that both universal and individual are in one respect intellectual, just
as in another connexion they play a part in perception. He had
distinguished the universal essence in its abstract nature, from the
universal considered in relation to a number of singulars. These
suggestions formed the basis of Avicenna's doctrine. The essences or
forms--the _intelligibilia_ which constitute the world of real
knowledge--may be looked at in themselves (metaphysically), or as
embodied in the things of sense (physically), or as expressing the
processes of thought (logically). The first of these three points of
view deals with the form or idea as self-contained in the principles of
its own being, apart from those connexions and distinctions which it
receives in real (sensuous) science, and through the act of intellect.
Secondly, the form may be looked at as the similarity evolved by a
process of comparison, as the work of mental reflection, and in that way
as essentially expressing a relation. When thus considered as the common
features derived by examination from singular instances, it becomes a
universal or common term strictly so called. It is intellect which first
makes the abstract idea a true universal. _Intellectus in formis agit
universalitatem._ In the third place, the form or essence may be looked
upon as embodied in outward things (_in singularibus propriis_), and
thus it is the type more or less represented by the members of a natural
kind. It is the designation of these outward things which forms the
"first intention" of names; and it is only at a later stage, when
thought comes to observe its own modes, that names, looked upon as
predicables and universals, are taken in their "second intention." Logic
deals with such second intentions. It does not consider the forms _ante
multiplicitatem_, i.e. as eternal ideas--nor in _multiplicitate_, i.e.
as immersed in the matter of the phenomenal world--but _post
multiplicitatem_, _i. e._ as they exist in and for the intellect which
has examined and compared. Logic does not come in contact with things,
except as they are subject to modification by intellectual forms. In
other words, universality, individuality and speciality are all equally
modes of our comprehension or notion; their meaning consists in their
setting forth the relations attaching to any object of our conception.
In the mind, e.g., one form may be placed in reference to a multitude of
things, and as thus related will