species: neither is this
a sufficient explanation. Because if it is natural for the soul to
understand through species derived from the "active intelligence,"
it follows that at times the soul of an individual wanting in one
of the senses can turn to the active intelligence, either from the
inclination of its very nature, or through being roused by another
sense, to the effect of receiving the intelligible species of which
the corresponding sensible species are wanting. And thus a man born
blind could have knowledge of colors; which is clearly untrue. We
must therefore conclude that the intelligible species, by which our
soul understands, are not derived from separate forms.

Reply Obj. 1: The intelligible species which are participated by our
intellect are reduced, as to their first cause, to a first principle
which is by its essence intelligible--namely, God. But they proceed
from that principle by means of the sensible forms and material
things, from which we gather knowledge, as Dionysius says (Div. Nom.
vii).

Reply Obj. 2: Material things, as to the being which they have
outside the soul, may be actually sensible, but not actually
intelligible. Wherefore there is no comparison between sense and
intellect.

Reply Obj. 3: Our passive intellect is reduced from potentiality to
act by some being in act, that is, by the active intellect, which is
a power of the soul, as we have said (Q. 79, A. 4); and not by a
separate intelligence, as proximate cause, although perchance as
remote cause.
_______________________

FIFTH ARTICLE [I, Q. 84, Art. 5]

Whether the Intellectual Soul Knows Material Things in the Eternal
Types?

Objection 1: It would seem that the intellectual soul does not know
material things in the eternal types. For that in which anything is
known must itself be known more and previously. But the intellectual
soul of man, in the present state of life, does not know the eternal
types: for it does not know God in Whom the eternal types exist, but
is "united to God as to the unknown," as Dionysius says (Myst.
Theolog. i). Therefore the soul does not know all in the eternal
types.

Obj. 2: Further, it is written (Rom. 1:20) that "the invisible things
of God are clearly seen . . . by the things that are made." But among
the invisible things of God are the eternal types. Therefore the
eternal types are known through creatures and not the converse.

Obj. 3: Further, the eternal types are nothing else bu