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b) How an Angel speaks to One Angel and not to Another
81. On the second principal point, namely how an angel can speak to one angel and not to another [n.66], I say that just as it is in the power of an angel - as concerns the first intellection - to use this species or that in the memory for actual intellection of this object or that, so, if he had several intelligences, he would have it in his power to generate knowledge in this intelligence or in that; for what is naturally passive is not more determined to undergoing than what is naturally active is to acting. So just as the active power that is of itself subject to the will can of itself act and not act (because of the will’s command to act and not to act), so it can be determined to act on this passive thing and not on that; and just as a determination would be made for intelligences intrinsic to an angel, if there were several intelligences in it, so a determination could be made for this or that extrinsic intellect, which intellects - to this extent - are passive in the same way as the intrinsic ones are passive, in that the intrinsic active power would act by command of the will.
82. Further, there follows a corollary from this, that there are as many speakings as there are hearings - because however many angels be present (or whether one of them is nearer and one further away), then, just as memory would not generate [sc. actual intellection] in Michael save by command of his will, so neither does memory generate it in the intellect of one angel and not of another save by determination of the will of the speaking angel.
83. But then a doubt arises about how many angels one angel can speak to at once, because a natural agent cannot have at the same time any number whatever of adequate effects - and so one act of generating is not sufficient for many angels to hear, because one act of generating is of one intellection in one angel, which intellection that angel alone hears.16