 According to Simon, universality is a notion the intellect attributes to some quiddities that exhibit the capacity to inform several individuals. Take, for instance, Socrates. Socrates presents himself as a being endowed with reason and sensation. The soul realizes that reason and sensation are found in multiple individuals, so it takes being a rational animal—being a man—as a unified thing that is proper to many individuals. So, on one hand, being a man really inheres in Socrates, and as such it exists only particularly. On the other hand, the intellect considers being a man as a unity that can occur in several individuals, and as such being a man is a universal, and more specifically, a species. Following in the footsteps of Avicenna, Simon considers two modes of being of quiddities: a particular mode in individuals and a mental mode as the content of concepts to which the notion of universality is applied. In this sense, universals are merely notional or intellectual, as everything that exists in the external world is particular: