For in ordinary usage we recognize that we can speak of a single object in three ways. For we speak of objects either (1) by perceptibly employing perceptible signs (i.e., [signs] which can be perceived by the bodily senses) or (2) by imperceptibly thinking to ourselves these same signs, which are perceptible outside us, or (3) neither by perceptibly nor by imperceptibly employing these signs, but by inwardly and mentally speaking of the objects themselves—in accordance with their variety—either through the imagination of mataerial things or through rational discernment. For example, in one way I speak of a man when I signify him by the name "man." In another way [I speak of him] when I think this name silently. In a third way [I speak of a man] when my mind beholds him either by means of an image of a material thing or by means of reason—by means of an image of a material thing, for instance, when [my mind] imagines his perceptible shape; but by means of reason, for instance, when [my mind] thinks of his universal being, viz., rational, mortal animal.
From Monologion 10, Hopkins translation.
