h
miracle, and sufficient reconstruction to avoid inference that is
trifling.

It is, however, the second contribution of analytic logic that is the
basis of the enthusiasm over its prospective value for other sciences.
This is the discovery that terms and propositions, sense-data, and
universals, are not only elements of logical operation but are the
simple, neutral elements at large which science is supposed to have been
seeking. "As the botanist analyzes the structures of the vegetable
organism and finds chemical compounds of which they are built so the
ordinary chemist analyzes these compounds into their elements, but does
not analyze these. The physical chemist analyzes these elemental atoms,
as now appears, into minuter components _which he in turn must leave to
the mathematicians and logicians further to analyze_."[29]

Again it is worth noting that this mutation of logical into ontological
elements seems to differ only "in position" from the universal logicism
of absolute idealism.

What are these simple elements into which the mathematician and logician
are to analyze the crude elements of the laboratory? And how are these
elements to be put into operation in the laboratory? Let us picture an
analytic logician meeting a physical scientist at a moment when the
latter is distressed over the unmanageable complexity of his elements.
Will the logician say to the scientist: "Your difficulty is that you are
trusting too much to your mundane apparatus. The kingdom of truth cometh
not with such things. Forsake your microscopes, test tubes, refractors
and resonators, and follow me, and you shall behold the truly simple
elements of which you have dreamed."? And when the moment of revelation
arrives and the expectant scientist is solemnly told that the "simple
elements" which he has sought so long are "terms and propositions,"
sense-data and universals, is it surprising that he does not seem
impressed? Will he not ask: "What am I to do with these in the specific
difficulties of my laboratory? Shall I say to the crude and complex
elements of my laboratory operations: 'Be ye resolved into terms and
propositions, sense-data and universals'; and will they forthwith obey
this incantation and fall apart so that I may locate and remove the
hidden source of my difficulty? Are you not mocking me and deceiving
yourself with the old ontological argument? Your 'simple' elements--are
they anything but the hypostatized process by whi