ABSTRACT
Idealism originated with the Greeks over the question whether the class or universal was merely an aggregation of particulars, each a separate value individually, or a unit from which their value came by participation. The first mode of view is called Realism, the second Idealism. Idealism and realism, in their literature, have shown a very unnecessary and even contemptuous antagonism. Experience more and more aggravated the antagonism between sense and reliable understanding, as to whether reality was external or internal, or partly each. For the idealist, identity is blind; the 'truth' of reality is distinction, which can be only in intelligence. The idealist will contend that only the idea, or the class, can be real and consistent, while the particular or participant is contradictory and confused; that the general cannot be asserted of the particular thing, but at best of thought or spirit only.
