did not subsist in the particular [instances], as the Platonists say, our mind in knowing would have no need always to turn itself to images" (Qu. lxxxiv. Art. 7).
It is next queried whether the judgment of the mind is impeded through binding (per ligamentum) the senses. In view of the preceding argument the answer is, that since "all that we know in our present state, becomes known to us through comparison with sensible things, it is impossible that there should be in us perfect mental judgment when the senses are tied, through which we take cognizance of sensible things" (Qu. lxxxiv. Art 8).
This entire argument shows in what firm Aristotelian manner, scholasticism, in the person of Thomas, set itself upon a basis of sense perception; through which it still pressed to a knowledge of the supersensible and abstract. In this argument we also see, as always with Thomas, that knowledge is perfect and blessed, the more immaterial and abstract are its modes. All of which will continue to impress us as we follow Thomas, briefly, through his exposition of the modus and ordo of knowing (intelligendi) (Qu. lxxxv.).
The first question is whether our mind knows corporeal things by abstracting the species from the images – the type from the particular. There are three grades of the cognizing faculty (virtutis cognoscitivae). The lowest is sensation, which is the act of a bodily organ. Its appropriate object is form as existing in matter. And since matter is the principle of individuation (i.e. the particularizing principle from which results the particular or individual), sense perception is confined to the particular. The highest grade of the cognitient faculty is that which is independent of bodily organs and separate from matter, as the angelic intelligence; and its object is form subsisting without matter. For though angels know material things, they view them only in the immaterial, to wit, themselves or God. Between the two is the human mind, which
"is the forma of the body. So it naturally knows form existing individually in corporeal matter, and yet not as form is in such matter. But to know form, which is in concrete matter, and yet know it not as it is in such matter, is to abstract it from this particular matter which the images represent. It follows that our
