 The intellectual faculty, in turn, does not use a bodily organ in its operations. According to Brito, however, every single case of intellectual cognition takes as a starting point a phantasma or image (QDM; Ebbesen 2016: 40). This does not mean that the image is itself the object of intellectual cognition. On the contrary, Brito emphasizes in several places that the object of intellectual cognition is the essence (quod quid est) of the thing (QDA-1974-III: 174; cf. QDM; Ebbesen 2016: 41). For instance, what is known through intellectual cognition is neither the image of the apple nor the external apple, but the essence of the external apple that is represented in the image.