the light, that image is generated and produced in the mirror, just as the colors of the rainbow are produced in a cloud opposite the sun. What the eye sees in the mirror is that image formed there, which it certainly sees intuitively; it sees the reflected thing only insofar as that thing is contained in the mirror's image. It is said to see through species sent out by the object and refracted, not because it formally and immediately sees through the species as sent out by the object, but through species of the image formed in the mirror by species originating from the object, with other species produced by refraction. When St. Thomas says that sight is directed straight to knowledge of the reflected thing through the likeness received from the mirror that is in sight, he is not speaking of sight as merely sensitive cognition, but of the whole cognition, both internal and external, received from the mirror. This cognition does not stop at the mirror's image, but at the reflected thing to which that image leads; all of this is called sight.

Third it is argued: God or an angel can place in an external sense a species representing an absent thing; therefore the eye will then see it.

The consequence is clear, because an eye formed by a species, especially if external light remains, can pass into act; it requires a present object for no other reason than to furnish it with species. Therefore, if these conditions are posited without the object, sight will elicit an act.

The antecedent is proved. First, it is not incompatible with reason that God preserve species without an object, since they depend on it only in the genus of efficient cause, and God can supply that cause. Second, appearances sometimes occur around bodies without any change having taken place in the bodies, but with a change in the sense of the one who sees. This is evident when the form of a child or of flesh appears in the Eucharist, as St. Thomas teaches in 3 p., q. 76, a. 8; and when Christ appeared to his disciples in another form, as he teaches there, q. 54, a. 2, and q. 55, a. 4. This happens through the production of a likeness in the eye, just as if it were produced naturally, as he teaches in 4 Sent., d. 10, q. 1, a. 4, question 2.¹³ Indeed, through the action of demons certain illusions occur in the same way, when species affect the organs of external sense and things are seen as if they were present outside, as St. Thomas teaches in 2 Sent., d. 8, q. 1, a. 5, ad 4.¹⁴

It is confirmed that God can raise a sensible thing up so that it acts upon something distant and even acts instrumentally upon something spiritual. Therefore it will also not be incompatible with reason for him to raise a sense so that it acts through an immanent act upon something not present, since the character of being present or absent does not lie outside its adequate object.

I ANSWER the principal argument: God can indeed preserve a species in the eye with respect to its entity, supplying the object's efficient causality, just as he can preserve light in the air without the sun. However, an eye actualized by such a species cannot tend toward an object that is not present, just as it cannot see without external light. For without external light or a present object, it lacks the form or terminus of external experiential sensation, since no image is formed within the external sense so that cognition may be perfected there independently of an external sensible object that terminates it, as we saw above. Therefore it is impossible for a thing to be known by sensing and experiencing through external sensation, which differs from imagination, unless something external is reached in itself and not as formed within the sense.

To the second proof, we say that these external appearances can occur only in two ways: either through the efficacy of external vision, or through the efficacy of imagination, which supposes or judges that it sees externally. This happens when species existing within descend to the organs of the senses, whether of common sense or of the external senses, and imagination, moved by them, supposes that it sees with external sight because it is moved by sight itself—that is, by species descending around sight. If it occurs in the first way, there is always some change in the medium or in some external body, with air thickened there and color appearing, just as through some smoke beams appear to be serpents or vines or something similar. In this way certain apparitions can occur in the Eucharist or around the body of Christ, not because a change occurs in that body, but in the surrounding medium; still, this does not mean the eye sees something without an external visible object, whether apparent or real. The same occurs whenever visible things appear multiplied through the refraction of species. In the second way, vision is not formed by the eye itself, but imagination is deceived or moved into thinking that it sees what it does not see, just as in drunken people species are doubled for the imagination by an excessive agitation of the spirits. Demons often use this method to delude and deceive the phantasy. But because this happens through the descent to the external organs of species or images that are in the spirits of the imaginative power, so that the imagination seems to be moved by them, St. Thomas says that those species affect the organs of external sense: they descend from the head to the senses so that from there they are again cast into the phantasy, and thus something appears to be seen.

In reply to the confirmation, we say that there is a different account for agents acting by a transitive action, or for any efficient cause, and for cognition by an external sense. In efficient causes, the presence of the patient near the agent is only a condition for acting, pertaining to the union of the patient, not to the formal specification of the action; therefore that condition can be supplied while the essential character of acting is preserved. But the presence of an object to the senses does not pertain to the union of the patient, but to the union of the term that specifies the action, on which cognition essentially depends, just as a transitive action depends on its produced effect and an immanent action on the thing known. Likewise, intellection cannot be given without a word, whether united or produced; in the external senses, the place of the word is occupied by an externally present sensible thing. If sight is strengthened to see something far away that was otherwise absent from it, this is not a raising of sight to see an absent thing, but a rendering of that thing present to its power, to which it was not present when that power was weaker.

THREE POINTS make this article difficult. First, whether a reflexive concept is really distinct from a direct one, and what causes this. Second, what is known by a reflexive concept and what its object is. Third, whether direct and reflexive concepts differ essentially.

As to the first, some think that, in order to know one’s own concept, it is not necessary to form another concept of it, as may be seen in Ferrariensis, Against the Gentiles I, chapter 53, § Cum autem obicitur. But St. Thomas expressly says in Summa theologiae I, q. 87, art. 3, ad 2, that “the act by which someone understands a stone is one thing, and the act by which he understands that he understands is another.” Therefore a reflexive concept is also distinct from a direct one, because a distinct act produces a distinct concept. St. Thomas expressed this more clearly in On the Power of God, q. 9, art. 5¹, where he says: “In this respect it makes no difference whether the intellect understands itself or something other than itself. For just as, when it understands something other than itself, it forms a concept of that thing, which is signified by a word, so, when it understands itself, it forms a word of itself, which it can also express verbally.”

Some authors labor to explain the reason for and necessity of this reflexive concept in understanding one’s own concept. It seems, however, that this can be clearly deduced from the cited teaching of St. Thomas in Summa theologiae I, q. 87. We assume only that the intellective power can reflect upon itself, not the sensitive power: both because the intellect regards every being universally, and therefore itself as well, whereas in its act the sensitive power is devoid of what it knows—for example, vision does not itself contain color, and so does not attain itself—and because one body cannot act upon itself: one part always acts on another, while one part of an organ is not sufficient to elicit cognition. On this see St. Thomas in Sentences II, dist. 19, q. 1, art. 1² and Sentences III, dist. 23, q. 1, art. 2, ad 3³; we will discuss it in our books on the Soul, q. 4⁴.

In intellective powers, then, the whole reason for reflexion arises from this: in this life our intellect and its act are not intelligible objectively except dependently on sensibles. Thus our concept, although formally present, is not objectively present so long as it is not formed after the likeness of a sensible quiddity; this can happen only by a reflexion drawn from a sensible object. Such a reflexive concept is not necessary in angels and separate substances, because they directly know their own substance, intellect, and what is in themselves as accidents of their own substance. Consequently, by the same species through which they know themselves, they can also attain those accidents. They do not know themselves reflexively; therefore neither do they know their concept, since the concept, when produced, is intelligible to their intellect no less than their substance is.

THE REASON FOR THIS, however, is derived by St. Thomas in the cited place of Summa theologiae I from the fact that each thing is known insofar as it is in act. The ultimate perfection of the intellect is its operation, because through its operation it is not ordered to perfecting something else, as a transitive action is. Therefore the first thing understood by the intellect is its very act of understanding, since this is most actual in it and consequently first and most intelligible to itself. Nevertheless, different intellects stand differently with respect to this.

For there is one intellect, namely the divine intellect, which is its very act of understanding. Thus in God what understands that he understands himself is the same as what understands his essence, because his essence is his act of understanding. There is another intellect, namely the angelic intellect, which is not its act of understanding, but whose essence is nevertheless the first object of its understanding. Thus, although in an angel what understands that it understands and what understands its essence are distinct in account, it understands both at once in the same act. For understanding its essence is the proper perfection of its essence, and a thing is understood together and in one act with its perfection. There is yet another intellect, namely the human intellect, which is neither its act of understanding nor does its own essence constitute the first object of its understanding. Rather, that first object is something external, namely the nature of a material thing. Therefore what is first known by the human intellect is an object of this kind; by it the object is known; and through the act the intellect itself is known, whose perfection is the act of understanding.

Thus far St. Thomas’s reasoning.

From this it is clearly deduced that the whole root of the reflexion of a concept upon the very act and power of understanding is drawn from the objective character of the intellect itself. For although a concept and cognition are formally present to the power, they are not objectively present. Formal presence is not enough for something to be directly knowable, as Cajetan rightly noted in the same place; objective presence is required. But something cannot be objectively present unless it takes on the conditions of the object of that power. Since the proper object of our intellect is the quiddity of a material thing considered in itself, what is not the quiddity of a material thing is not directly present objectively. To take on its character, it requires reflexion. Thus our concepts, although intelligible in themselves, are not in themselves intelligible in the mode of the quiddity of a material thing; consequently, they are not primarily and directly present objectively except insofar as they are taken in the mode of a sensible quiddity, which they must receive from a sensible object. Because they receive this within the power from an external object known directly, they are said to be known reflexively and made intelligible with the intelligibility of a material being. None of this applies to angels or to God, who directly and primarily understand their own essence and everything in it.

If you ask what impressed species serves for reflexive cognition of a concept, the reply is drawn from St. Thomas, On Truth, q. 10, art. 9, ad 4 and ad 10⁵: things known through reflexive cognition are not known through their own essence or their own species. Rather, they are known by knowing the object, or through the species of the things about which the act and concept are concerned. For a concept and act need reflexion insofar as they need to be formed after the likeness of the sensible object around which the direct concept operates; therefore they need the species of such an object, so as to be informed after its likeness and known.

Hence St. Thomas says in Sentences III, dist. 23, q. 1, art. 2, ad 3⁶, that “the intellect knows itself like other things, namely through a species—not its own species, but that of the object, which is its form. From this it knows the nature of its act, from the nature of its act the nature of its power, from the nature of its power the nature of its essence, and consequently the nature of the other powers. It does not have distinct likenesses of all these things; rather, in its object it knows not only the character of truth, but every cognition that is in it, etc.” Here St. Thomas clearly teaches how the species of the object serves for cognition of the act, insofar as it represents in its object the character of what is known. For a species remains in the memory not only representing the object, but also representing that it was known. From this relation of what was known the intellect returns to the cognition itself and to its principles. Thus through such a species the species itself can also be attained reflexively, not immediately in itself, but as something belonging to the known object. It is nevertheless possible for the intellect afterward to form separate species of the concept, power, and other things of this kind, in the way that it forms other species from species previously conceived—for example, from the species of a mountain and gold it forms the species of a golden mountain—as St. Thomas teaches in Summa theologiae I, q. 12, art. 9, ad 2.

Concerning the second difficulty, two points must be explained:

FIRST, as to the material object of reflexive cognition—that is, what reflexive cognition concerns—we answer briefly that it includes all those things found in the soul which, from cognition of the object, take on a representation and mode of a sensible quiddity. In this way the intellect returns to know not only the concept and act, but also habits, species, the power, and the very nature of the soul, as St. Thomas says in the place recently cited from Sentences III. When the definition of a reflexive concept says that it is a concept of another concept, this is understood to mean that it is also a concept of everything within the soul that contributes to the concept, as we said in book 1 of the Summulae, chapter 6; or else it means that the first thing attained through reflexion is another concept, and afterward the power, soul, and so on.

SECOND, what must be explained pertains to the formal character that a reflexive concept regards. Here, too, we say briefly, on the same authority of St. Thomas, that formally a reflexive concept regards knowing the nature of that upon which it reflects, in the way it can be known through effects or connotatively, in the mode of a sensible quiddity. Although these things are physically present, they are not made objectively present through themselves, but by means of a likeness and connotation of a sensible quiddity. Since this is to attain that presence as it were in another and not in itself, we are not said to see our concepts intuitively.

From this it follows that through a reflexive concept, insofar as it returns to the direct concept, the concept itself is represented as a certain quality and image, in the mode of the quiddity of an image considered in a signified act; consequently, the thing signified by the direct concept is represented there only very remotely and indirectly. The reason is that in a reflexive concept the very thing signified functions as the term from which that reflexion begins. Therefore the reflexive concept does not represent it as its object and as the term toward which the representation is directed, but only connotes it as the term from which the reflexion began. Although a reflexive concept attains the direct concept as a kind of image, and a movement toward an image also reaches the thing imaged, this is understood when the image is not considered separately and in itself, but insofar as it performs the office of leading to its prototype, as the Philosopher teaches in On Memory and Recollection⁷ and St. Thomas there, lecture 3⁸. In a reflexive concept, however, the movement occurs in the opposite way: from the object to the image. For by knowing the object directly, we reflect in order to know the concept that is its image. Therefore through such reflexion the intellect is directed to the image in the mode of a quiddity and attains it in a signified act. Consequently, it need not proceed through the image to the thing signified, although, as we said, it also attains that thing indirectly insofar as it is the term from which this reflexive movement began.

Concerning the final difficulty, the brief reply is that although “direct” and “reflexive,” insofar as they signify certain movements of the intellect, do not seem to imply essential differences of cognition—just as knowledge formed through reasoning and knowledge without reasoning, if they concern the same object, do not vary the essential character of knowledge—nevertheless, insofar as “reflexive” and “direct” concepts imply different representations and different objects represented, they differ simply in species. For the direct concept is a likeness of the object, while the reflexive concept is a likeness of the concept, act, or power itself; so it is with other cognitions and representations that concern different objects.

THE ARGUMENTS ARE ANSWERED.

Against what we resolved concerning the first difficulty, the first argument is that the intellect understands the concept or word and the object represented in it by the same act. Likewise, by the same act it is directed to the object and to the act, as St. Thomas teaches in Sentences I, dist. 10, q. 1, art. 5, ad 2⁹. Therefore it does not need a reflexive act to recognize the concept and act.

This is confirmed because a concept and act are present to and united with the intellect much more intimately than the object itself, which is united to the power by means of such a concept. They are likewise immaterial and intelligible in ultimate act; therefore a concept is compared to the light by which an object is illuminated, as St. Thomas says in opusculum 14¹⁰. But what is intelligible in ultimate act does not need another concept or intelligible form in order to be known. Hence light is known through its essence and not through a likeness, as St. Thomas expressly says in Sentences II, dist. 23, q. 2, art. 1¹¹. There he distinguishes the way light is seen from the way a stone is seen, saying that light is not seen by the eye through some likeness of itself left in it, but through its essence informing the eye; a stone, however, is seen through a likeness left in the eye. He signifies the same in Summa theologiae I, q. 56, art. 3. The same is also commonly said of an impressed species: it is already knowable through itself. Therefore a concept, which is more in act than an impressed species, is so all the more.

THE REPLY to the principal argument is that the power is directed by the same act to the object and to the act insofar as the act is the reason for knowing the object, but not insofar as it is a thing known; in this latter respect it needs a reflexive concept. St. Thomas is understood in this way in the place cited by the argument: he is speaking of the act of understanding insofar as it is attained as the reason for knowing the direct object, and in this way it is attained by the same act as its object. The same is true of a concept or word: the concept and the thing represented are understood by the same act insofar as the word is taken as the reason that expresses the object on the side of the term. For this reason, the word itself is sometimes said to be known as what, when the object is known—that is, because it is known as belonging on the side of the terminus “what,” not on the side of the principle, or as that by which the thing is known.

To the confirmation the reply is drawn from St. Thomas, On Truth, q. 10, art. 8, ad 4, at the second place¹², and Cajetan, Summa theologiae I, q. 87, art. 3: a word or concept is present to our intellect formally, but not objectively. For it is an inhering form by which an object is known, but is not itself an object equipped with act, as our intellect requires—namely, in the mode of a sensible quiddity. Therefore, with respect to our intellect, it is neither intelligible nor understood in act through itself. In separate substances, however, a concept is intelligible formally and objectively through itself, because they understand not only sensible quiddity but anything purely spiritual.

And as to the point added about light, the reply is drawn from St. Thomas, On Truth, q. 10, art. 8, ad 10, at the second place¹³: light is not seen through its essence except insofar as it is the principle of visibility and a certain form that gives being to what is actually visible. Light as it exists in the sun itself, however, is seen only through its likeness in the eye, just as a stone is seen. When St. Thomas says in Sentences II that light is seen through its essence, the meaning is that it is by its essence the form of visibility. Insofar as it is such a form, giving color actual visible being, it is not seen through a likeness distinct from the one emitted by the color itself once made visible. As for an impressed species, we say that it is knowable through itself as that by which, but not as that which, or as a thing known; in the latter way it needs a reflexive concept.

Second it is argued that a spiritual thing—God, angels, and whatever is not a material quiddity—cannot be attained by the intellect except by taking on the mode of a sensible object; nevertheless, such things are not known by reflexive cognition. Therefore neither are our concepts nor acts understood reflexively because they are known in the mode of a sensible object. For if they were known as they are in themselves, they would be known directly in the way angels know them.

This is confirmed because reflexive and direct concepts are formed through distinct species, since one species represents the concept and another the object, just as the things themselves are distinct. Therefore they do not stand to each other like a reflexive and direct movement. A reflexive movement must necessarily be continuous with the direct one and proceed from the same principle. For if distinct movements proceed from distinct principles, one is not reflexive with respect to the other.

THE REPLY is that, for the character of a reflexive concept, it is not enough to know something after the likeness of another; rather, what is known must belong on the side of the knowing principle. In this way there is a return from the object to the cognition or principle of cognition. When an external object takes on the mode of another object, there is an order or comparison of one to the other, but no reflexion.

To the confirmation the reply is that whether or not a concept is known through species distinct from the species of the object, it is still said to be known reflexively because this movement of cognition originates from the object. From knowledge of the object someone is moved to form cognition of the concept and species through which it is known. Thus this distinction of principles does not remove reflexion from cognition but rather contributes to it, since the very principles of knowing, or species, are formed through that reflexive movement, continued and derived from cognition of the object.

“Ultimated” and “non-ultimated” are said relatively, like end and means. In general, therefore, any concept that is the terminus and end of another may be called ultimated, so that one is ordered to the other. In this way one operation of the intellect is ordered to another, principles to conclusions, and reasoning to a perfect judgment. In all these cases there is something at which cognition comes to rest, called the ultimate, and something by which it tends toward that terminus, called a means or non-ultimate.

As for dialecticians, who treat names and significant words, the ultimated and non-ultimated concept are distinguished by this: the ultimated concerns the things signified, while the non-ultimated concerns the words that signify them. This helps discern Logic’s object: Logic does not treat things themselves insofar as they are things, as physics does, but the instruments by which things are known, which are for the most part significant words, when rightly disposed and ordered.

From this it follows that the ultimated and non-ultimated are not per se and formally essential differences of concepts, since they do not belong to the object insofar as it constitutes the knowable nature; rather they belong to the ordering of one concept or cognition to another. They therefore add to a concept only relations or dispositions toward objects, not insofar as these are knowable and specifying, but as ordered like a means and a terminus. The essential difference of cognition is taken from the object as motive, specifying, and knowable; everything else consists in consequent relations or connotations. Yet these relations sometimes presuppose a distinction of objects, although they do not formally constitute it. Thus the ultimated and non-ultimated concepts at issue here occur between distinct concepts: one concerns the thing signified and another the word signifying it. Since they concern different objects, they are distinct concepts by presupposition, not formally by virtue of being ultimated and non-ultimated.

One cannot say, as some authors teach, that the concept of a significant word signifies by convention the object of an ultimated concept—not because the concept itself has been imposed to signify, but because its object, namely the word, signifies a thing by imposition. This is impossible, however, because a concept is such a natural likeness of its object that it in no way derives conventional signification from the object. Rather, the concept naturally signifies that very conventional signification of the word, as its image. The conventional signification of the word is therefore not an exercise of the concept’s signifying, but the object signified by the concept.

THE QUESTION THAT REMAINS HERE, THEN, is whether a non-ultimated concept of a word represents only the word itself and not its signification, or represents both.

Almost everyone agrees that some ordering toward signification is required for a concept to be non-ultimated. For if a word is considered without qualification merely as a sound produced by an animal, it clearly belongs to an ultimated concept, since it is considered as a thing, as Philosophy treats it.

Some say that the signification of a word need not be represented in a non-ultimated concept; it is enough that the signification be exercised or presupposed as habitually known.

It is truer, however, that the signification itself must also be represented in the non-ultimated concept. It is called non-ultimated precisely insofar as something is conceived at which one does not finally rest, but which is taken as a means to a further terminus. Only the word’s signification constitutes it as a means relative to the thing signified. Therefore, if the signification is not conceived, neither is that by which the word is constituted as a means or non-ultimate conceived. Nor is it enough to say that the signification is exercised, since the word as represented there does not exercise its conventional signification¹. All that is exercised in that concept is natural signification; therefore the conventional signification of the conceived word is not exercised but represented. It is not necessary to attain the very essence of conventional signification and the relation of imposition; it suffices to know that there is signification. Still less is habitual knowledge of the signification or imposition sufficient: habitual knowledge is cognition only in first act, and unless it passes into second act, the concept cannot be called actually non-ultimated, since a concept is an actual representation. Habitual knowledge of signification, then, cannot denominate an actual concept as non-ultimated.

BUT YOU WILL OBJECT: A countryman who hears the Latin word “animal,” whose meaning he does not know, forms a non-ultimated concept of that word, since he does not pass on to the thing signified, and yet he does not know its meaning. Therefore representation of the meaning is not required for a non-ultimated concept.

It is confirmed because concepts signify the same thing for everyone, as Aristotle says in On Interpretation I, ch. 1². But word meanings are not the same for everyone. Therefore non-ultimated concepts do not represent word meanings; otherwise they would not signify the same thing for everyone.

THE ANSWER IS that the countryman who hears that word either knows that the word is significant—at least, that it signifies something—because he sees people speaking with it, although he does not know what it signifies; or he does not know at all that it is significant. In the first case, he forms a non-ultimated concept because he truly knows the word as significant. In the second, it will be an ultimated concept, since it represents the word only as a sound, not as a sign and means leading to something else. When he perceives that it signifies, without yet knowing what the signification was imposed to signify, his concept is called non-ultimated: although in fact it does not lead to the particular thing signified as an ultimate, it at least leads in general and confusedly, owing to the subject’s ignorance of the signification.³

To the confirmation, concepts signify the same thing for everyone when they concern the same object and are formed in the same way, for they are natural likenesses. Thus all non-ultimated concepts representing words insofar as significant represent the same thing for everyone in whom they are so formed. If they are not formed in the same way for everyone, because not everyone knows the word’s signification, they are not the same concepts and do not signify the same thing for everyone.

Second, it is argued: If a non-ultimated concept represents the word’s signification, then when it represents an equivocal term either several concepts of that word are formed, or only one. If only one, there will be equivocation in the mind, since it signifies a word with several unconnected meanings. If several concepts, it follows that no concept of an equivocal word exists in the mind, because a single word is never presented with several meanings; consequently, it cannot be uttered orally, since only what is conceived in the mind is uttered. But no equivocal term is then conceived, because several concepts of the word are formed, each having only one meaning, and so each will be univocal.

THE ANSWER IS that there is only one non-ultimated concept of an equivocal term, for example, “dog,” because it represents one word having several meanings, just as a concept representing a man represents a man having several accidents. This does not entail equivocation in that concept, because the several meanings are not formally in the concept but objectively. The concept represents an object having several meanings, namely that word, through a single natural likeness representing one word affected by several impositions. Equivocation in the mind would follow only if one concept had several formal meanings, which are natural likenesses; these cannot be multiplied in one concept. But there is no difficulty in one concept representing several meanings of a word or sign as the thing represented, since this occurs by a single formal representation.

You will insist: That non-ultimated concept of an equivocal term is ordered to several ultimated concepts, because it is ordered to several things signified, and not by one ordering but several, which belong to the concept’s representation. Therefore, just as a word is equivocal because several signifying relations are directed to several things signified, the concept should be called equivocal because of its several relations to several ultimated concepts.

The answer is that the non-ultimated concept is ordered to several ultimated concepts by one ordering on the side of formal representation, but by several on the side of the object represented. For by one natural signification it represents a word ordered, through several impositions, to several things signified. Thus on the side of the object it represents several relations belonging to the word toward several things and several ultimated concepts, and so that concept represents several relations; formally, however, it has one representation of that word affected by several relations.

Finally, it is argued: The same concept of a word that is non-ultimated will become ultimated merely if the word is stripped of its signification, because it will signify that word as a thing at which one finally rests. Therefore it does not differ essentially from an ultimated concept, since it can become ultimated without any intrinsic change. Nor can one say that the word will take the place of a terminus relative to itself because it represents itself; otherwise any thing representing itself would have a non-ultimated concept insofar as it represents itself.

THE ANSWER IS that those concepts do not differ essentially precisely because one is ultimated and the other non-ultimated, as was shown; rather, they differ because they are presupposed to concern different objects, from which essential diversity is taken. Thus, if a word were stripped of its signification and the intellect knew this and formed a concept of the word as non-signifying, that concept would already be distinct from the non-ultimated concept previously formed of it as significant. It would be an ultimated concept of the word as a thing, not as a sign. But if the intellect did not know that it had been stripped of signification and continued the prior concept of it as significant, that concept would remain non-ultimated as before, though false; its falsity would change, not its essential representation.

Observe that although the relations of ultimated and non-ultimated concepts differ in species as different modes of concepts, they do not formally function as specifications of the concepts themselves. They make the modes specifically distinct, but not the intrinsic nature of the concepts themselves, except insofar as the latter have objects distinct in species.