A. On Distinction of Intellections

318. I respond differently, then, to the question [n.302]. First I draw a distinction between two intellections: for some knowledge of an object can be according as it abstracts from all actual existence, and some can be according as the object is existent and is present in some actual existence.

319. This distinction is proved by reason [nn.319-322] and by a likeness [nn.323]:

The first member [abstract knowledge] is plain from the fact we can have science of certain quiddities; but science is of an object as it abstracts from actual existence, otherwise science could sometimes be and sometimes not be, and so would not be permanent but the science of a thing would perish on the perishing of the thing, which is false [Metaphysics 7.15.1039b31-1040a4].

320. The second member [knowledge of actual existence] is proved by the fact that what is a matter of perfection in a lower power seems to exist more eminently in a higher power of the same genus; but in the senses - which are cognitive powers - it is a matter of perfection that the senses are cognitive of a thing according as it is in itself existent and is present in its existence; therefore this is possible in the intellect, which is a supreme cognitive power. Therefore the intellect can have the sort of knowledge of a thing that is of it as present.

321. And, to speak briefly, I give to the first knowledge, which is of the quiddity as the quiddity abstracts from existence and non-existence, the name of abstractive. To the second, namely the one that is of the quiddity in its actual existence (or is of the thing as present in such existence), I give the name intuitive intellection; not as ‘intuitive’ is distinguished from ‘discursive’ (for some abstractive knowledge is in this way intuitive), but as simply intuitive, in the way we are said to intuit a thing as it is in itself.

322. The second member is also made clear by the fact that we are not waiting for a knowledge of God of the sort that can be had of him when - per impossibile - he is not existent or not present in his essence, but we are waiting for an intuitive knowledge that is called ‘face to face’ [I Corinthians 13.12], because just as sensitive knowledge is face to face with the thing as it is presently existent, so also is that knowledge we are waiting for.

323. This distinction [n.318] is made clear, second, by a likeness in the sensitive powers; for a particular sense knows an object in one way and imagination knows it in another way. For a particular sense is of the object as it is existent per se and in itself, while imagination knows the same object as it is present in a species, and this species could be of the object even if the object were not existent or present, so that imaginative knowledge is abstractive with respect to the particular sense, for things that are dispersed in inferior things are sometimes united in superior ones. Thus these two modes of sensing, which are dispersed in the sensitive powers because of the organ (because the organ that is well receptive of an object of a particular sense is not the same as the organ that is well receptive of the object of imagination), are united in the intellect, to which, as to a single power, both acts can belong.