of this or that species by merely thinking of it as such.

The ultra-forms of these doctrines are thus easily shown to
be inadequate, yet each of the three, Realism, Nominalism, and
Conceptualism, represents a phase of the whole truth.

Thus, take Realism. Although it is not true that there is anything
in reality corresponding to the general name such as there is
corresponding to the singular name, the general name merely signifying
attributes of what the singular name signifies, it does not follow, as
the opponents of Ultra-Realism hastily assume, that there is nothing
in the real world corresponding to the general name. Three senses may
be particularised in which Realism is justified.

(1) The points of resemblance from which the concept is formed are as
real as the individuals themselves. It is true in a sense that it
is our thought that gives unity to the individuals of a class, that
gathers the many into one, and so far the Conceptualists are right.
Still we should not gather them into one if they did not resemble one
another: that is the reason why we think of them together: and the
respects in which they resemble one another are as much independent of
us and our thinking as the individuals themselves, as much beyond the
power of our thought to change. We must go behind the activity of the
mind in unifying to the reason for the unification: and the ground of
unity is found in what really exists. We do not confer the unity:
we do not make all men or all dogs alike: we find them so. The curly
tails in a thousand domestic dogs, which serve to distinguish them
from wolves and foxes, are as real as the thousand individual domestic
dogs. In this sense the Aristotelian doctrine, _Universalia in re_,
expresses a plain truth.

(2) The Platonic doctrine, formulated by the Schoolmen as _Universalia
ante rem_, has also a plain validity. Individuals come and go, but
the type, the Universal, is more abiding. Men are born and die: man
remains throughout. The snows of last year have vanished, but snow is
still a reality to be faced. Wisdom does not perish with the wise
men of any generation. In this plain sense, at least, it is true that
Universals exist before Individuals, have a greater permanence, or, if
we like to say so, a higher, as it is a more enduring, reality.

(3) Further, the "idea," concept, or universal, though it cannot be
separated from the individual, and whether or not we ascribe to it
the separate suprase