Note 68 — Chapter II
Reading edition
The six degrees of contemplation are as follows (De Contemp. i. 6, fol. 45):
1 In imaginatione secundum solam imaginationem.
2 In imaginatione secundum rationem.
3 In ratione secundum imaginationem.
4 In ratione secundum rationem.
5 Supra rationem sed non præter rationem.
6 Supra rationem videtur esse præter rationem.
The office of Imagination to which the first two belong is Thought (Cogitatio); the office of Reason, Investigation (Meditatio); that of Intelligence, Contemplation (Contemplatio).—Ibid. cap. 3. These three states are distinguished with much care, and his definition of the last is as follows:—Contemplatio est perspicax et liber animi contuitus in res perspiciendas undequaque diffusus.—Ibid. cap. 4. He draws the distinction between intelligibilia and intellectibilia in cap. 7; the former = invisibilia ratione tamen comprehensibilia; the latter = invisibilia et humanæ rationi incomprehensibilia. The four lower kinds are principally occupied, he adds, with created objects, the two last with what is uncreated and divine.—Fol. 45.