We see from the foregoing that the necessity for using sensible images in operations of the intellect does not arise from an intrinsic, essential incapacity of the human mind to act without them. As Father Baker says, and as Liberatore distinctly asserts after St. Thomas, it is “the state of a soul joined to a mortal body” which impedes the exercise of a power inherent and latent in the very nature of the soul, as a form which is in and by itself substantial and capable of self-subsistence and action in a separate state. Remove the impediment of the body, and the spirit starts, like a spring that has been weighted down, into a new and immortal life and activity. The curtain has dropped, and it is at once in the world of spirits. The earth, carrying with it the earthly body, drops down from the ascending soul, as it does from an aeronaut going up in a balloon. “Animæ, secundum illum modum essendi, quo corpori est unita, competit modus intelligendi per conversionem ad phantasmata corporum, quæ in corporeis organis sunt. Cum autem fuerit a corpore separata, competit ei modus intelligendi per conversionem ad ea, quæ sunt intelligibilia simpliciter, sicut et aliis substantiis separatis”――“To the soul, in respect to the mode of being by union with a body, belongs a mode of understanding by turning toward the phantasms of bodies which are in the bodily organs. But when it is separated from the body, a mode of understanding belongs to it in common with other separate substances, by turning toward things simply intelligible.”[38] “Hujusmodi perfectionem recipiunt animæ separatæ a Deo, mediantibus angelis”――“This kind of perfection the separate souls receive from God through the mediation of angels.”[39] “Quando anima erit a corpore separata plenius percipere poterit influentiam a superioribus substantiis, quantum ad hoc quod per hujusmodi influxum intelligere poterit absque phantasmate _quod modo non potest_”――“When the soul shall be separated from the body, it will be capable of receiving influence from superior substances more fully, inasmuch as by an influx of this kind it can exercise intellectual perception without a phantasm, _which in its present state it cannot do_.” This language of St. Thomas and other schoolmen explains the hesitation of Father Baker in respect to certain statements of mystical authors, especially Harphius. He says, as quoted above: “This abstraction and elevation (perhaps) are not to be understood as if the soul in these pure operations had no use at all of _the internal senses or sensible images_ (for the schools resolve that cannot consist with the state of a soul joined to a mortal body).” He says “perhaps,” which shows that he was in doubt on the point. The precise question we have raised is whether there is reason for this doubt in the shape of probable arguments, or conjectures not absolutely excluded by sound philosophy. The point to be considered, namely, is whether the reception of this