CHAPTER III 



THE COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 

 II. THE SIMPLICITY OF ELEMENTS AND THE EXTERNALITY OF RELATIONS 



The possibility of an ultimate analysis, or, in other words, the 

 existence of absolutely simple elements, is a common pos 

 tulate of both the rationalistic and the empiricistic systems. 

 The nature of the analysis to which the possibility of 

 completion is ascribed, is ostensibly different in the two 

 cases. In both, indeed, it is a process of explanation, an exhibi 

 tion of the true inwardness of that which has been accepted as a 

 rough and ready whole. But for rationalism this must be a 

 definition (or demonstration) of universals; for empiricism it 

 must be a dissection of individuals. For the former it is a dis 

 covery of logical presuppositions; for the latter it is a discovery 

 of psychological structure. And the ultimate elements to which 

 the one analysis leads are simple conceptions and simple judg 

 ments; while the elements which the other contemplates are 

 simple sensations. The contrast is glaring enough. But that 

 there is, nevertheless, an important identity underlying the two 

 positions can, we believe, be made equally evident. 



Let us observe the logical connection between this assumption 

 of the simple, and other characteristic dogmas of rationalism and 

 empiricism. 



The connection with the intuitionalistic feature of rationalism 

 is certainly close. On the one hand, it is as a guarantee of the 

 truth of the indefinable and the indemonstrable of that residuum 

 left by the explanatory process, which baffles further effort at 

 reduction that the faculty of intuition is invoked. On the other 

 hand, by reason of the very directness of the cognitive act and 

 the very immediacy with which its objects are presented, the 

 intuitive concept can scarcely admit of explanation. At any 



