The historical method is subject to two misunderstandings, Dewey says, one by the empiricists and materialists, the other by the idealists. The former, having isolated the primitive facts, suppose them to have a superior logical and existential value. "The earlier is regarded as somehow more 'real' than the later, or as furnishing the quality in terms of which the reality of all the later must be stated."[155] The later is looked upon as simply a recombination of the earlier existences. "Writers who ought to know better tell us that if we only had an adequate knowledge of the 'primitive' state of the world, if we only had some general formula by which to circumscribe it, we could deduce down to its last detail the entire existing constitution of the world, life, and society."[156] The primitive elements, however, take on new qualities on entering into new combinations. Water is more than hydrogen and oxygen. There is a similar process intervening between the earlier and the later in the moral field, of which the primitive state and the present are merely end terms. Actual study must take account of the whole process. The idealistic fallacy is of the opposite nature. It takes the final term of the process to be exclusively real. "The later reality is, therefore, to him the persistent reality in contrast with which the first forms are, if not illusions, at least poor excuses for being.... It is enough for present purposes to note that we have here simply a particular case of the general fallacy just discussed--the emphasis of a particular term of the series at the expense of the process operative in reference to all terms."[157] The true reality is the whole process, which is represented in empiricism only by the primitive terms, and in idealism only by the end terms. Only a historical method can deal with it in its entirety. In summing up the advantages of the historical method, Dewey says that it gives a complete account of the origin and development of ethical ideas, opinions, beliefs, and practices. "It is concerned with the origin and development of these customs and ideas; and with the question of their mode of operation after they have arisen. The described facts--yes; but among the facts described is precisely certain conditions under which various norms, ideals, and rules of action have originated and functioned."[158] Dewey finds it irritating that the facts thus singled out should be treated as mere facts, apart from their significance. The historical method employs description, to be sure, but it also aims at interpretation. "The historic method is a method, first, for determining how specific moral values (whether in the way of customs, expectations, conceived ends, or rules) came to be; and second, for determining their significance as indicated in their career."[159]