ands:
since the understood in act is the intellect itself in act. But
nothing of what is understood is in the intellect actually
understanding, save the abstracted intelligible species. Therefore
this species is what is actually understood.

Obj. 2: Further, what is actually understood must be in something;
else it would be nothing. But it is not in something outside the
soul: for, since what is outside the soul is material, nothing
therein can be actually understood. Therefore what is actually
understood is in the intellect. Consequently it can be nothing else
than the aforesaid intelligible species.

Obj. 3: Further, the Philosopher says (1 Peri Herm. i) that "words
are signs of the passions in the soul." But words signify the things
understood, for we express by word what we understand. Therefore
these passions of the soul--viz. the intelligible species, are what
is actually understood.

_On the contrary,_ The intelligible species is to the intellect what
the sensible image is to the sense. But the sensible image is not
what is perceived, but rather that by which sense perceives.
Therefore the intelligible species is not what is actually
understood, but that by which the intellect understands.

_I answer that,_ Some have asserted that our intellectual faculties
know only the impression made on them; as, for example, that sense is
cognizant only of the impression made on its own organ. According to
this theory, the intellect understands only its own impression,
namely, the intelligible species which it has received, so that this
species is what is understood.

This is, however, manifestly false for two reasons. First, because
the things we understand are the objects of science; therefore if
what we understand is merely the intelligible species in the soul, it
would follow that every science would not be concerned with objects
outside the soul, but only with the intelligible species within the
soul; thus, according to the teaching of the Platonists all science
is about ideas, which they held to be actually understood [*Q. 84, A.
1]]. Secondly, it is untrue, because it would lead to the opinion of
the ancients who maintained that "whatever seems, is true"
[*Aristotle, _Metaph._ iii. 5, and that consequently contradictories
are true simultaneously. For if the faculty knows its own impression
only, it can judge of that only. Now a thing seems according to the
impression made on the cognitive faculty. Consequently t