  For Henry there are two levels of intentional distinction: a major and a minor. In the major none of the intentions includes the other or others, even though they are all part of the same thing, and it has two modes: the distinction between the differences in man (rational, sensible, vegetative and so on) and the distinction between genus and specific difference (animal and rational). In the minor the concept of one intention includes the other but not vice versa. And here Henry lists four modes: the distinction between species and genus; the distinction between living and being in creatures; the distinction between a suppositum and its nature or essence; and the distinction between a respectus (relation) and the essence on which it is founded (Macken 1981). The distinction between being and essence belongs to the last mode. Since being is not a real accident inhering in a subject, it makes no sense to speak of a real distinction. Instead, the distinction depends on the fact that the intellect uses different concepts to indicate the being of a thing, on the one hand, and that which a thing is, on the other. Nevertheless, since essence can be thought of independently from its being, and being is not part of its content, we cannot refer here to a distinction based on reason alone. In other words, whereas the concept of actual existence always includes the concept of essence, the contrary is not true, since essence can be thought of without its being (as affirmed by Avicenna). Being and essence are therefore different intentions, not different things (as instead was maintained by Giles of Rome in his long dispute with Henry). This intentional distinction is in itself sufficient to refute the conclusion that every essence is its being.