  Does William therefore hold, as some have held (Gilson 1926), that at least in the case of these rules God in some special manner illuminates the human intellect? This might be suggested by his references to the intellective power as spiritual vision and his frequent use of the language of vision and illumination in his accounts of cognition. And yet, according to William, the first rules of truth and morality are “known through themselves” or self-evident. They are “lights in themselves  … visible through themselves without the help of something else” (OO II suppl., 210b; Teske 2000, 443), and they serve to illuminate to the intellect the conclusions drawn from them. God's role, it would seem, is to impress upon or supply to our intellect, in some way, these principles, but William gives no indication that he takes God to shed a special light on these principles in order that they may be known: once possessed they are, as it were, self illuminating.