side 204

It was Mrs. Carlyle (was it not?) who said that 'mixing things is

the Great Bad.' To the writer it seems that there is a peculiarly in-

jurious variety of the 'Great Bad' in much of our recent psychological

logic. It is because that sort of philosophy which the writer for over

fifteen years has been calling 'dynamic' and which now seems to

have come to its own under the name 'functional' it is because, we

say, that this kind of dynamic philosophy and functional psychology

is peculiarly adapted to correct this 'mixing of things' that the writer

offers a few words upon the distinction between the 'real' and the

'true.'

This sounds like a question of definition and a matter for logic to

dispose of, but we submit that it is also a question of psychology, and

that psychology has already made a distinction (also a matter of defi-

nition, to be sure, the facts having been understood from time imme-

morial) peculiarly adapted to explain the logical distinction here

required.

It is remarkable that recent writers seem not to have been aware

of the ambiguity arising from the identification of the real with the

true. The present writer has elsewhere defined reality as 'affirmation

of attribute' and this dynamic statement may usefully be contrasted to

Lotze's descriptive definition that 'reality consists in standing in rela-

tion.' Upon critical analysis the two statements come to the same

thing, but our present method in both metaphysic and psychology re-

quires the dynamic form. Nothing can be real apart from a realizer.

As Hoeffding says, 'The real is what we apprehend as real which,

in spite of all effort to the contrary, we must ultimately leave as it is

which we cannot but recognize,' though he at once goes on to con-

fuse this real with what is true.

It may be assumed that all will agree with our definition of simple

reality as a statement of metaphysical reality. Dewey says: 'The

copula gives the statement of being, asserts the reality.' But he, too,

goes on to discuss truth as relational. In our own extended discussion

we endeavor to point out the union of subjective and objective in this

(fortsættes på side 205)