2. Second Opinion

306. In another way it is said [Thomas Aquinas] that a greater or lesser degree, in angel and in soul, is what first distinguishes one from the other.

307. There is a confirmation through a likeness, because the sensitive soul does not seem to be distinguished in the brutes save because of diverse degrees of perceiving, and yet there is there a specific difference; therefore it can be like this here with diverse modes of understanding, namely a more perfect mode and a more imperfect one.

308. But what is this distinct mode of understanding? - What is posited is that an angel understands non-discursively and a soul understands discursively (speaking of the natural intellect); and these modes are distinct in species and are intellectualities of different species.

309. On the contrary:

The soul is not discursive as to principles and is discursive as to conclusions; therefore if knowing in this way and knowing in that way are different species, and if that is why they require intellectualities of different species, then there will be two intellectualities of different species in the soul, one insofar as it understands principles and another insofar as it understands conclusions.

310. Besides, the soul of the blessed is not discursive about the beatific object, but it is discursive about an object known naturally; therefore there will be one intellectuality in species insofar as the soul understands God beatifically and another insofar as it understands something naturally.

311. Again, third as follows: if the intellectuality of angel and soul differ in species, then things that essentially depend on the one and on the other differ in species; but essentially dependent on these is the beatific vision of an angel and of a soul (for although an angel is not the total cause of his vision nor the soul of its, yet each vision essentially depends on the intellectuality of the nature it belongs to); therefore this beatific vision and that differ in species - but this is false, because all diverse species have a determinate order according to more perfect and more imperfect, such that any individual of the more perfect species exceeds any individual of the more imperfect species; and then it follows that any blessedness of any angel would exceed any blessedness of any soul, or conversely, both of which are false.

312. Again, fourth: what is meant by the statement ‘an angel does not understand discursively’?

Either that an angel does not have a power by which he can know the conclusions when he knows the principles (supposing the conclusions were not known to him in act or habit before); and then this does not seem to be a mark of perfection in an intellect; rather it seems to be a mark of imperfection in a created intellect, because it is a perfection in our intellect - supplying an imperfection - that it can from known things that virtually include other things acquire knowledge of those other things.

313. Or what is meant is that an angel can for this reason not know discursively, because all conclusions are actually known to him from the beginning (and so he cannot know them through the principles); but this is false, because he does not actually and distinctly know and understand everything from the beginning.

314. Or for this reason, that everything is known to him habitually from the beginning (and therefore he cannot acquire an habitual knowledge of them from principles); and this does not posit an essential difference of intellectuality in soul and angel, because it might be thus in the case of my soul, that if all conclusions were known to it from the beginning (God impressing on it knowledge of the conclusions at the same time as knowledge of the principles), it could not know them discursively - not because of an inability of nature but because it would have knowledge of the conclusions beforehand and cannot acquire de novo what it would already have (in this way the soul of Christ was not discursive but knew habitually all the principles, and the conclusions in the principles, and yet his soul was not angelic in nature).