8

1909 Nov 4
AM 10:45
Significs & LOGIC
8

"Real", besides its Metaphysical meani sense, is used in a
legal way, as when we speak of "real" property; and that
legal use, which is far older than the one that here concerns
us, is so utterly unrelated to the latter, being derived
from a different sense of res, that it ought and should I think to be considered
as a different word. At any rate, we have nothing to do with
it. As for the metaphysical word realis, I have a strong impression
that I have met with it in Alexander of [Thales?] or Albertus Magnus,
or some of the earlier XIIIth century scholastics; but it certainly remained an
unfamiliar extremely unusual expression until Duns Scotus took it up and used it so
constantly that its convenience was forced upon the attention of every
scholar in the University of Paris or in that of Oxford; and so it passed
into the English and French of everyday life. Many persons I think I may say most use it familiarly