The Unit of Thought 6

At least since the days of Locke it had been assumed that mental life went from the simple to the complex, and
that complex operations were painstakingly constructed out of elementaristic components. As we saw earlier,
Hartley made quite explicit the notion that complexity=summation. This seemed such an obvious formulation
that it was difficult to combat, and it was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that the proposition was
seriously considered that complex units and operations may be acquired and used in one fell swoop.
Unhappiness with atomism had been around for some time, however, and it seemed patently obvious to some
writers that thinking could not be reduced to a conglomeration of images and ideas. William James, for example,
had clearly posed the problem in 1890 in relation to perception when he wrote: