 […] attending to the exemplar gained from the thing as the reason for its cognition in the cognizer, the truth of the thing can indeed be recognized, by forming a concept of the thing that conforms to that exemplar; and it is in this way that Aristotle asserted that man gains knowledge and cognition of the truth from purely natural sources about changeable natural things, and that this exemplar is acquired from things by means of the senses, as from the first principle of art and science. […] So, by means of the universal notion in us that we have acquired from the several species of animals we are able to realize concerning any thing that comes our way whether it is an animal or not, and by means of the specific notion of donkey we realize concerning any thing that comes our way whether it is a donkey or not. [HQO, a. 1, q. 2, fol. 5 E-F]