is liberated by the actual intellect.
¶ The same rational part of the soul, insofar as it goes out from itself, is called the possible intellect original: "intellectus possibilis"; the capacity of the mind to receive knowledge; but insofar as it is such that it can perfect itself as a potentiality, it is called the active intellect original: "intellectus agens"; the power of the mind that processes information.
¶ The same rational part, as it goes out and proceeds beyond itself, is perfected by the "species" mental representations or forms of things which are within it; insofar as it remains stable, it is called the intellect in habit original: "intellectus in habitu"; the state of possessing knowledge that can be used at will.
¶ It can be known from the preceding conclusions why the active intellect is sometimes compared to an art, sometimes to a habit, and sometimes to light.
¶ The "passion" an impression or effect produced by a sensible object is received in the organ alone; the sensation is received in the soul alone.
¶ Just as light does not make colors to be colors, but rather makes pre-existing colors—which were visible only in potential—to be visible in act; so the active intellect does not create the species as if they did not exist before; rather, it makes the pre-existing species—which were knowable only in potential—to be knowable in act.
¶ When Aristotle says that we do not remember after death because the "passive intellect" is destroyed, he understands the possible intellect by the term "passive intellect."

CONCLUSIONS ACCORDING TO ALEXANDER

OF APHRODISIAS, EIGHT IN NUMBER.

֦ The rational soul is immortal.
¶ To every heaven referring to the celestial spheres of ancient astronomy, besides the soul which moves it as an efficient cause, there assists a proper Intelligence; this Intelligence moves the heaven as its final goal and is entirely distinct in substance from that soul.
¶ According to the opinion of Aristotle, matter does not enter into any definition, not even a natural one.
¶ God understands neither evil things nor privations the absence of a quality that should be present.
¶ The number of "abstract things" of which Aristotle treats in the twelfth book of the Metaphysics is not the number of movers, but the number of Intelligences which are the goals of motion.
¶ When Aristotle says in the ninth book of the Metaphysics that separate and divine things are either totally known by us or totally ignored, this must be understood as referring to that knowledge which happens to those who have already reached the highest actualization of the intellect.