th all human interior principles are corrupted.
Therefore also the intellect itself is corrupted.

Obj. 2: Further, the human soul is hindered from understanding when
the senses are tied, and by a distracted imagination, as explained
above (Q. 84, AA. 7,8). But death destroys the senses and
imagination, as we have shown above (Q. 77, A. 8). Therefore after
death the soul understands nothing.

Obj. 3: Further, if the separated soul can understand, this must be
by means of some species. But it does not understand by means of
innate species, because it has none such; being at first "like a
tablet on which nothing is written": nor does it understand by
species abstracted from things, for it does not then possess organs
of sense and imagination which are necessary for the abstraction of
species: nor does it understand by means of species, formerly
abstracted and retained in the soul; for if that were so, a child's
soul would have no means of understanding at all: nor does it
understand by means of intelligible species divinely infused, for
such knowledge would not be natural, such as we treat of now, but the
effect of grace. Therefore the soul apart from the body understands
nothing.

_On the contrary,_ The Philosopher says (De Anima i, 1), "If the soul
had no proper operation, it could not be separated from the body."
But the soul is separated from the body; therefore it has a proper
operation and above all, that which consists in intelligence.
Therefore the soul can understand when it is apart from the body.

_I answer that,_ The difficulty in solving this question arises from
the fact that the soul united to the body can understand only by
turning to the phantasms, as experience shows. Did this not proceed
from the soul's very nature, but accidentally through its being bound
up with the body, as the Platonists said, the difficulty would
vanish; for in that case when the body was once removed, the soul
would at once return to its own nature, and would understand
intelligible things simply, without turning to the phantasms, as is
exemplified in the case of other separate substances. In that case,
however, the union of soul and body would not be for the soul's good,
for evidently it would understand worse in the body than out of it;
but for the good of the body, which would be unreasonable, since
matter exists on account of the form, and not the form for the sake
of matter. But if we admit that the nature of the soul re