 As these passages make clear, perception (and cognition in general) works through the reception of the very form of the thing that is being perceived. This has led to much discussion over whether Aquinas thereby subscribes to a strong form of direct realism, according to which what we perceive (and what we think about) is the thing itself. In favor of this reading is that Aquinas seems entirely unconcerned about these intentionally existing species as intermediaries lying between us and the things themselves. Why should he be concerned, the thought goes, since the species just is the form itself of the thing out in the world? (see Perler 2000; Băltuță 2013) Against this reading is that the species (of heat, say) is not numerically the same form as the one that inheres in the fire, and that Aquinas does, at least sometimes, seem to think of these species as representations that mediate our access to external things (Pasnau 1997 ch. 3; Panaccio 2001; see also Brower and Brower-Toland 2008).