Page:The Distinction between Mind and Its Objects.djvu/29

 it proves that in the end there is no realism that can be completely solid and thorough; that is to say, that can sweep all characters of things, which are on the same level of objectivity, into the mass of non-mental reality. A thing may be charming quite as really and truly as it is red; but its charm according to realism, and even according to the realism before us, must be a mind-dependent attribute (for to be charmed is a mental act), while its redness is physical and mind-independent.

However, on the whole the tendency of realism to-day is away from eclecticism and towards a complete acceptance of external things, in all their concrete richness of existence, as reality independent of mind. And so far we are dealing with a new attitude, with a physical realism which has in the main stripped off the character of materialism.

And secondly—and here I think all twentieth century realism goes together—universals are admitted to be real, though by no means mental. Our particular realist