them--this I shall pass over, such a question being a very deep affair
and one that needs other and greater investigation."

This passage, written about the end of the third century, A.D., is a
kind of isthmus between Greek Philosophy and Mediaeval: it summarises
questions which had been turned over on every side and most
intricately discussed by Plato and Aristotle and their successors,
and the bald summary became a starting-point for equally intricate
discussions among the Schoolmen, among whom every conceivable variety
of doctrine found champions. The dispute became known as the dispute
about Universals, and three ultra-typical forms of doctrine
were developed, known respectively as Realism, Nominalism, and
Conceptualism. Undoubtedly the dispute, with all its waste of
ingenuity, had a clearing effect, and we may fairly try now what
Porphyry shrank from, to gather some simple results for the better
understanding of general names and their relations to thoughts and to
things. The rival schools had each some aspect of the general name in
view, which their exaggeration served to render more distinct.

What does a general name signify? For logical purposes it is
sufficient to answer--the points of resemblance as grasped in
the mind, fixed by a name applicable to each of the resembling
individuals. This is the signification of the general name
_logically_, its connotation or concept, the identical element of
objective reference in all uses of a general name.

But other questions may be asked that cannot be so simply answered.
What is this concept in thought? What is there in our minds
corresponding to the general name when we utter it? How is its
signification conceived? What is the signification _psychologically_?

We may ask, further, What is there in nature that the general name
signifies? What is its relation to reality? What corresponds to it in
the real world? Has the unity that it represents among individuals
no existence except in the mind? Calling this unity, this one in
the many, the Universal (_Universale_, [Greek: to pan]), what is the
Universal _ontologically_?

It was this ontological question that was so hotly and bewilderingly
debated among the Schoolmen. Before giving the ultra-typical answers
to it, it may be well to note how this question was mixed up with
still other questions of Theology and Cosmogony. Recognising that
there is a unity signified by the general name, we may go on to
inquire into