Andrew Halliday Douglas

“ I say that it is the special function of imagination to receive the form of substance, provided that it is properly predisposed, and receives the special attributes of the substance. For instance, if I wish to apprehend endive, it is not only necessary to apprehend it by sense, but also to connect together a number of sensible qualities, for instance that it possesses a certain smell, taste, colour, multiplicity, substance, mode of action, and the like ”

“ So they had taken refuge in the exquisitely illusory explanation, a typical verbalism " the form of the special attribute produces in the intellect the form of each, and produces the form of sub stance by virtue of substance"."
It is interesting to notice that Pomponazzi escapes from this characteristic scholastic puzzle by the distinction between mental and physical "action." In the act of knowledge, he says, there is a direct relation between the mind and substance; though a physical or mechanical impression of the mind by substance is what he has all through denied. ”

“ The significant feature of Pomponazzi's reasoning is that for him the alternative to an " agency " of intellect itself was the real existence and agency of the general conceptions of intellect universalia ante rent, The analogy of sense was always before him. The objects of intelligence are different from the objects of sense: the data of sense were not sufficient, he felt, to call the conceptions of the mind into being. ”

“ This is clearly illustrated in the course of the discussion under review, where Pomponazzi expressly argues for species intelligibilis as the true correlate (terminus) of intellectio y on the ground that the objectum may have no real existence. " I can have intellection of things that exist and of things that do not exist and cannot exist. What then I ask is the correlate of the intellection of the non-existent? Not the object, because the object neither exists nor can exist... Therefore the intelligible form 3 ." ”

“ It is impossible to see in what respect they differ, since they are of the same substance and content, as e.g. the thought of an ass and the form of an ass 3 ." But in truth species intelligibilis and intellectio are correlatives in the act of knowledge, and a new species (as sup posed by Scotus) in the actual intellectio is of all things most superfluous. " One of them would be useless, either the form or the intellection, since the form is that by which the thing is known and the intellection is that by which the thing is thought. ”

“ The first reason for affirming something " additional " in intellectio, plus the species intelligibilis, is that the species continues to exist even while there is no activity of intelligence; therefore, it is argued, where there is actual intellectio, some further agency must be at work. This permanent existence of the species (scil. species nuda) was implied in the received psycho logical theory that species resided somehow in the lower powers in memory and the virtus cogitativa (or comprehensive?) before the action of intellectus and in the intervals of its activity 2 . ”

“ Our intellect from a perceived form elicits the unperceived form of substance.... No sense rises to the conception of substance, but it is the intellect which apprehends it, after its attributes have first been apprehended by sense 2 .... ”

“ But there is something added to species intelligibilis in actual intellectio. " Intellection is received in the intellect as modified by the form*."
We must not overlook the significance of the designation species intelligibilis. The regular name for the object of thought here takes the place of the negative designation above noted, species nnda. The latter was intended to indicate a difference between species as the work of cogitativa, etc., and intellectio. The title, species intelligibilis, marks the relation between species and intellectio, of which species is the content. ”

“ The affirmation on the one hand of a contribution of thought itself to the actuality and by con sequence to the objects of thought; the denial on the other of the absolute existence, as independently real, of the terms of thought, of what thought attributes to its objects (of universalia ante rem) amount to a designation in scholastic language of the peculiar relation between thought and its objects. ”

“ And he puts the same thing in another way when he denies that intellect is or introduces a new species (species intelligibilis perfectior) ; instead, he consistently maintains that species intelligibilis as such the pro duct, be it observed, of mental activity below the level (as he would have said) of thought is the object and contents of thought.
If we recall the arguments cited against the special agency of intellectus^, we shall see the meaning, and the reason to Pomponazzi's mind, of the concession which he makes later. ”

“ The case which he has in view is evidently the case in which the abstract idea of substance has not been formed in thought, but in which the logical notion " substance " is practically and implicitly though unconsciously present. This is what is implied in the reference to rustics unreflecting persons, or persons in capable of abstract ideas.
The significant thing is his seeming to allow that in such a
1 "Cognitio accidentis confert ad cognitionem substantiae et e contra." (Op. cit. f. 34V.) " Non solum accidens ducit in cognitionem substantiae, sed etiam e con- verso." (Op. cit. f. 34 r.) ”

“ Ad aliam, cum dicitur quoad istud absolutum superadditum speciei, dico quod est ipsa intellectio." Ibid.
3 "Intellectio est essentialiter perfectior specie. ...Cum dicitur, unde causatur ista diversitas (dico) hoc quod causatur ab agente et melius disposito. ...Cum dicitur in vanum poneretur una istorum (scil., species et intellectio) dicitur quod non, quia species sola non potest facere istud quod facit intellectio quum species sit imperfectior intellectione." ”

“ In the sense thus explained, Pomponazzi maintains his doctrine of an agency in intellectus; and, in this sense only, the difference between species intelligibilis and intellect. " Intellection is essentially more complete than the form When it is
said, what is the cause of the difference? ”

“ We are not able at present to reproduce Pomponazzi's criticisms on these last two arguments, which would have been instructive, on account of a gap in Ferri's edition at this point; and for the same reason it is only by the use of a little conjecture that we arrive at the commentator's own mind on the subject.
3 " Omnes fere Latini posuerunt species et intellectiones non distingui realiter ”

“ It is in one aspect a stage in the formation of the notion; in another, it supplies thought with its object 5 . Both aspects are included in the reference of St Thomas's dictum, which Pomponazzi
1 "Utrum intellectio et species intelligibilis sint idem realiter." Comm. de An.
ff. 172174-
2 E.g. " Dormiens non habet intellectionem et tamen habet speciem; aliter enim si species non remaneret in intellectu hominis (docti?) non esset rememoratio." Op. cit. f. 1731".
3 "In puro intellectu recipitur species." (Op. cit. f. 173 v.) "Intellectio... terminate ad speciem intelligibilem." Op. cit. f. ”