But this specific essence remains one, however much impressions in phantasy arc multiplied, whether in the same man or in different men. The proper subject in which the habit of knowledge resides is the potential intellect. But an accident, so long as it remains specifically one, is multiplied only by coming to reside in different subjects. If then the potential intellect is one in all men, any habit of knowledge specifically the same, say, the habit of grammar, must be numerically the same in all men, which is unthinkable. Therefore the habit of knowledge is in the potential intellect, not in the passive.
Science therefore is in that faculty which takes cognisance of universals.
But the passive intellect is not cognisant of universals, but of particular notions. The error of placing the habit of scientific knowledge in the passive intellect seems to have arisen from the observation that men are found more or less apt for the study of science according to the several dispositions of the cogitative faculty and the phantasy. Hence it appears that the habit of knowledge is not in the passive but in the potential intellect. But if the agent is eternal, and the recipient eternal, the contents received must be eternal also. But the only use of sense and phantasy in the process of understanding is that intellectual impressions may be gathered from them.