device, to obtain sympathy for a cause in
which one may happen to be interested by giving it a taking name; but
it is a device frowned upon by logic and by good sense.

One kind of realism is, then, naive realism. It is the position from
which we all set out, when we begin to reflect upon the system of
things. It is the position to which some try to come back, when their
reflections appear to be leading them into strange or unwelcome paths.

We have seen how Thomas Reid (section 50) recoiled from the conclusions
to which the reasonings of the philosophers had brought him, and tried
to return to the position of the plain man. The attempt was a failure,
and was necessarily a failure, for Reid tried to come back to the
position of the plain man _and still be a philosopher_. He tried to
live in a cloud and, nevertheless, to see clearly--a task not easy to
accomplish.

It should be remarked, however, that he tried, at least, to insist that
we know the external world _directly_. We may divide realists into two
broad classes, those who hold to this view, and those who maintain that
we know it only indirectly and through our ideas.

The plain man belongs, of course, to the first class, if it is just to
speak of a man who says inconsistent things as being wholly in any one
class. Certainly he is willing to assert that the ground upon which he
stands and the staff in his hand are perceived by him directly.

But we are compelled to recognize that there are subdivisions in this
first class of realists. Reid tried to place himself beside the plain
man and failed to do so. Hamilton (section 50) tried also, and he is
not to be classed precisely either with the plain man or with Reid. He
informs us that the object as it appears to us is a composite something
to the building up of which the knowing mind contributes its share, the
medium through which the object is perceived its share, and the object
in itself its share. He suggests, by way of illustration, that the
external object may contribute one third. This seems to make, at
least, _something_ external directly known. But, on the other hand, he
maintains that the mind knows immediately only what is in immediate
contact with the bodily organ--with the eyes, with the hands, etc.; and
he believes it knows this immediately because it is actually present in
all parts of the body. And, further, in distinguishing as he does
between existence "as it is in itself" and existe