I think, perhaps, the point I want to insist on can be brought out in
this way. I have just said that we have pointed out one particular
one, and that the most important, among the conceptions for which the
term "reality" may stand; and that is an excusable way of saying what
we have done. But it would, I think, be more correct to say that we
have pointed out one particular, and that the most important, usage
of the terms "real" and "unreal," and that one of the peculiarities
of this usage is that it is such that the terms "real" and "unreal"
cannot, when used in this way, be properly said to stand for any
conception whatever. I will try to explain what I mean. We have said
that what "Lions are real" _means_ is that some particular property or
other--I will say, for the sake of brevity, _the_ property of being
a lion, though that is not strictly accurate, does In fact _belong
to_ some-thing--that there are things which have it, or, to put it
in another way, that the conception of being a lion is a conception
which does apply to some things--that there are things which _fall
under_ it. And similarly what "Unicorns are _unreal"_ means is that the
property of being a unicorn belongs to _nothing_. Now, if this is so,
then it seems to me, in a very important sense, "real" and "unreal"
do _not_ in this usage stand for any conceptions at all. The only
_conceptions_ which occur in the proposition "Lions are real" are, on
this interpretation, plainly, (1) the conception of being a lion, and
(2) the conception of belonging to something, and perfectly obviously
"real" does not stand for either of these. In the case of the first
that is obvious; but it is worth while pointing out that it is also
true of the second.
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