In every case the mind which is actively thinking is the
objects which it thinks. Whether it is possible for it while not
existing separate from spatial conditions to think anything that is
separate, or not, we must consider later.
8
Let us now summarize our results about soul, and repeat that the
soul is in a way all existing things; for existing things are either
sensible or thinkable, and knowledge is in a way what is knowable, and
sensation is in a way what is sensible: in what way we must inquire.
Knowledge and sensation are divided to correspond with the
realities, potential knowledge and sensation answering to
potentialities, actual knowledge and sensation to actualities.
Within the soul the faculties of knowledge and sensation are
potentially these objects, the one what is knowable, the other what is
sensible. They must be either the things themselves or their forms.
The former alternative is of course impossible: it is not the stone
which is present in the soul but its form.
It follows that the soul is analogous to the hand; for as the hand
is a tool of tools, so the mind is the form of forms and sense the
form of sensible things.
Since according to common agreement there is nothing outside and
separate in existence from sensible spatial magnitudes, the objects of
thought are in the sensible forms, viz. both the abstract objects
and all the states and affections of sensible things.
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