Commentaria in Summam contra Gentiles, Liber II

After Saint Thomas has shown that the agent intellect is not a separate substance but something of the soul, he now wishes to exclude a certain objection against his determined position ¹. And first, he states the objection itself; second, he responds to it ².

I. The objection is as follows. Nothing acts insofar as it is in potency, but only insofar as it is in act. But the intellectual soul is in potency with respect to all intelligibles, which pertains to the possible intellect. Therefore it cannot be active with respect to intelligibles, as making them actually intelligible. Therefore there cannot be in it an agent intellect together with a possible intellect.

II. Saint Thomas responds, and says first ³ that it is not unfitting for one thing, compared to something else, to be both in act and in potency with respect to different things, as appears in the case of air with respect to earth: for air is in act moist, while earth is in potency moist; and it is in potency dry, while earth is in act dry. And so the intellective soul is compared to phantasms. For the soul itself is in act immaterial, and consequently of an intelligible nature, since every immaterial substance is of this kind: but a phantasm is not in act of intelligible nature, because it is a likeness of a sensible thing according to material conditions, and it also exists in a material organ; rather, it is intelligible in potency, insofar as from that singular thing whose likeness it is, a universal nature can be received, stripped bare of all individuating conditions. The soul is also in potency with respect to determinate likenesses of things knowable by us: but the phantasm has such a determinate likeness in act. Therefore in the soul there is an active power with respect to phantasms, making them actually intelligible, which power is called the agent intellect; and there is a power which is in potency with respect to determinate likenesses, namely, to be received from phantasms, which is called the possible intellect.

He says secondly ⁴ that in this comparison the soul differs from natural things. For, since in them one thing is found in act, namely natural bodies, which share in matter, they act and are acted upon by one another in the same order, that is, simultaneously. But the intellective soul, because it is not in potency to the likenesses of things in the way they exist in phantasms, but rather as these are elevated to something higher, namely when they are abstracted from material conditions, whereby they become actually intelligible; therefore the action of the agent intellect upon the phantasms precedes the reception of the possible intellect, as if ⁵ the primacy of action were attributed to the agent intellect, and not to the phantasms.

It is said thirdly ⁶ that this response could be made entirely clear by a wholly similar example if the eye, together with its being receptive of colors, had only so much light as could make colors actually visible. For just as certain animals, because they have weak eyes, are moved by a small light—by which they suffice to illuminate objects standing before them—but are confounded by a great one; so our intellect is disposed toward the most manifest things as the eye of the owl toward the sun, whereas the small intellectual light of the agent intellect, connatural to us, suffices for our understanding. This is evident from the necessity of positing the agent intellect. For it is posited in order to make intelligibles proportionate to us. But this does not exceed the mode of light connatural to us.

This necessity of positing an agent intellect, however, holds according to the position of Aristotle, who held that things closer to sense, namely material things, are more intelligible to us, but in themselves less intelligible, since they are not intelligible in themselves but become so from sensible things. — According to Plato's position, however, there is no such necessity of positing an agent intellect: since he held that the intelligibles are intelligible to us in themselves, namely the ideas. That position is nevertheless false: for then, the more intelligible things were in themselves, the more they would be understood by us.

It is therefore evident, with respect to the argument adduced at the beginning, that the consequence is false. For although nothing acts insofar as it is in potency, the soul may nevertheless be in potency according to one esse and in act according to another.

III. Concerning the first statement of the response, there arises for explanation what has been said repeatedly both here and in the preceding chapter, namely, that the agent intellect makes phantasms, which are intelligible in potency, intelligible in act; and this happens through their illumination by the agent intellect. Therefore, first we must see how the agent intellect illuminates the phantasms; second, how it makes them actually intelligible ⁷.

As to the first, it must first be noted that, since light in bodily vision is held to be necessary either on account of the visible object itself, so that, I say, it may be made completely in act, in order that it may move the sight; or on account of the medium, namely that the medium may be made actually luminous and able to receive the species of the visible object—according to various opinions: nevertheless, everywhere St. Thomas holds that the light of the agent intellect is required on account of the phantasms themselves and on account of material intelligibles. For although in Qu. de Anima, art. 4, ad 4, he holds that truer is that opinion which holds that light in bodily vision is required on account of the medium, not on account of the visible object itself, because color, II de Anima ⁸, is said to be visible per se, and is said to move the luminous according to act: yet without doubt it must be held that the agent intellect is illuminative of the phantasm, and constitutes it in complete act.

2. It must be known, second, that we can imagine the intellect illuminating the phantasms in two ways. In one way, by causing something in the phantasm itself, after it has been produced, by which it becomes apt to cause an intelligible species in the intellect. — In the other way, by causing nothing of this sort, but by the mere conjunction of the intellect with the phantasm rendering the latter more powerful and more apt, from its own generation, to cause a species of this kind.

3. Although both positions can be defended, the second seems to me more in accord with the doctrine of St. Thomas. For the understanding of this, it must be considered that, just as the highest of the lower order touches the lowest of the higher, according to the teaching of Dionysius ⁹, so a lower power, joined to a higher and rooted in the same essence of the soul, becomes more perfect and more efficacious. For, since the soul that gives a higher degree of being is essentially more perfect than the soul that gives only a lower degree, it follows that the virtues flowing from it are also intrinsically and in their substance more perfect: for we see that the vegetative virtues that accompany the soul of a brute animal are more perfect than those that accompany the soul of a plant; similarly, the sensitive power flowing from an intellectual soul is more perfect than that which belongs to the soul of a brute. And since a more perfect form can produce a more perfect work, it follows that the sensitive powers in man, especially the interior ones, produce more perfect works than the sensitive powers of brute animals: just as the vegetative power of man can generate flesh, which the vegetative power of a plant cannot generate. Thus, therefore, the formative power of phantasms in man, precisely because it is rooted in the same essence as the intellect, is far more perfect than the phantasy of a brute: and hence it produces more perfect and more efficacious phantasms, as being by their nature apt to cause, together with the agent intellect, intelligible species in the possible intellect; which would not befit the phantasm of a brute. Therefore, for a phantasm to be illuminated by the agent intellect is not for it to receive something accidental from the agent intellect after it has been generated, in the way air receives light from the sun: rather, it is for it, because it has been produced by a power rooted in the same essence of the soul as the agent intellect, which is the light of the intellectual part, to be by its nature and intrinsically clearer and more efficacious than if it had been produced by a power not joined to the agent intellect. And thus the agent intellect is said to illuminate phantasms, not properly by effectively infusing something accidental into a phantasm already produced: but radically and fundamentally, by reason of the soul in which the agent intellect itself is rooted; inasmuch as to the soul in which the agent intellect is rooted there naturally and concomitantly follows a phantasy productive of a phantasm that is illuminated and ordered to intellection. That this is the mind of St. Thomas is clear from the First Part, q. 85, a. 1, ad 4, where he says that phantasms are illuminated by the agent intellect because, just as the sensitive part is made more efficacious by its conjunction to the intellect, so phantasms are rendered apt by the power of the agent intellect for intelligible intentions to be abstracted from them. Now it is evident that the sensitive part does not become more efficacious because it receives something added to its nature from the intellect: but only because, since it is founded in the same essence as the intellect, and consequently originates from a more perfect nature than the sensitive part of a brute, it is intrinsically and in its nature more efficacious and more perfect. Therefore, according to him, the same must be said of the phantasm.

IV. But a twofold doubt arises against this determination. The first is that in the second dictum of the response ¹⁰ Saint Thomas says that the action of the agent intellect upon the phantasms precedes the reception of the possible intellect, as if ¹¹ the primacy of the action were attributed not to the phantasms but to the agent intellect. For from those words it seems to be gathered that the agent intellect acts upon phantasms already produced.

The second doubt is this, because Saint Thomas seems to hold that phantasms are related to the agent intellect as instruments are to art. But in instruments moved by the craftsman, as is said in Book IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, qu. 2 ¹², there is a power of the art by way of intention. Therefore the agent intellect causes its power in phantasms by way of intention. And so it illuminates something in them after they have been generated, by imprinting.

2. To the first it is said that from those words it is not established that the agent intellect impresses something upon the phantasms after they have been generated, but only that the action which it exercises upon the phantasms is prior to the reception of the possible intellect. Now, it is said that this action is not the impression of some form superadded to phantasms already produced, but is the making of the phantasms themselves, by a certain natural resultant, clear in their nature and apt for an intelligible species to be abstracted from them. This, however, belongs to it insofar as the productive power of the phantasms is rooted, together with the agent intellect, in one essence of the soul; in the way in which we say that the intellect makes the sensitive powers conjoined to it more virtuous, inasmuch as the essence of the soul, in which the intellect is rooted, precisely because it is intellective and more perfect than the sensitive, is more efficacious and produces more perfect sensitive powers by natural concomitance; and not because it impresses something upon them after they have already been produced. Hence for the agent intellect to illuminate the phantasms is nothing other than for the essence of the soul, precisely because it is intellective and the foundation of the agent intellect, to produce, by natural concomitance, a power of phantasy of such a kind that from it there can proceed phantasms clear and apt for co-causing, together with the agent intellect itself, intelligible species in the possible intellect. And this action precedes the reception of the possible intellect, just as the very formation of the phantasm does.

3. To the second it is said that the power of an art is not always impressed upon the instrument by way of a quality or intention superadded to the instrument after its production; nor does St. Thomas intend that this be universally true, although in some cases it is so—namely, in those things, I say, which are properly called instruments. But sometimes it is natural: just as secondary causes produce their proper effects in virtue of the primary causes, and are in some way their instruments, and yet act through their own powers, in which, by a certain participation, the virtue of the higher causes is preserved. So, in the case at hand, the phantasm can be an instrument of the agent intellect, insofar as it acts only as moved by it; and yet it acts through its own natural power, which is a certain participated likeness of the virtue of the agent intellect, but not through a new quality superadded to it by the agent intellect.

V. As to the second point ¹³, certain Thomists ¹⁴, devising a new position, say first that, since there is a twofold effect of light—namely the formal effect, which is illuminative esse, as is evident in the diaphanous; and the objective effect, which is appearing, as is evident in color—the phantasm is illuminated by the light of the agent intellect not formally but objectively, as color is.

They say, second, that from this objective illumination there shines forth and gleams in the phantasm not everything that is in it, but only the quiddity and nature, and not the singularity joined to it: so that this illumination is abstractive, because it makes one thing appear and not another.

It is said third, that through this the intelligible in act shines forth in the phantasm, namely the nature abstracted from this here and now; and such an intelligible in act moves the possible intellect.

Hence they say that the agent intellect makes the phantasms actually intelligible, insofar as it makes what is in the phantasm intelligible in act, by way of abstraction, prior by nature to the production of the intelligible species in the intellect.

2. But they prove this position from the sayings of St. Thomas. First, because in this chapter he wishes that in the intellective soul there is an active power with respect to phantasms, making them actually intelligible; and that the action of the agent intellect upon the phantasms precedes the reception of the possible intellect. From these things he seems to wish that in the very phantasm it first becomes actually intelligible before the intelligible species becomes in the possible intellect.

Second, because in this same book, above, chapter LXII, he says that Aristotle attributed to the possible intellect the capacity to be acted upon by the intelligible, to receive intelligible species, and to be in potency with respect to them: where it is clear that he distinguishes the intelligible species from the actually intelligible; for the intellect cannot be acted upon by the intelligible unless it is in act. And thus the intelligible must be in act in the phantasm before the species comes to be in the possible intellect.

Third, because in the Quaestiones on the Soul, article 15, it is said that the agent intellect, by making phantasms actually intelligible, causes knowledge in the possible intellect. For from this statement it appears that in the phantasm a thing first becomes actually intelligible before knowledge is caused in the possible intellect.

VI. But this position does not seem to me to accord with the mind of St. Thomas, nor to be true in itself. First, then, it is asked what is meant by the nature appearing in the phantasm and not its singularity? For either this means that the phantasm itself represents the nature without singularity; or that the phantasm itself has within it the nature as apparent and knowable without singularity; or that the nature is known with such abstraction by the intellect from the singular thing which is represented through the phantasm. The first cannot be granted. Because, however clear and illuminated the phantasm may be, it is always in a bodily organ, and represents materially and individually. — The second also appears to be false. Because although the nature, though it be in the individual, can be considered in that individual by the intellect without individual conditions, it is not nevertheless in the phantasm formally according to its natural esse, so that the universal nature could be considered abstractively in the very nature of the phantasm, which nature is found in the singular represented through the phantasm; rather it is there only representatively with particular conditions. For in the phantasm of Socrates there is no humanity except representatively, insofar as it represents Socrates, in whom humanity is. — But if the third is granted, then it is impossible that the nature should first be intelligible in act before the species is in the possible intellect. For the intellect knows nothing except through some intelligible species: and thus the nature must first be actualized in the intellect by an intelligible species before it knows the nature without singularity. Therefore in no way can such objective illumination of the phantasm, and the shining forth of the universal nature in the phantasm, be saved together with that priority of the nature, as this position holds.

Second. A color is not said to be illuminated objectively and to appear in act through light except because, through light, it becomes able to move the sight and thus to terminate objectively the action of seeing, as is had from the passage cited above in the Questions on the Soul ¹⁵. Therefore, if it be posited that a phantasm is illuminated objectively and that the nature appears in it in act as color appears in a colored thing, this will be nothing other than the phantasm's being able, through the light of intellect, to cause a species in the intellect, which it cannot cause without the agent intellect; and thus the nature, which you say can appear in it, will be known as the object of the intellectual action. But there will not be in it an appearing of the universal nature prior by nature to the species being caused in the possible intellect, as the said position feigns.

The arguments by which the said position is confirmed are easy to resolve. To the first, it is said that through the agent intellect, prior indeed in nature and also prior in duration, phantasms become actually intelligible before the species are received in the possible intellect: but not, as this position holds, through the shining forth of a universal nature in the phantasm without singularity, but in the manner that will be explained below ¹⁶ — And similarly it is said to the second and to the third. For phantasms do become actually intelligible, and the species existing in the intellect are actually intelligible: but in one way and in another, as will be shown.

VII. Therefore, setting aside this new invention, another answer occurs to me, drawn from the doctrine of Saint Thomas. For the sake of clarity on this point, it must be considered that, since "intelligible" properly names the object of the intellect, just as "sensible" names the object of the senses, that is called intelligible first and per se which is first and per se the object and terminus of the act of the intellect. Secondarily, however, that is called intelligible which is ordered to the intellection of the intelligible as something belonging to it. And because the species of an intelligible thing existing in the intellect, and its phantasm, are something of the intelligible thing itself, insofar as they are its likeness—just as the image of Hercules is said to be something of Hercules—the species indeed as representing his nature without material conditions, but the phantasm as representing the same nature with its material conditions—and both are ordered to its intellection: therefore both the species which is in the intellect and the phantasm are said to be intelligibles secondarily; yet each in its own way, the species indeed as intelligible by being the act and form through which the intellect understands, but the phantasm as intelligible by being the instrumental cause of the intelligible species. And just as the object is said to be intelligible in potency or in act, so proportionately these things are said to be intelligibles in potency or in act, each in its own way.

Since two things pertain to the object of our intellect, just as to the object of the senses—namely, to move the intellect by causing in it its own likeness, and to terminate the act of understanding—the intelligible object itself can be said to be in potency in two ways: either because it does not have in act that by which it can proximately move the intellect, or because it does not have in act that by which it can terminate intellection, and yet it can possess both. And this belongs to it according as it has material and singular esse in things outside the soul. For since the intellect is immaterial, it cannot be affected except by what has some mode of immateriality; nor can its operation be terminated except at something immaterial. — Now the phantasm, as an intelligible likeness existing individually, is ordered to intellection not in the manner of an object terminating the act of understanding, but in the manner of an agent acting upon the intellect and causing the species, together with the agent intellect, instrumentally. Therefore its being intelligible in potency consists precisely in this: that it does not have in act that by which it could move the intellect, but can come to have it. This belongs to it insofar as it is precisely a likeness of a material thing with respect to its materiality and singularity—in which respect it has a certain affinity with the phantasm of a brute animal. — But the species which is in the intellect is ordered to intellection as the formal principle making the intellect actual so that it can understand. It is therefore said to be intelligible in potency when it does not actually actualize the intellect, but only potentially. This belongs to it while it still exists in the phantasm and virtually in the agent intellect, before it has been produced in the possible intellect.

Likewise, the intelligible object is said to be in act in two ways: either because it has that by which it can move the intellect, or because it has that by which it can terminate the act of understanding. The first belongs to it insofar as it is in the imagination through its phantasm illuminated by the light of the agent intellect; the second belongs to it insofar as it is in the intellect through its species, by which it is represented without material conditions. For through the esse it has in the imagination, it possesses immateriality and spirituality to such a degree as suffices for it to be able to serve as an instrument of the agent intellect for causing an intelligible species in the possible intellect. But through the esse it has in the intellect, it possesses immateriality of every kind, which is required so that it may terminate intellection: for the species itself is wholly immaterial in itself, and represents the nature immaterially, that is, without material conditions, so that the nature, thus represented without material conditions and made immaterial, may terminate the act of understanding. Therefore the intelligible object is in act under the aspect of what moves when it is in the phantasy illuminated by the light of the agent intellect, so that then it can truly be said that the intellect is acted upon by the intelligible in act, namely under the aspect of what moves. It is in act under the aspect of what terminates, however, when through its species it is in the possible intellect. — Now the phantasm is said to be intelligible in act when it has that by which it can serve as an instrument of the agent intellect causing a species in the possible intellect: which belongs to it insofar as it is illuminated by the light of the agent intellect. And because this belongs to it not through a new illumination supervening after its generation, as was shown above ¹⁷ but through its nature, insofar as it is produced rightly and orderly by the imagination, which is rooted in the same essence of the soul as the agent intellect; therefore it is said to be actually intelligible insofar as there is in it some participation of the agent intellect from nature. — The species, however, is said to be intelligible in act when it has that by which it can actualize the possible intellect. And because this belongs to it insofar as it is produced in the possible intellect by the agent intellect and the phantasm, therefore it is said to be intelligible in act when it is outside the phantasm, namely as actually produced in act by the agent intellect and the phantasm.

VIII. From these things, therefore, it is clear that there are three things which are sometimes said to be intelligible in potency and sometimes intelligible in act: namely, the intelligible object, the phantasm, and the intelligible species. And because these are reduced from potency to act by the agent intellect, it is therefore said that the agent intellect makes them actually intelligible. It makes material things actually intelligible objectively and terminatively, insofar as it makes them be represented in the possible intellect immaterially, that is, without material conditions; but as motive cause, insofar as it gives the phantasm, which represents them, the power of moving the possible intellect. It makes phantasms actually intelligible, insofar as, through a participation in its light, they have that whereby they can instrumentally move the possible intellect toward the intelligible species. And it makes the intelligible species actually intelligible, insofar as it draws them forth from the active potency of the phantasm and places them in the possible intellect. Hence Saint Thomas sometimes says that the agent intellect makes material things actually intelligible, as in the Prima Pars, q. 54, a. 4, and q. 79, a. 3, On the Soul, a. 4, On Separate Substances, a. 10, and in many other places; sometimes indeed that it makes phantasms actually intelligible, as in this chapter and in the passages cited for the preceding position; and sometimes also that it makes the species of the possible intellect intelligible in act. Each of these is true, but each in its own way.

It is therefore evident that the agent intellect is said to make phantasms actually intelligible not objectively, as if it made the phantasms themselves, or something existing formally in them, appear to the intellect and be understood; but only causally, namely because it makes them of such an act that they can co-cause with themselves intelligible species in the possible intellect. This is so because they participate in their nature something of the light of the agent intellect, just as color in its nature participates something of bodily light. For the phantasms, insofar as they are precisely likenesses of material things and of singular conditions, are only potentially intelligible: because, as such, they do not have what it takes to move the intellect. But insofar as they participate in their nature something of the light of the agent intellect on account of their conjunction with it, they are thus actually intelligible, being able, as a power joined with the agent intellect, to move the intellect. And in this way the phantasms are first made actually intelligible by the agent intellect before the intelligible species are received in the possible intellect.

That this is the mind of St. Thomas is most clearly evident from his words cited above, chapter LIX. For he says that phantasms are made actually intelligible by the light of the agent intellect so that they may move the intellect in act, but not so as to be actually understood. And in chapter LX he says that a child is not said to be able to understand because phantasms in him can be actually understood: since this pertains to being able to act, for phantasms move the possible intellect; but to be able to understand is to be able to be acted upon. Nothing could be clearer than these words for the present explanation.

IX. It could also be understood in another way that the phantasm becomes actually intelligible, proportionally to another way in which it can be said to be intelligible in potency, namely objectively: though not according to the opinion of the mind which we have rejected. For the phantasm can be considered in two ways: one way, with respect to the very nature of the phantasm itself, by which it is such an accident and such a likeness; another way, with respect to the nature represented through the phantasm. In the first way, it is neither intelligible in potency, at least directly, nor does it become actually intelligible, that is, as this singular phantasm: because the material singular, of which kind the phantasm is, is not per se and directly intelligible by us. In the second way, it is intelligible in potency, insofar as the nature materially represented through it can be received by the intellect without material conditions; but it becomes actually intelligible when, by the power of the agent intellect, there is caused in the intellect a species representative of the universal nature. And Saint Thomas seems to touch upon this mode in this chapter, where he says that, because in this man whose likeness the phantasms represent there is to be found a universal nature stripped of all individuating conditions, therefore the phantasms are intelligible in potency.

But because this mode is improper, since it is rather the nature represented through phantasms that is intelligible in potency or in act than the phantasm itself; nor is this sense to be gathered from the words of St. Thomas unless they are considered superficially: therefore it seems to me that those words, interpreted in conformity with what has been said above, are to be understood thus—that because in man, whose phantasm is a likeness, the universal nature can be received by the intellect without material conditions, therefore the phantasm of that nature is in potency to being able to be made, by the power of the agent intellect, an instrument for causing a species representative of that universal nature. And this is for the phantasm to be intelligible in potency causally only, according to the manner explained above ¹⁸

X. It can also be understood in a third way of the phantasm, not by reason of itself, but by reason of its effect, namely the intelligible species. For when something is said to be actually intelligible—whether it is actually intelligible as the term of intellection, or as its formal principle, insofar as it is separated from matter—it is the same thing to make something actually intelligible in either of those modes as to abstract it from material conditions. Now the agent intellect does not do this with respect to the phantasm in itself, because, however much intellectual character it may receive from the presence of the agent intellect, in the manner explained above ¹⁹ it nevertheless always remains in a bodily organ and represents materially; but it does this with respect to its effect, namely the intelligible species, drawing that species out from the active potency of the phantasm and placing it in the possible intellect. Hence it is also said to make the phantasm itself actually intelligible, because it draws out from its potency an intelligible and immaterial species: which is for the phantasm itself to become actually intelligible by reason of its effect, not by reason of itself. And thus made actual, it is said to move the intellect—not indeed effectively, but formally—insofar as the species drawn out from its potency informs the intellect and makes it actual in the first sense.

To this sense Saint Thomas is sometimes said to hold as well that phantasms are made intelligible in act. And the Commentator, in Book III On the Soul, commentary 18, seems to understand it thus, where he says that it is necessary to posit some mover which makes the imagined intentions move the material intellect: which is nothing other than making them understood in act by abstracting them from matter.

XI. Concerning the second statement of the response of Saint Thomas ²⁰, it must be noted that the species existing in the possible intellect pre-exist in the phantasms as effects in their cause. Now an effect is in its cause according to the mode of the cause itself: just as the effects virtually contained in the sun have in the sun the mode and condition of the sun itself, since in it they are nothing other than the sun, or its power. Hence, since a phantasm is in some way material, as existing in a material organ and representing materially and individually, the intelligible likenesses existing virtually in the phantasm are, according to the manner in which they are in it, in some way material and singular. And therefore, when they are received into the possible intellect through the action of the agent intellect and of the phantasm—where they are received immaterially and universally—they do not have the same mode of being that they have in the phantasms, but a higher one and one of a superior order. For this reason it is very well said that the intellective soul, insofar as it is intellective, is not in potency to the likenesses of things according to that mode in which they exist in the phantasms, but according as they are elevated to something higher, namely to a superior order, which is that of species altogether immaterial and universal: for the species in the possible intellect are both immaterial and universal.

XII. Concerning the third statement of the reply ²¹, it must be known that, if the intelligibles to which our intellect is in potency were intelligible in themselves, as subsisting in themselves outside matter, our intellect would be indifferently disposed toward knowing all separate substances. And thus, the more some things would be intelligible in themselves, the more they would be understood by us. For our intellect is naturally apt to know those things that are contained under its proportionate object; and it knows some things the more insofar as they participate more fully in the character of its proportionate object: just as, supposing that the quiddity of a material thing is the object proportionate to our intellect, we know better those things that participate more in this character. But if material intelligibles subsisted in themselves, then a subsisting separate substance would be the object proportionate to our intellect and connatural to it. And thus, the more some substance was separate, and consequently the more intelligible in itself, the more knowable by us it would be. On account of this St. Thomas most fittingly infers that, given Plato's opinion concerning the ideas, it would follow that, the more some things are intelligible in themselves, the more they would be understood by us.