 Linked to this question was another topic also discussed among the Aristotelians: are there several substantial forms in a single compound? The different responses to this question had a particular impact on the debate over the connection of the intellectual soul with the body. Two main positions can be easily distinguished here: there was a unitary position based on the thought of St. Thomas, for whom the intellective soul is the only substantial form present in human beings, having in itself the derived potentialities of the vegetative and sensitive souls; the position contrary to this had as a pattern the philosophy of Averroes: in this case many – professed Averroists or not – admitted the existence of more than one substantial form in the same compound in order to explain the link between the human soul and the body, as can be seen in great figures of medieval and Renaissance Aristotelianism such as John of Jandun, Nicole Oresme, Paul of Venice, Agostino Nifo and later Giacomo Zabarella. Zabarella summarized this position by pointing out that the intellectual soul may in no way be attached directly to prime matter: its own complexity requires a high level of organization in the subject matter so that it can serve as an appropriate instrument for the powers that the human soul is capable of exercising. For this reason, our soul needs a preliminary compound with its own substantial form (Zabarella 1590 [2016: vol. II, pp. 897]; Park 1988: 464–484).