Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

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.