Dist. 24, Part 1, Art. 2, Q. 4
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/2/d/24/q/bon-sent-II-d24-p1-a2-q4
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### Distinction XXIV, Part I, Article II. *On the division of the powers of the soul.*
### Question IV. *Whether the agent and possible intellect are one power or diverse.*

Fourthly and lastly, for the greater clarity of what precedes, it is asked about the division of the powers of the soul by the agent and the possible [intellect], according to which differences our intellect is customarily divided. The question, then, is whether the agent intellect and the possible are one power or diverse. And that they are diverse, it seems.

1. "A material cause never coincides at the same time with the other causes in the same thing," as the Philosopher holds, but "as matter is related to form, or to the efficient [cause], so is the possible intellect related to the agent," as the Philosopher says: therefore the possible and agent intellect are diverse powers.

2. Likewise, the first division of power is by the active and the passive, as the Philosopher intimates in the ninth book of the First Philosophy; but among these members that divide first there is the greatest difference that exists in that genus: therefore between the active and the passive power there is the greatest difference of powers: therefore it is impossible that one power be possible and agent.

3. Likewise, it is impossible that the same thing in the same respect be in act and in potency at once and at the same time; but the soul according to the agent intellect is continually in its act, but according to the possible it is not: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, it is impossible that the same thing according to essence be illuminating and illuminated; but the agent intellect is related as light, the possible intellect as that which is illuminated by light: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**
1. "In perpetual things, to be and to be able do not differ," as the Philosopher holds; therefore neither do act and potency, much less active and passive power; but the soul is perpetual, and so is its intellect: therefore there is no difference of the possible power from the agent.

2. Likewise, in the imagination, which is a far more material power than the intellect, there are not two imaginative powers, of which one is active and the other passive: therefore if the intellective power is far more potent than the imaginative, it seems that it does not have to be diversified by the agent and the possible.

3. Likewise, the receptive and abstractive power in corporeal things can concur into the unity of one organ, as is plain in the eye of the cat, which can receive a species and produce it in itself at night: therefore by parallel reasoning, indeed by a far stronger one, it seems that the agent and possible intellect are found in one spiritual power.

4. Likewise, to understand is one act in itself: therefore it is from one simple power; but to our act of understanding the possible intellect and the agent intellect concur: therefore they are not diverse powers.

5. Likewise, either the possible intellect understands, or it does not. If it does not: then it ought not to be called an intellect nor an intellective power. If it understands: then it is in some way an active power: therefore it does not seem that the possible intellect is a power other than the agent.

6. Likewise, the agent intellect either understands or it does not. If it does not: then it ought not to be called an intellect nor an intellective power. If it does; since the intellect cannot understand anything other than itself unless it has the species of it in itself and with itself, and everything that is receptive of a species is in some way possible: therefore the agent intellect is in some way possible: therefore it is not divided in essence from the possible.

> **Conclusion.** The agent and possible intellect are two differences of the intellective power itself, which concur inseparably into one complete operation of understanding.

**I respond:** For the understanding of the foregoing it must be noted beforehand that our predecessors attempted in various ways to assign the difference of the possible intellect from the agent. For some said that they differ as two *substances*. Others said that they differ as two *powers*. In a third way others said that they differ as *habit* and *potency*. In a fourth way others said that they differ as *absolute* and *compared* power.

Now the first manner of speaking, by which it is said that they differ according to *substance*, can be understood in two ways. — For some wished to say that the agent intellect is a *separate* intelligence, but the possible intellect is the soul *joined to the body*. And this manner of positing and speaking is founded on many sayings of the philosophers, who held that the rational soul is illumined by the tenth intelligence and perfected by its conjunction to it. — But this manner of speaking is false and erroneous, as was disproved above in the eighth distinction. For no created substance has the power of illuminating and perfecting the soul, properly understood; rather, according to the mind it is immediately illumined by God, as Augustine shows in many places.

Another manner of understanding is that the agent intellect is *God* himself, but the possible intellect is *our mind*. And this manner of speaking is founded on the words of Augustine, who in several places says and shows that "the light which illumines us, the master who teaches us, the truth which directs us, is God," according to that text of John: *He was the true light, which enlightens every man,* etc. — But this manner of speaking, although it posits something true and consonant with the Catholic faith, is nonetheless nothing to the point: because, since to our soul a power of understanding has been given, just as to other creatures a power for other acts has been given, so God, although he is the principal agent in the operation of any creature whatever, has nevertheless given to each an *active power*, by which it might go forth into its proper operation. So it must be believed without doubt that to the human soul he gave not only the possible intellect, but also the agent, so that each is *something of the soul itself*. — And therefore the first manner of assigning the difference is to be omitted as irrelevant to the point, by which, namely, it is said that the agent and possible intellect differ as two substances.

Now the second manner of speaking, by which, namely, it is said that they differ as *two powers*, can be understood in two ways, and in one way falsely, in the other way truly.

One manner of understanding and speaking is that the possible intellect is a *purely material* power, which is in the soul on the part of its matter; but the agent intellect is a *purely formal* power, which is in the soul on the part of its form. And this manner of speaking seems to be founded on the words of the Philosopher, who says that "the possible intellect is that by which it is to become all things; the agent intellect, that by which it is to make all things," just as happens to be found in form and matter. — But this manner of speaking is not consonant with the truth. For if the possible intellect were a *purely passive* power and held itself on the part of matter, it could be posited in all things in which a material principle is to be found. *Furthermore*, just as the *eye* is not called *sight*, so *such* a power ought not to be called *intellect*.

But another manner of understanding is to say that the agent and possible intellect are *two differences of intellect*, given to one substance, which re<!-- (continued) -->gard the whole composite. Now the agent intellect is *appropriated* to *form* and the possible to *matter*, because the possible intellect is ordered to *receiving*, the agent intellect is ordered to *abstracting*; nor is the possible intellect *purely passive*; for it has the power to *turn itself* upon the species existing in the phantasm, and by turning to *receive* it through the help of the agent intellect, and to *judge* concerning it. Likewise neither is the agent intellect *wholly in act*; for it cannot understand anything other than itself unless it is aided by the *species*, which, abstracted from the phantasm, must be united to the intellect. Hence neither does the possible understand without the agent, nor the agent without the possible. — And this manner of speaking is true and founded on the words of the Philosopher. For he says that the agent and the possible are two differences of intellect; whence, just as we necessarily understand two things in the medium, in order that the species be abstracted from the object, namely *light* and *transparency*, so that by the one it abstracts and by the other carries and receives; so also in the matter at hand it can be conformably understood that these two concur to one act, such that the one without the other does not have its operation completely.

The third manner of assigning the difference, by which it is said that they differ as *potency and habit*, can be understood in two ways. — In one way, so that the agent intellect is called a certain habit *constituted out of all the intelligibles*; but the possible intellect is understood as the very same, insofar as it is in *potency* to acquiring cognition through phantasms. And this manner of positing seems to be founded on the words of Boethius, who says that "retaining the sum, it loses the singulars." Which some wished to be understood thus, that our intellect is said to have within itself an *innate* cognition of universals, otherwise it could not by its own power, by abstracting even from the senses and phantasms, make the possible intellect actually understanding; for everything that draws another from potency into act is a being in act. — But this manner of speaking is not consonant with the words of the Philosopher, who says that "the soul is created like a blank tablet," and "does not have cognition of habits innate to it, but acquires it through the mediation of sense and experience."

Another manner of speaking is to say that the agent intellect differs from the possible as *habit* from *potency*; not because the agent is purely *habit*, but because it is a *habitual* potency. — And this manner of speaking is probable and true and founded on philosophical and Catholic words. For it is true according to Dionysius that intellectual substances, by the very fact that they are intellectual substances, "are *lights*": therefore the *perfection* and *complement* of an intellectual substance is spiritual *light*: therefore that power which follows upon the soul on the part of its intellect *is a certain light within it*, of which light that text of the Psalm can be understood: *The light of thy countenance is sealed upon us, O Lord.* And this light the Philosopher seems to have understood to be the agent intellect. For he says that "that intellect by which it is to make all things is as a certain habit, as in light; for in a certain way light too makes colors that are in potency to be actually colors," as is had in the third book of *On the Soul*. Now something like this can be posited in the eye of the cat, which not only has the power of *receiving* through the nature of the transparent, like other eyes, but also the power of *producing* a species in itself through the nature of the light implanted in it.

The fourth manner of assigning the difference between the possible and the agent, by which, namely, they differ as *absolute* and *compared* power, can be understood in two ways. — In one way, so that it be understood that the agent and possible intellect are one wholly and the same power, differing *by comparison alone*: so that it is *agent* insofar as it is considered in itself, but *possible* insofar as it is united to the body and to phantasms. And this manner of speaking seems to be founded on the words of the Philosopher, who holds that "the agent intellect is always in its act, but the possible sometimes thus, sometimes not." For that the soul grows weary and is disturbed in the act of understanding, this comes from its conjunction to the body. — But this manner of positing falls short of the truth, since the separated soul has the intellect by which it is to make all things, has also the intellect by which it is to become all things: therefore it has the agent and the possible, even when it is separated: therefore the possible intellect was not in it solely from its conjunction with the body.

Another manner of understanding the aforesaid difference is to say that the agent intellect differs from the possible as *absolute* from *compared* power; not because it is wholly the same power differing *by comparison*, but because, since there is one and another difference of intellect, one is that by which the soul is ordered to *receiving*, and the o<!-- (continued) -->ther that by which it is ordered to *abstracting*; and thus the one of itself in a certain way complete and made-fit, but the other needing the making-fit and the complement; and since it is born to come to that complement through the help of the body and the corporeal senses, it is in the soul itself according as it is inclined to the body. And from this it contracts a twofold possibility: one with respect to *act*, because it is not always in its act on account of an impediment on the part of the body; the other with respect to *phantasms*, by which it must be aroused; and this possibility it does not have except from its conjunction with the body, although it is a power of its own nature, by which it is to become all things, which is not only in the conjoined soul, but also in the separated soul.

So therefore it is plain how, out of the many manners of speaking, a certain difference of intellect is elicited between the agent and the possible intellect. For since there are four principal manners of assigning the difference between these intellects, and each is subdivided into two, as has been shown in the pursuing, only three manners are worthy to be approved, of which one does not disagree with the other, but one takes its origin from the other. For since the differences of intellect are diverse, which, although they regard the whole composite, yet one regards more the *complement* of the soul, the other the *material principle*; hence it is that one not only holds the account of a *power*, but even of a *habitual power*; the other holds purely the account of a *power*. And hence it is that one is said to belong to the soul *in itself*, the other *in comparison* to the body, and the one always to be *in act*, the other *not*; not because the soul always actually understands through the agent intellect, but because, just as corporeal light always shines and is of itself ready to illumine, while the illuminable thing is not always illumined on account of some impediment; so also it must be understood in the matter at hand. — Therefore the reasons showing that the agent and possible intellect are two differences of the intellective power are to be conceded, although some of them are not very compelling.

**Replies to the arguments for the affirmative part:**
*To 1.* To that which is objected, that *to be able* and *to be* do not differ in perpetual things; it must be said that this is understood of substantial *being* and of difference not according to nature, but of distance according to time, because in them matter does not precede act in time; and therefore it is nothing to the point, because the possible intellect is not called possible with respect to the first *being*, but the second *act*.

*To 2.* To that which is objected concerning the imagination, that active and passive power do not differ; it can be said that it differs more than in the intellect, because the corporeal organ in which the phantasms are received is to it in place of a passive power; but the imaginative force itself is in place of an active power. — Otherwise it can be said that it is not similar, because, when the species is carried from sense up to the imagination, it does not pass out of the genus of abstraction which indeed was in the particular sense; but when the species reaches the intellect, a new genus of abstraction is there required and another genus of light. Therefore the intellect itself needs more an active power, distinct from the possible, than the imagination or sense does.

*To 3.* To that which is objected concerning the eye of the cat, it must be said that, although the receptive and abstractive power can concur to the *completion* of one organ, nevertheless they never concur into the same *disposition* of one organ. For one is the disposition in the eye of the cat by which it *receives*, namely transparency, and another by which it *abstracts*, namely luminosity, and they are of one and another nature. So also in the intellective power; although there concur to the complement and perfection of the intellective power the power by which it receives and the power by which it abstracts; nevertheless they are not of the same nature, nor are they in the soul through the same nature: and therefore they are not one difference of power, but diverse.

*To 4.* To that which is objected, that to understand is one and simple act; it must be said that although *to understand* can in a certain kind of simplicity be called a simple act, nevertheless to our act of *understanding* there concur *receiving* and *judging*, or *abstracting* and *receiving*; and these are several acts ordered to one another, out of which there results one perfect act. So also it must be understood to be the case in the powers, that they are diverse differences of intellect in such a way that nevertheless in their actions they are ordered to one another and joined for the perfecting of the act of understanding, as the material and formal principle are for constituting one *being* of the composite.

*To 5 and 6.* To that which is objected, that the possible intellect understands, and the agent intellect likewise receives; it must be said that the possible intellect is not *purely passive*, as was shown above; for it has the power of turning itself; nor yet is it *so active* as the agent, because by its turning it can neither abstract the species nor judge concerning the species, except by the aid of the agent itself. Likewise neither can the agent intellect itself perfect the operation of understanding, unless the edge of the possible intellect be formed by the intelligible itself, from which formation it is in a fuller actuality with respect to that which it must know than it was before, when it lacked the species. — And so, when we think about the agent and possible intellect, we ought not to think as of two substances, or as of two powers so separated that one without the other has its operation perfected, and the agent intellect understands something without the possible, and the agent intellect knows something which nevertheless the man whose intellect it is does not know. For these are vain and frivolous things, that my intellect should know something which I do not know; but those two differences are to be thought of as coming inseparably into one complete operation of understanding, just as light and the transparent come into the abstraction of color. — Nor are the words of the philosophers here to be followed in common, because for a great part they were deceived concerning the influence of the intelligence upon the soul, which the Catholic faith does not admit.