COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 41 



real world as expressed in a hierarchy of concepts related only 

 through intensive inclusion, and all converging in one supreme 

 concept whose definition comprehends within itself every neces 

 sary truth. Corresponding to this logical hierarchy is the on to- 

 logical hierarchy of causes and effects. The logical relation and 

 the causal relation are identical. The cause includes the effect 

 in precisely the same way in w r hich the richer concept includes 

 the poorer. The supreme cause is God, in whom, as the sum of 

 all positive predicates, all possible combinations of reality are 

 grounded. 



We cannot forbear noting that in Spinoza (and to a lesser 

 degree in other rationalists) this mode of thinking is curiously 

 mixed with another, inherited from neo-Platonism, and com 

 monly called mysticism. According to this theory, the supreme 

 concept in which all others are implicit is so far from being the 

 most intensive of all concepts, that it is the least intensive the 

 summum genus. To this concept the name of God is ascribed; 

 and he is regarded as the ultimate cause of which all specific 

 realities are but particular effects. The commixture of rational 

 ism with mysticism whole heavens asunder, as they logically 

 are is probably due to a very ancient misconception with regard 

 to the processes of definition and demonstration. Definition, it 

 is said, must always be in terms of the higher, that is, the more 

 general and less intensive; and demonstration likewise must be 

 founded upon premises of greater and greater generality. But 

 it is forgotten that though each element of the predicate of the 

 definition is more general than the concept defined, the predicate 

 as a whole is not; and that while one of the premises leading to 

 a conclusion must be more general than the conclusion, the prem 

 ises together are not. Now it has been customary, on various 

 accounts, to regard the predicate of a definition as falling into 

 two distinct parts, the genus and the specific difference; and it 

 has been found convenient that the difference shall be a simple 

 concept, all the complex remainder of the content of the subject 

 falling within the genus. For the further elucidation of the 



