COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 33 



to be repeated ad infinitum, nothing remains of the categorical 

 proposition, from which we started, save an endless chain of if's; 

 and no reason appears for supposing that the proposition A is 

 notB, depending upon a similar infinite chain of antecedents, may 

 not have equal claim to truth. Moreover, if there be no ultimate 

 truths, we 'cannot even be certain of the implication of A is B, in 

 C is D. For if the fact of this implication is demonstrable, it 

 too dissolves into an endless series of conditions which cannot 

 serve to exclude the validity of a similar series leading to the 

 absence of such implication. 



Such, then, is the relation between the assumption of the exist- 

 ence of simple elements of thought and the general scheme of 

 rationalism. How does the case stand on the side of empiricism? 

 Very similarly. Here, it will be remembered, psychological intro- 

 spection has been made the organ of philosophy, and has been 

 qualified as an infallible source of truth truth, to be sure, which 

 is limited in its scope to the enumeration of the actual contents of 

 consciousness. But if such enumeration is to be worth anything 

 as unquestionable knowledge, it must, at least for some small 

 portion of the field of consciousness, declare precisely what it 

 contains; and this can be done with entire satisfactoriness only 

 if there exist ultimate elements in terms of which the enumeration 

 can be made. For, with regard to any complex factor which 

 might be named in the description, it may always be doubted 

 whether its identification has depended upon the particular ele- 

 ments which it contains, or, perhaps, upon a characteristic 

 arrangement of elements which in themselves are by no means 

 determinate or, again, whether similarity of meaning may not 

 have been taken for identity of structural contents. Let it be 

 remembered, in this connection, that for the empiricist structure 

 and function are absolutely disparate orders of facts; and that 

 since the structure alone of an idea can be given by an introspec- 

 tion that declares what is there and what is not there, all function, 

 and accordingly all meaning, belongs to the problematical and 

 the obscure to that which must be explained, and not that in 

 terms of which explanation is to be given. 



