  The universality of the concept of sign, according to which in some respect “anything in the world is a sign” (omnis res mundi est signum) (Peter Margallus, Logices utriusque scholia, 1520, 146f.), is counterbalanced by the emphasis laid on the mental sign (signum mentale) providing the basis for the whole range of sign processes. Spoken words, just like any external signs in general, can signify only by mediation of an immediate signification, provided by the mental  concepts.[56]  Thus, as Petrus a Spinosa says, the whole signification depends on the mental term (tota significatio dependet a [termino] mentali) (Pedro de Espinosa, Tractatus terminorum, cited in Muñoz Delgado, 1983, 152f.) In some respect this claim even goes beyond John Gerson's thesis, that “signification is not properly or aptly understood except with respect to an intellectual nature that is able to use the sign” (Significatio nec proprie nec convenienter accipitur, nisi per respectum ad naturam intellectualem, quae potest uti signo) (John Gerson, De modis significandi, 1706, 816). For what makes any signification possible, the cognitive act, is conceived to be a sign or an act of signification in the most proper sense, so that any other sign or signification can be termed a such only with reference to the mental sign (ipsa cognitio formalis… est propriissima significatio, ita quod alia dicuntur significare per attributionem ad istam) (Hieronymus de S. Marcho, Compendium praeclarum, 1507, fol. B1[57]