 Although Burley seems to accept the existence of a separate material intellect, unique to the whole human species, he emphasizes the fact that without the contribution of elementary thought, which provides us with the phantasm, the material intellect cannot be united to the active intellect in knowing. It is true that individual men could not reach an intellective knowledge of anything without the material intellect; but it is also true that the material intellect on its own, or with the mere contribution of the active intellect, would not be capable of elaborating any form of knowledge.