nows Latin, he would learn nothing thereby. Therefore
in no way can a man cause knowledge in another by teaching him.

_On the contrary,_ The Apostle says (1 Tim. 2:7): "Whereunto I am
appointed a preacher and an apostle . . . a doctor of the Gentiles
in faith and truth."

_I answer that,_ On this question there have been various opinions.
For Averroes, commenting on _De Anima_ iii, maintains that all men
have one passive intellect in common, as stated above (Q. 76, A. 2).
From this it follows that the same intelligible species belong to all
men. Consequently he held that one man does not cause another to have
a knowledge distinct from that which he has himself; but that he
communicates the identical knowledge which he has himself, by moving
him to order rightly the phantasms in his soul, so that they be
rightly disposed for intelligible apprehension. This opinion is true
so far as knowledge is the same in disciple and master, if we
consider the identity of the thing known: for the same objective
truth is known by both of them. But so far as he maintains that all
men have but one passive intellect, and the same intelligible
species, differing only as to various phantasms, his opinion is
false, as stated above (Q. 76, A. 2).

Besides this, there is the opinion of the Platonists, who held that
our souls are possessed of knowledge from the very beginning, through
the participation of separate forms, as stated above (Q. 84, AA. 3,
4); but that the soul is hindered, through its union with the body,
from the free consideration of those things which it knows. According
to this, the disciple does not acquire fresh knowledge from his
master, but is roused by him to consider what he knows; so that to
learn would be nothing else than to remember. In the same way they
held that natural agents only dispose (matter) to receive forms,
which matter acquires by a participation of separate substances. But
against this we have proved above (Q. 79, A. 2; Q. 84, A. 3) that the
passive intellect of the human soul is in pure potentiality to
intelligible (species), as Aristotle says (De Anima iii, 4).

We must therefore decide the question differently, by saying that the
teacher causes knowledge in the learner, by reducing him from
potentiality to act, as the Philosopher says (Phys. viii, 4). In
order to make this clear, we must observe that of effects proceeding
from an exterior principle, some proceed from the exterior principle
alone;