her way they are known distinctly: thus each is known by its
species; and so they are not understood at the same time.

Reply Obj. 4: If the intellect sees the difference or comparison
between one thing and another, it knows both in relation to their
difference or comparison; just, as we have said above (ad 3), as
it knows the parts in the whole.
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FIFTH ARTICLE [I, Q. 85, Art. 5]

Whether Our Intellect Understands by Composition and Division?

Objection 1: It would seem that our intellect does not understand by
composition and division. For composition and division are only of
many; whereas the intellect cannot understand many things at the same
time. Therefore it cannot understand by composition and division.

Obj. 2: Further, every composition and division implies past,
present, or future time. But the intellect abstracts from time, as
also from other individual conditions. Therefore the intellect does
not understand by composition and division.

Obj. 3: Further, the intellect understands things by a process of
assimilation to them. But composition and division are not in things,
for nothing is in things but what is signified by the predicate and
the subject, and which is one and the same, provided that the
composition be true, for "man" is truly what "animal" is. Therefore
the intellect does not act by composition and division.

_On the contrary,_ Words signify the conceptions of the intellect, as
the Philosopher says (Peri Herm. i). But in words we find composition
and division, as appears in affirmative and negative propositions.
Therefore the intellect acts by composition and division.

_I answer that,_ The human intellect must of necessity understand by
composition and division. For since the intellect passes from
potentiality to act, it has a likeness to things which are generated,
which do not attain to perfection all at once but acquire it by
degrees: so likewise the human intellect does not acquire perfect
knowledge by the first act of apprehension; but it first apprehends
something about its object, such as its quiddity, and this is its
first and proper object; and then it understands the properties,
accidents, and the various relations of the essence. Thus it
necessarily compares one thing with another by composition or
division; and from one composition and division it proceeds to
another, which is the process of reasoning.

But the angelic and the Divine intellect, like