me respect.
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QUESTION 85

OF THE MODE AND ORDER OF UNDERSTANDING
(In Eight Articles)

We come now to consider the mode and order of understanding. Under
this head there are eight points of inquiry:

(1) Whether our intellect understands by abstracting the species from
the phantasms?

(2) Whether the intelligible species abstracted from the phantasms are
what our intellect understands, or that whereby it understands?

(3) Whether our intellect naturally first understands the more
universal?

(4) Whether our intellect can know many things at the same time?

(5) Whether our intellect understands by the process of composition
and division?

(6) Whether the intellect can err?

(7) Whether one intellect can understand better than another?

(8) Whether our intellect understands the indivisible before the
divisible?
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FIRST ARTICLE [I, Q. 85, Art. 1]

Whether Our Intellect Understands Corporeal and Material Things by
Abstraction from Phantasms?

Objection 1: It would seem that our intellect does not understand
corporeal and material things by abstraction from the phantasms. For
the intellect is false if it understands an object otherwise than as
it really is. Now the forms of material things do not exist as
abstracted from the particular things represented by the phantasms.
Therefore, if we understand material things by abstraction of the
species from the phantasm, there will be error in the intellect.

Obj. 2: Further, material things are those natural things which
include matter in their definition. But nothing can be understood
apart from that which enters into its definition. Therefore material
things cannot be understood apart from matter. Now matter is the
principle of individualization. Therefore material things cannot be
understood by abstraction of the universal from the particular, which
is the process whereby the intelligible species is abstracted from the
phantasm.

Obj. 3: Further, the Philosopher says (De Anima iii, 7) that the
phantasm is to the intellectual soul what color is to the sight. But
seeing is not caused by abstraction of species from color, but by
color impressing itself on the sight. Therefore neither does the act
of understanding take place by abstraction of something from the
phantasm, but by the phantasm impressing itself on the intellect.

Obj. 4: Further, the Philosopher says (De Anima iii, 5) there are
two things in the in