 The attentive action is the sensory soul’s assimilating itself to the species received in the sense organ, and by means of this assimilation makes in and from itself (DSF 126) an image or likeness of the sensible species (DSF 166; 121; 185). It is by means of this assimilative action that the image of the sensible object comes into being in the sensory soul. The sensory soul (not the intellective, DSF 140) forms the image as if by natural instinct (instinctu naturali), that is, it has a natural capacity to do it (DSF 128).