In union with the body, the soul has two intellects, potential and agent.
This is the first type of intellect, the potential intellect, which is merely an ability to grasp intellectual forms.
With the assistance of this Agent Intellect, the potential intellect is able to receive all intelligible forms, beginning with "the first intelligibles which are common to all men," in the areas of logic, ethics and science (Walzer, 205).
Indeed, after the phantasms are impressed on the possible or potential intellect, making simple understanding possible, the intellect then forms complex judgments and produces its own species, or verbum (mental word), as a result of this activity.
The intelligible species are stored in the intellectual memory of the potential intellect [intellectus possibilis], which can then use them to form the corresponding concept in an act of thought, for example, in forming a judgment.
But how in the first place do we get from potential intellect to actual intellection?
It invests the sub-lunar world with the forms that comprise all species, rendering them potentially intelligible; and energizes our potential intellect to receive them (Bouyges, 24, 29; Hyman, 218, 219).
In his second set of Questiones on Aristotle, Bacon identifies the potential intellect with the intellective soul, and it is now both a spiritual substance and a form of the body.
Under such a power the potential intellect of humanity can be fully actuated the intellect, that is, of collective humanity, existent throughout the world, acting as one.
The intelligible species in the potential intellect constitutes the thought.
