The conjunctions are as
primordial elements of 'fact' as are the distinctions
and disjunctions. In the same act by
which I feel that this passing minute is a new
pulse of my life, I feel that the old life continues
into it, and the feeling of continuance in
no wise jars upon the simultaneous feeling of a
novelty. They, too, compenetrate harmoniously.
Prepositions, copulas, and conjunctions,
'is,' is n't,' 'then,' 'before,' 'in,' 'on,' 'beside,'
'between,' 'next,' 'like,' 'unlike,' 'as,' 'but,'
flower out of the stream of pure experience, the
stream of concretes or the sensational stream,
as naturally as nouns and adjectives do, and
they melt into it again as fluidly when we
apply them to a new portion of the stream
96
II
If now we ask why we must thus translate
experience from a more concrete or pure into a
more intellectualized form, filling it with ever
more abounding conceptual distinctions, rationalism
and naturalism give different replies.
The rationalistic answer is that the theoretic
life is absolute and its interests imperative;
that to understand is simply the duty of man;
and that who questions this need must not be argued
with, for by the fact of arguing he gives away
his case.
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