The philosophy which defends the validity of this distinction,—which holds that the distinction between individual human beings, and between individual living things generally, is in the fullest and truest sense a real distinction,—is at all events in conformity with universally prevailing modes of thought and language; while the monism which repudiates these spontaneous interpretations of experience as invalid by denying all real manifoldness to reality, can make itself intelligible only by doing violence to thought and language alike. Not that this alone is a disproof of monism; but at all events it creates a presumption against a system to find it running counter to any of those universal spontaneous beliefs which appear to be rooted in man’s rational nature. On the other hand, the philosophy which accords with common belief in proclaiming a real plurality in being has to reconcile intellect with sense, and the universal with the individual, by solving the important problem of _individuation_: What is it that makes real being individual, if, notwithstanding the fact that intellect apprehends reality as abstract and universal, reality nevertheless can exist only as concrete and individual? (29-33). 38. THE REAL DISTINCTION.—In the next place it must be remembered, comparing the virtual distinction with the real, that philosophers have recognized two kinds of real distinction: the _major_ or _absolute_ real distinction, and the _minor_ real, or _modal_ distinction. Before defining these let us see what are the usual signs by which a real distinction in general can be recognized.