 Exemplata, or essences, are thus secondary objects of divine knowledge, indeed they are doubly so, and as such they seem to have a purely mental being. In other words, they are diminished beings (entia diminuta), just like the contents of our mind. But the divine intellect obviously does not have the same characteristics as ours, since in order to know something our intellect needs to be informed (per speciem) by its contents, and so is passive in a sense, whereas the divine intellect is itself the cause of its own contents. Hence the level of existence that contents have in the divine intellect is not in any way comparable to that which they have in our intellect. Essences are therefore entia diminuta, though not so diminished that they cannot be something in themselves (Quodl. IX, q. 2). Their being is their quidditative constitution, which also defines the effective possibility of access to actual existence: all essences, as thought of and therefore “ratified” by God, are possible in themselves; that is, they can be placed in act on the basis of divine free will.