The object of the general term or class name is in question. Plato, distinguishing between the universal and the individual, between man and men, thought it necessary, according to Aristotle, who has not, I think, done him injustice, to assume an object for the universal outside of and apart from all the individuals forming a class. The Idea is a real thing, _the_ real thing in which the individuals participate, or of which they are copies; but it is not itself to be found in any or all of them, except, so to speak, in a figurative or metaphorical way. Aristotle, finding no reason to assume a new individual, for so he regarded the Platonic Idea, placed the universal _in_ the individuals composing the class. Certain of the schoolmen, emphasizing the distinction between real things and mental representations, maintained that only individuals have real existence, and asserted either that universals exist merely as peculiar combinations of mental elements which serve to think the objects forming a class, or that the universal is the word, which may be applied indifferently to many individuals of one kind. In these views we have the _universalia ante rem_, the _universalia in re_, and the _universalia post rem_; or extreme Realism, moderate Realism, and Nominalism in its two forms. The examination into the respective merits of the positions which have been taken with regard to universals will be facilitated by distinguishing carefully between the different spheres of being; that is, between things immediately known and "real" things mediately known, as also between things contained in one consciousness and those contained in another. It is plainly important not to confound these classes with each other.