  The term intentio must not be taken in the narrow sense with which, for example, one speaks of intentiones secundae as nomina nominum (individual, genus, species, difference, property, accident, etc.), but rather as a ‘note’ (feature, trait) of the essential content of a res, which does not differ from it in any real sense, nor from its other identifiable ‘notes’, yet can nevertheless be expressed by an independent concept (“appellatur hic intentio aliquid pertinens realiter ad simplicitatem essentiae alicuius, natum praecise concipi absque aliquo alio a quo non differt re absoluta, quod similiter pertinet ad eandem.”; Quodl. V, q. 6, ed. 1518, f. 161rL). Intentio is thus the fruit of an operation of the intellect, which delves inside (for Henry intentio comes from intus tentio) the thing to which the intention itself belongs, by considering its constitutive ‘notes’ and giving rise to different concepts. It can also be said that intentions really exist in a res, but only potentially, whereas their distinction is an operation of the intellect alone.