Here is a drop of water. Look how different it is according to the different things with which it is connected. It cannot be what it is without a certain temperature. According to changes in temperature, it will assume either the form of ice or of steam. In fat the drop remains compact, in salt it divides infinitely, runs downhill in general and uphill in a loaf of sugar. According to the specific gravity of a certain fluid, with which it may come into contact, it either floats on the surface or sinks. Without a connection with the earth, its temperature and gravitation, this drop and all others would disappear in the fathomless abyss and have no existence. Thus the forms of things change according to their connections, and they are what they are only as parts of the universal interrelation. What is true of a drop of water, is true of all things, all forces and substances, even of our thoughts. The human mind lives and works only in connection with the rest of the material universe--and the recognition of the organic unity of all things is the fulcrum of my logic. Old line metaphysical logic was so enamored of its object that the descent, the kinship, and the connection with the common things of this world seemed too ordinary for the exquisite spirit. That logic was transcendental, and therefore its chosen object likewise had to be in touch with a transcendental world. And though it was scientific enough to regard the tale of the creation of the first soul by the breath of God as a fable, it was nevertheless so prejudiced in favor of the extraordinary nature of the intellect that it did not abandon, for thousands of years, the hope of finding in that intellect a source which would reveal transcendental matters. Formal logic now entirely discards this hope of a fantastical world, but at the same time it misunderstands the natural connection between the spirit and the common world. It isolates the instrument of thought and leaves the question undecided whether this instrument has a natural, supernatural, or no connection at all. It overlooks that just as logic is real, so reality is logical, and does not see that the back door which leads to illogical heaven by way of faith deserves the disdain of science. Thought, intellect, are really existing, and their existence is a uniform part of the universal existence. That is the cardinal point of sober logic. The fact that the thoughts are of the same worldly substance as the other parts of the universe, that they are parts of common nature and not a transcendental essence, has already been expressed by Cartesius in the famous words: "_Cogito, ergo sum_," I think, therefore I am.