38 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



inclusion in its meaning of such and such more general concepts. 

 And furthermore we can see how the explanation can be made, 

 that, properly speaking, this is no relation (between two distinct 

 terms) at all, but simply the identity of the included concept in 

 and out of its particular setting. In like manner, we may add, the 

 only reasonable inference from premises to a conclusion must 

 have the form: A includes B, B includes C, therefore A includes C; 

 the justification of the procedure consisting in the recognition 

 of the identity of C in itself considered, with C as an element in 

 B, whether, again, the latter be considered apart or as an element 

 in A . (So also, if the two premises and the conclusion be regarded 

 as concepts, the fact that the former, taken together, imply the 

 latter, is to be explained by the fact that the meaning of the latter 

 is contained in the ;oint content of the former.) 



But it is obvious that the relation of inclusion cannot obtain 

 between simple concepts; and the question becomes urgent, how 

 the rationalist can save his w^orld from falling apart into a chaos 

 of disconnected elements. For the older rationalists (of whom 

 Descartes is here typical), an answer is to be found in the fact 

 that they really postulate two distinct classes of elements, namely, 

 indefinable concepts and indemonstrable judgments, each of 

 which is simple in its own sense, and each of which serves as a 

 bond of connection for the other. The elementary judgments 

 contain the elementary concepts in (or as) their terms; and the 

 same terms occurring in several judgments unite them into syllo- 

 gisms. 



Now it seems clear that if the judgments are to do their part 

 in the matter they cannot be merely analytical; that is to say, 

 their predicates cannot be contained in the content of their sub- 

 jects. They must be strictly synthetical. But here, as time went 

 on, scepticism found an entrance. Does intuition ever vouch 

 for the truth of a synthetical judgment? Descartes, indeed, 

 declares so ; but others have denied the self-evidence of every one 

 of the examples which he adduces. Is not science thus brought 

 into a perilous condition to depend for its first principles upon 



