He who reads as reflectively as he should will soon find out that
philosophers "call names" much as other men do, and that one should
always be on one's guard. "Every form of phenomenalism," asseverated a
learned and energetic old gentleman, who for many years occupied a
chair in one of our leading institutions of learning, "necessarily
leads to atheism." He inspired a considerable number of students with
such a horror for "phenomenalism" that they never took pains to find
out what it was.

I mention these things in this connection, because I suspect that not a
few in our own day are unduly influenced by the associations which
cling to the words "realism" and "idealism." Realism in literature, as
many persons understand it, means the degradation of literature to the
portrayal of what is coarse and degrading, in a coarse and offensive
way. Realism in painting often means the laborious representation upon
canvas of things from which we would gladly avert our eyes if we met
them in real life. With the word "idealism," on the other hand, we are
apt to connect the possession of ideals, a regard for what is best and
noblest in life and literature.

The reader must have seen that realism in the philosophic sense of the
word has nothing whatever to do with realism in the senses just
mentioned. The word is given a special meaning, and it is a weakness
to allow associations drawn from other senses of the word to color our
judgment when we use it.

And it should be carefully held in view that the word "idealism" is
given a special sense when it is used to indicate a type of doctrine
contrasted with the doctrine of the realist. Some forms of
philosophical idealism have undoubtedly been inspiring; but some have
been, and are, far from inspiring. They should not be allowed to
posture as saints merely because they are cloaked with an ambiguous
name.

53. IDEALISM.--Idealism we may broadly define as the doctrine that all
existence is mental existence. So far from regarding the external
world as beyond and independent of mind, it maintains that it can have
its being only in consciousness.

We have seen (section 49) how men were led to take the step to
idealism. It is not a step which the plain man is impelled to take
without preparation. To say that the real world of things in which we
perceive ourselves to live and move is a something that exists only in
the mind strikes him as little better than insane. He who beco