 The development of the notion of ‘knowledge by connaturality’ (or ‘connatural knowledge’ or ‘knowledge by inclination’), latent in Aquinas (Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 45, a 2), is one of Maritain’s major contributions to epistemology. Maritain places this knowledge at the level of the preconscious intellect. It is “non-conceptual and non-rational”, (Natural Law, 2001: 18); he describes it as 