Aquinas Response To Intelligible Species

The objection questioned if what is present in the passive intellect are intelligible species, and if these intelligible species are the only elements the passive has in order to understand a thing, then does this infer that the intelligible species are understood and not the original cognition from witch these intelligible species arose? (467). Basically, the objection asks whether it is the particular that is understood over and above the universal.
Aquinas responded to this objection by stating that the sensory power senses sensory species and that the intellectual powers understand the objects of condition related to the intelligible species (467). In both cases, both species involved are instruments used to either sense or perceive. He also demonstrated some similarity to the concepts existent in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Aquinas suggests that an action is twofold: “one which remains in the agent (for instance to see and to understand), and another which passes into an external object” (for instance, to heat or to
Accordingly, the law does not promote the goodness of man, but is rather, “in respect to that particular government” over and above the Good (471). This kind of a law, he says, is not actually law, but merely a perversion of the just law (471).
In regards to principles, Aquinas held that man’s fundamental precepts are self-evident and are part of God’s gift to human creation (472). It is reason that allows man to understand and respect this truth. Moreover, man possesses a “natural inclination to know the truth about God” and how to apply this truth to live within society (473). Anything pertaining to this inclination is natural law including, for example, the ability to “shun ignorance” and to “avoid offending those among whom one has to live”