summa-contra-gentiles

CHAPTER LXXV 203
several possible intellects or one; whereas they are not
multiplied in the same way in the one species. Therefore
it matters not, as regards the actual intelligibility of the
species received into the possible intellect, whether there be
one or several possible intellects in all.
Again. The possible intellect, according to the same
Commentator, is the last in the order of intelligible substances,
which in his opinion are several. Nor can it be
denied that some of the higher substances are cognizant of
the things which the possible intellect knows :
since, as he
says himself, the forms of the effects caused by the movement
of a sphere are in the movers of the spheres. Hence
it will still
follow that, even if there be one possible intellect,
the intelligible forms are multiplied in different intellects.
And although we have stated that the intelligible species
received into the possible intellect, is not that which is
understood, but that whereby one understands, this does
not prevent the intellect, by a kind of reflexion, from understanding
itself and its act of intelligence, and the species
it
whereby understands. In fact it understands its act of
intelligence in two ways first in : particular, for it understands
that it understands in a particular instance ; secondly,
in general, in as much as it
argues about the nature of its
act. it
Consequently understands both the intellect and the
intelligible species in like manner in two ways both by
:
perceiving its own existence and that it has an intelligible
species, which is a kind of particular knowledge, and bv
considering its own nature and that of the intelligible
species, which is a kind of universal knowledge. In this
latter sense we treat of the intellect and things intelligible
in sciences.
From what has been said the solution to the third argument
is also evident. For his statement that knowledge in
the disciple and in the master is numerically one, is partly
true and partly false. It is
numerically one as regards
the thing known, but not as regards the intelligible species
whereby it is known, nor again as regards the habit itself
of knowledge. And yet
it does not follow that the master