THE MIND AND KNOWLEDGE. 9 



our acts of judgment, is known as the doctrine of MODERATE 

 REALISM. It is summed up in the scholastic formula : Universale 

 est formaliter in mente, sed fundamentaliter in re. The object 

 apprehended by means of a universal concept is called a Uni 

 versal because it is something which is conceived as common to 

 many things, something that is or may be attributed to many 

 things in our judgments, something that is conceived as common 

 to all the members of a class. What is this something? The 

 answer of moderate realism is that this something is a reality 

 (hence the name, &quot; Realism &quot;) which is present in the individual 

 things of sense (&quot;in re&quot;\ helping to constitute the essence or 

 reality of the latter ; it is, however, not present in them as one in 

 all of them, but as multiplied and numerically distinct in each ; in 

 a manner, therefore, which serves as a foundation (&quot;fundamenta 

 liter&quot;) for the formation of one concept that will represent equally 

 well all the realizations of the object in the individuals ; nor is it, 

 as it really exists in the individuals, formally universal, common, 

 communicable ; for whatever exists really is individual and incom 

 municable : Plato s human nature is his own and cannot be any 

 body else s ; human nature exists as formally and explicitly uni 

 versal only in our thought; as universal it is only a concept 

 (&quot; Universale est formaliter in mente&quot;}. 



The above is not the only answer that has been given to the 

 question : What are those objects or entities which we apprehend 

 as universal, common, communicable, in our universal ideas, and 

 what relation have they to the things revealed to us through our 

 senses? The &quot; Problem of the Universals,&quot; as it is called, has 

 received other and erroneous solutions. It is of fundamental im 

 portance in philosophy ; and that is why, notwithstanding its diffi 

 culty, we introduce it at this early stage. It is desirable that the 

 student should have the correct orientation on the question from 

 the start. But since the problem is not properly a logical one we 

 merely indicate here the leading solutions it has received from 

 philosophers. 



Besides the solution given above which was first outlined by Aristotle 

 and then developed by the scholastic philosophers of the Middle Ages, especi 

 ally by St. Thomas Aquinas, and which we regard as the only correct one, there 

 is a view known as EXTREME or EXAGGERATED REALISM. According to this 

 view the universal (i.e. what is present to. our minds when we form any of 

 those universal concepts or ideas expressed by common or class names, such 

 as man, animal, good, unhappiness, etc.) is not only a reality distinct from the 

 mind, but exists really as a universal outside the mind. Plato taught that 



