Thus, the metaphysical grade of being, which, as considered in itself, Thomists hold to be an abstraction, having no other unity than that which thought confers upon it by making it logically universal, Scotists on the contrary hold to be as such something positive in the ontological order, having there a “formal” unity corresponding to the “conceptual” or “logical” unity which thought confers upon it by universalizing it. The metaphysical grade of being, thus conceived as something positive in the real order, Scotists will not admit to be a “reality,” nor the unity which characterizes it a “real” unity. But after all, if such a “formality” with its proportionate “unity,” is independent of thought; and if on the other hand “universality” is the work of thought, so that the universal as such cannot be real, it is not easy to see how the Scotist doctrine escapes the error of extreme realism. The metaphysical grade of being is a “formality” only because it is _made abstract_ by thought; and it has “unity” only because it is _made logically universal_ by thought; therefore to contend that as such it is something positive in the real order, independently of thought, is to “reify” the abstract and universal as such: which is extreme realism. CHAPTER V. REALITY AND THE TRUE. 40. ONTOLOGICAL TRUTH CONSIDERED FROM ANALYSIS OF EXPERIENCE.—We have seen that when the mind thinks of any reality it apprehends it as “one,” that ontological unity is a transcendental attribute of being; and this consideration led us to consider the manifoldness and the distinctions which characterize the totality of our experience. Now man himself is a real being surrounded by all the other real beings that constitute the universe. Moreover he finds himself endowed with faculties which bring him into conscious relations both with himself and with those other beings; and only by the proper interpretation of these relations can he understand aright his place in the universe. The first in order of these relations is that of reality to mind (25). This relation between mind and reality is what we understand by _Truth_.