As we are here using the word, an experience is "real" which fits in with, and does not contradict the totality of our experiences; which does not falsify our calculation or betray our expectancy.

To "explain" is in one way or another to liken the less known to what is better known; and thus every philosophy is an attempt to expressby means of sundry extensions and limitationsthe universe of our experience in the terms of some totality with which we are more familiar; plainly, it is also an endeavour to express the greater in terms of the less, and must therefore be almost infinitely inadequate even at the best.