 Next, Olivi argues that species would have to be the first object of cognition. To turn toward a species in the way that we must if that species is to represent the external world “is the same as to attend to it as a first object” (Summa II q. 74, p. 123). Elsewhere, “we would always cognize the species before the thing itself that is the object” (Summa II q. 58 ad 14, p. 469). The point Olivi wants to make is one more often made by denying that the world is seen directly or immediately. If we see the external world at all, we see it only at second hand, indirectly.