Chapter 52 — Continuation of the foregoing

From these very same reasons it appears that the multitude of the aforesaid intelligibles cannot be said to be in something beside the divine intellect, either that of the soul, or that of an angel or intelligence.

For in that case the divine intellect, in respect of one of its operations, would depend on some secondary intellect, which also is impossible.

Just as things that subsist in themselves are from God, so are those that exist in a subject. Therefore, the existence of the aforesaid intelligibles in some secondary intellect presupposes God’s act of intelligence through which he is their cause.

It would also follow that God’s intellect is in potency, since his intelligibles would not be united to him.

Just as each thing has its proper being, so does it have its proper operation. Thus it is impossible that because one intellect is disposed to operate, another exercises intellectual operation, but only that same intellect where we find the disposition, even as a thing is by its own essence and not by another’s. Hence it does not become possible for the first intellect to understand multitude, through the fact that many intelligibles are in some second intellect.