COMMON BASIS OF EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 53 



springing from the temporal order in which sensations are given, 

 is the source of the causal relation; and, except for the case of 

 demonstrative reasoning, it is the foundation of all inference. 

 It is this, which, as Berkeley says, "gives us a sort of foresight 

 which enables us to regulate our actions for the benefit of life." 

 And Hume expressly holds that "the only connection or relation 

 of objects, which can lead us beyond the immediate impressions 

 of our memory and senses, is that of cause and effect." The 

 basis of syllogistic inference is, of course, different. This is to 

 be found in that extraordinary faculty of comparison which plays 

 so great a part in the classic empiricism. 



But the importance of this exception must not be exaggerated. 

 Hume's criticism of the notion of the self, resolving it into a mere 

 sensational complex, strikes a death-blow at the conception of 

 an act of the mind. Though he himself may not admit it, the 

 possibility of an "arbitrary union of two ideas in the fancy, " 

 "without a connecting principle," has disappeared. The faculty 

 of comparison, like all other faculties, must be explained in terms 

 of the natural behavior of the ideas themselves. Thus empiri- 

 cism takes the form of a pure associationism and thus the 

 identity of the causal and the logical orders becomes complete. 



