works
translated from the Arabic, the separate substances which we call
angels are called "intelligences," and perhaps for this reason, that
such substances are always actually understanding. But in works
translated from the Greek, they are called "intellects" or "minds."
Thus intelligence is not distinct from intellect, as power is from
power; but as act is from power. And such a division is recognized
even by the philosophers. For sometimes they assign four
intellects--namely, the "active" and "passive" intellects, the
intellect "in habit," and the "actual" intellect. Of which four the
active and passive intellects are different powers; just as in all
things the active power is distinct from the passive. But three of
these are distinct, as three states of the passive intellect, which
is sometimes in potentiality only, and thus it is called passive;
sometimes it is in the first act, which is knowledge, and thus it is
called intellect in habit; and sometimes it is in the second act,
which is to consider, and thus it is called intellect in act, or
actual intellect.

Reply Obj. 1: If this authority is accepted, intelligence there means
the act of the intellect. And thus it is divided against intellect as
act against power.

Reply Obj. 2: Boethius takes intelligence as meaning that act of the
intellect which transcends the act of the reason. Wherefore he also
says that reason alone belongs to the human race, as intelligence
alone belongs to God, for it belongs to God to understand all things
without any investigation.

Reply Obj. 3: All those acts which Damascene enumerates belong to one
power--namely, the intellectual power. For this power first of all
only apprehends something; and this act is called "intelligence."
Secondly, it directs what it apprehends to the knowledge of something
else, or to some operation; and this is called "intention." And when
it goes on in search of what it "intends," it is called "invention."
When, by reference to something known for certain, it examines what
it has found, it is said to know or to be wise, which belongs to
"phronesis" or "wisdom"; for "it belongs to the wise man to judge,"
as the Philosopher says (Metaph. i, 2). And when once it has obtained
something for certain, as being fully examined, it thinks about the
means of making it known to others; and this is the ordering of
"interior speech," from which proceeds "external speech." For every
difference of acts does not make t