 This solution introduces the chief thesis of the nominalist approach to epistemology (the direct knowledge of individuals) into a realist context; nevertheless it is consistent with the metaphysical presuppositions proper to the late medieval realist way of thought. With the noteworthy exception of Walter Burley, according to any late medieval Realist, in the extramental world universal essences and individual things come together, since they are really identical and only formally distinct, although universal essence belongs to a deeper level of reality. In a certain way they are two different aspects of the same thing. This fact explains what happens in the process of knowledge according to Paul: since the intelligible species is directly connected with the essence of a thing and indirectly, by means of the phantasm, with the singular thing itself (cf. In De an., III, t.c. 11, fol. 137rb), our intellect grasps the universal essence and the individual thing at the same time, so that both of them are the primary objects of our mind, even though the universal essence is the primary object by nature (primitate naturae – In De an., III, t.c. 11, fol. 137va; see also SN, p. v, ch. 39, fol. 90va).