Dist. 49, Part 2, Art. 3, Q. 2
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/4/d/49/q/bon-sent-IV-d49-p2-s1-a3-q2
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### Question II. *Whether those senses which are in their act know through the reception of a species.*

Secondly it is asked whether those senses which are in their act know through the reception of a species. And that they do, seems to follow:

1. Because all cognition is a motion toward the soul; but every motion toward the soul consists in receiving something: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, all cognition is through the union of the knowable with the knower; but the glorified sense knows something to which it is not united according to truth, and of which it does not have the species by nature: therefore it has to be united by means of a received species.

3. Likewise, the clearer and purer a mirror is, the more apt it is for receiving; but the organs of the glorified senses are most pure and stripped bare of the forms of objects: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, it is the natural order that the object should flow into the organ; but nature will not be taken away through glory: therefore the organ will receive.

**On the contrary:** 1. Augustine in the sixth book of the *Music*, and it is a proposition true of itself: « The less noble does not act upon the more noble »; but what receives from another is acted upon by it: therefore sight will not be able to receive from lower bodies, since its organ is most noble.

2. Likewise, the first sphere does not receive a foreign impression on account of its nobility and incorruptibility: therefore if the eye is more noble, it is evident, etc.

3. Likewise, if there is there a reception anew; since there is no reception making the sense to be in act unless judgment be present: therefore there is judgment there, therefore a thought of the soul, therefore a new thought, and thus rolling thoughts; which is against Augustine.

4. Likewise, an animal alteration and reception is preceded by a natural alteration; but the glorified body and its organ, since it is incorruptible, will not receive a natural alteration: therefore etc.

### Conclusion

> The glorified senses know by receiving a species from the sensible thing.

**I respond:** To this some have said that there is no reception *from without*; but the soul makes in the eye the species of all the things it wishes to see, and sees, because then the order would be reversed, since the reception would not come from what is lower, but from what is higher. — But this solution cannot stand; first indeed, because the order would be perverted, since a spiritual species would become corporeal, and the perfect would become imperfect; secondly, because it would see absent things just as present ones, and with the eyes closed just as with them open.

The second position is that there is sense, but not by taking in from within, rather by sending a power outward, because it will not receive but will flow in. — But this too cannot stand, since cognition consists in union, and the organs are most fit for receiving.

The third position is that the glorified senses know by receiving a species from the sensible thing itself. — And the reasons for this are to be conceded.

1. To that which is objected, that *the less noble* etc.; it can be said that it is not necessary that the *object* be more noble than the *organ* upon which it acts *simply*, but *in a certain respect*, namely in this, that it has the species, and *that* is stripped bare; and this suffices for acting. — Or it must be said otherwise, that the less noble does not act by its own power, but by another's; and in the glorified sense there is a twofold nature in the eye, that of *the transparent* and that of *light*; when therefore it sees a body more luminous than itself, that body by its own power makes the species in the eye; but when it sees a less luminous one, then it makes it in itself by its own power. And thus that is evident.

2. To that which is objected concerning the foreign impression, that it is not in the sphere; it must be said that what is there noted is a *foreign impression* which is a way toward corruption; but of this there is no question here.

3. To that which is objected, that thoughts are rolled about; it must be said that *thoughts being rolled about* happens in two ways: in one way, because the intellect does not have a fixed gaze upon one thing, and in this way it is in the wayfaring state and will not be in the fatherland; in another way it happens that one principally and continuously sees one thing, and many others on account of it, and among those many now one, now another; and this indeed will be in the fatherland; such is the case in the matter proposed.

4. To that which is objected, that a natural alteration precedes; it must be said that natural alteration is twofold: one is through *reception and expulsion*, as of the hot by the cold, and this will not be; another through *reception only*, as of the transparent by the luminous, and this will be.

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