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Objection 1: It would seem that our intellect does not understand by
composition and division. For composition and division are only of
many; whereas the intellect cannot understand many things at the same
time. Therefore it cannot understand by composition and division.
Objection 2: Further, every composition and division implies past,
present, or future time. But the intellect abstracts from time, as
also from other individual conditions. Therefore the intellect does
not understand by composition and division.
Objection 3: Further, the intellect understands things by a process
of assimilation to them. But composition and division are not in
things, for nothing is in things but what is signified by the predicate
and the subject, and which is one and the same, provided that the
composition be true, for "man" is truly what "animal" is.
Therefore the intellect does not act by composition and division.
On the contrary, Words signify the conceptions of the intellect, as
the Philosopher says (Peri Herm. i). But in words we find
composition and division, as appears in affirmative and negative
propositions. Therefore the intellect acts by composition and
division.
I answer that, The human intellect must of necessity understand by
composition and division. For since the intellect passes from
potentiality to act, it has a likeness to things which are generated,
which do not attain to perfection all at once but acquire it by
degrees: so likewise the human intellect does not acquire perfect
knowledge by the first act of apprehension; but it first apprehends
something about its object, such as its quiddity, and this is its
first and proper object; and then it understands the properties,
accidents, and the various relations of the essence. Thus it
necessarily compares one thing with another by composition or division;
and from one composition and division it proceeds to another, which is
the process of reasoning.
But the angelic and the Divine intellect, like all incorruptible
things, have their perfection at once from the beginning. Hence the
angelic and the Divine intellect have the entire knowledge of a thing
at once and perfectly; and hence also in knowing the quiddity of a
thing they know at once whatever we can know by composition, division,
and reasoning. Therefore the human intellect knows by composition,
division and reasoning. But the Divine intellect and the angelic
intellect know, indeed, composition, division, and reasoning, not
by the process itself, but by understanding the simple essence.
Reply to Objection 1: Composition and division of the intellect are
made by differentiating and comparing. Hence the intellect knows many
things by composition and division, as by knowing the difference and
comparison of things.
Reply to Objection 2: Although the intellect abstracts from the
phantasms, it does not understand actually without turning to the
phantasms, as we have said (Article 1; Question 84, Article
7). And forasmuch as it turns to the phantasms, composition and
division of the intellect involve time.
Reply to Objection 3: The likeness of a thing is received into the
intellect according to the mode of the intellect, not according to the
mode of the thing. Wherefore something on the part of the thing
corresponds to the composition and division of the intellect; but it
does not exist in the same way in the intellect and in the thing. For
the proper object of the human intellect is the quiddity of a material
thing, which comes under the action of the senses and the imagination.
Now in a material thing there is a twofold composition. First, there
is the composition of form with matter; and to this corresponds that
composition of the intellect whereby the universal whole is predicated
of its part: for the genus is derived from common matter, while the
difference that completes the species is derived from the form, and the
particular from individual matter. The second comparison is of
accident with subject: and to this real composition corresponds that
composition of the intellect, whereby accident is predicated of
subject, as when we say "the man is white." Nevertheless
composition of the intellect differs from composition of things; for in
the latter the things are diverse, whereas composition of the intellect
is a sign of the identity of the components. For the above composition
of the intellect does not imply that "man" and "whiteness" are
identical, but the assertion, "the man is white," means that "the
man is something having whiteness": and the subject, which is a man,
is identified with a subject having whiteness. It is the same with the
composition of form and matter: for animal signifies that which has a
sensitive nature; rational, that which has an intellectual nature;
man, that which has both; and Socrates that which has all these
things together with individual matter; and according to this kind of
identity our intellect predicates the composition of one thing with
another.
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