— assumptions such as lead the philosopher into a hopeless, because unreasonable, complexity, — such are the devices whereby Realism has in such cases sought to join again the sundered fragments of its disintegrated universe, like a careless child tearfully trying to mend a shattered crystal.
Or, on the other hand, some historical systems of Realism have been simply monistic, as the Eleatic doctrine was, or as, upon the realistic side of his ambiguous system, Spinoza’s teaching appears. But in such cases, not only has common sense often revolted at the thought of making all the independently real beings into a single Being, but the realist’s own logic has been easily turned against him. For, as an objector may then briefly sum up the case, addressing the merely monistic realists: “Our so-called false opinions, when we believe that the realities of the world are many, and are not One Being, — are not these opinions themselves, viewed merely as opinions, still also psychical facts, as real in the mental world as is your One Being in its world. For you cannot even say that the opinions are false without admitting that, even as mere psychical facts, the opinions are in existence. But our false opinions, as you yourself also say, are many. Hence there is a real manifoldness in the world, and your simple One cannot be the whole truth.” And this statement is, of course, conclusive as against any absolutely simple oneness about the independent reality.
Paradox has faced the realist, therefore, whenever he has attempted, during the history of thought, seriously to apply that idea of the fundamental definition of Being
