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Other documents randomly have
different content
which answer to their respective meanings. But the point is that, in
respect to both of them, the seventeenth century settlement was
infected with a presupposition which is now challenged. James
denies that consciousness is an entity, but admits that it is a function.
The discrimination between an entity and a function is therefore vital
to the understanding of the challenge which James is advancing
against the older modes of thought. In the essay in question, the
character which James assigns to consciousness is fully discussed.
But he does not unambiguously explain what he means by the notion
of an entity, which he refuses to apply to consciousness. In the
sentence which immediately follows the one which I have already
quoted, he says:
“There is, I mean, no aboriginal stuff or quality of being, contrasted
with that of which material objects are made, out of which our
thoughts of them are made; but there is a function in experience
which thoughts perform, and for the performance of which this
quality of being is invoked. That function is knowing. ‘Consciousness’
is supposed necessary to explain the fact that things not only are,
but get reported, are known.”
Thus James is denying that consciousness is a ‘stuff.’
The term ‘entity,’ or even that of ‘stuff,’ does not fully tell its own
tale. The notion of ‘entity’ is so general that it may be taken to mean
anything that can be thought about. You cannot think of mere
nothing; and the something which is an object of thought may be
called an entity. In this sense, a function is an entity. Obviously, this
is not what James had in his mind.
In agreement with the organic theory of nature which I have been
tentatively putting forward in these lectures, I shall for my own
purposes construe James as denying exactly what Descartes
asserts in his Discourse and his Meditations. Descartes
discriminates two species of entities, matter and soul. The essence
of matter is spatial extension; the essence of soul is its cogitation, in
the full sense which Descartes assigns to the word ‘cogitare.’ For
example, in Section Fifty-three of Part I of his Principles of
Philosophy, he enunciates: “That of every substance there is one
principal attribute, as thinking of the mind, extension of the body.” In
the earlier, Fifty-first Section, Descartes states: “By substance we
can conceive nothing else than a thing which exists in such a way as
to stand in need of nothing beyond itself in order to its existence.”
Furthermore, later on, Descartes says: “For example, because any
substance which ceases to endure ceases also to exist, duration is
not distinct from substance except in thought;....” Thus we conclude
that, for Descartes, minds and bodies exist in such a way as to stand
in need of nothing beyond themselves individually (God only
excepted, as being the foundation of all things); that both minds and
bodies endure, because without endurance they would cease to
exist; that spatial extension is the essential attribute of bodies; and
that cogitation is the essential attribute of minds.
It is difficult to praise too highly the genius exhibited by Descartes
in the complete sections of his Principles which deal with these
questions. It is worthy of the century in which he writes, and of the
clearness of the French intellect. Descartes in his distinction
between time and duration, and in his way of grounding time upon
motion, and in his close relation between matter and extension,
anticipates, as far as it was possible at his epoch, modern notions
suggested by the doctrine of relativity, or by some aspects of
Bergson’s doctrine of the generation of things. But the fundamental
principles are so set out as to presuppose independently existing
substances with simple location in a community of temporal
durations, and, in the case of bodies, with simple location in the
community of spatial extensions. Those principles lead straight to the
theory of a materialistic, mechanistic nature, surveyed by cogitating
minds. After the close of the seventeenth century, science took
charge of the materialistic nature, and philosophy took charge of the
cogitating minds. Some schools of philosophy admitted an ultimate
dualism; and the various idealistic schools claimed that nature was
merely the chief example of the cogitations of minds. But all schools
admitted the Cartesian analysis of the ultimate elements of nature. I
am excluding Spinoza and Leibniz from these statements as to the
main stream of modern philosophy, as derivative from Descartes;
though of course they were influenced by him, and in their turn
influenced philosophers. I am thinking mainly of the effective
contacts between science and philosophy.
 This division of territory between science and philosophy was not
a simple business; and in fact it illustrated the weakness of the whole
cut-and-dried presupposition upon which it rested. We are aware of
nature as an interplay of bodies, colours, sounds, scents, tastes,
touches and other various bodily feelings, displayed as in space, in
patterns of mutual separation by intervening volumes, and of
individual shape. Also the whole is a flux, changing with the lapse of
time. This systematic totality is disclosed to us as one complex of
things. But the seventeenth century dualism cuts straight across it.
The objective world of science was confined to mere spatial material
with simple location in space and time, and subjected to definite
rules as to its locomotion. The subjective world of philosophy
annexed the colours, sounds, scents, tastes, touches, bodily
feelings, as forming the subjective content of the cogitations of the
individual minds. Both worlds shared in the general flux; but time, as
measured, is assigned by Descartes to the cogitations of the
observer’s mind. There is obviously one fatal weakness to this
scheme. The cogitations of mind exhibit themselves as holding up
entities, such as colours for instance, before the mind as the termini
of contemplation. But in this theory these colours are, after all,
merely the furniture of the mind. Accordingly, the mind seems to be
confined to its own private world of cogitations. The subject-object
conformation of experience in its entirety lies within the mind as one
of its private passions. This conclusion from the Cartesian data is the
starting point from which Berkeley, Hume, and Kant developed their
respective systems. And, antecedently to them, it was the point upon
which Locke concentrated as being the vital question. Thus the
question as to how any knowledge is obtained of the truly objective
world of science becomes a problem of the first magnitude.
Descartes states that the objective body is perceived by the intellect.
He says (Meditation II): “I must, therefore, admit that I cannot even
comprehend by imagination what the piece of wax is, and that it is
the mind alone which perceives it. I speak of one piece in particular;
for, as to wax in general, this is still more evident. But what is the
piece of wax that can be perceived only by the mind?... The
perception of it is neither an act of sight, of touch, nor of imagination,
and never was either of these, though it might formerly seem so, but
is simply an intuition (inspectio) of the mind,....” It must be noted that
the Latin word ‘inspectio’ is associated in its classical use with the
notion of theory as opposed to practice.
The two great preoccupations of modern philosophy now lie
clearly before us. The study of mind divides into psychology, or the
study of mental functionings as considered in themselves and in their
mutual relations, and into epistemology, or the theory of the
knowledge of a common objective world. In other words, there is the
study of the cogitations, quâ passions of the mind, and their study
quâ leading to an inspection (intuition) of an objective world. This is a
very uneasy division, giving rise to a host of perplexities whose
consideration has occupied the intervening centuries.
As long as men thought in terms of physical notions for the
objective world and of mentality for the subjective world, the setting
out of the problem, as achieved by Descartes, sufficed as a starting
point. But the balance has been upset by the rise of physiology. In
the seventeenth century men passed from the study of physics to the
study of philosophy. Towards the end of the nineteenth century,
notably in Germany, men passed from the study of physiology to the
study of psychology. The change in tone has been decisive. Of
course, in the earlier period the intervention of the human body was
fully considered, for example, by Descartes in Part V of the
‘Discourse on Method.’ But the physiological instinct had not been
developed. In considering the human body, Descartes thought with
the outfit of a physicist; whereas the modern psychologists are
clothed with the mentalities of medical physiologists. The career of
William James is an example of this change in standpoint. He also
possessed the clear, incisive genius which could state in a flash the
exact point at issue.
The reason why I have put Descartes and James in close
juxtaposition is now evident. Neither philosopher finished an epoch
by a final solution of a problem. Their great merit is of the opposite
sort. They each of them open an epoch by their clear formulation of
terms in which thought could profitably express itself at particular
stages of knowledge, one for the seventeenth century, the other for
the twentieth century. In this respect, they are both to be contrasted
with St. Thomas Aquinas, who expressed the culmination of
Aristotelian scholasticism.
In many ways neither Descartes nor James were the most
characteristic philosophers of their respective epochs. I should be
disposed to ascribe these positions to Locke and to Bergson
respectively, at least so far as concerns their relations to the science
of their times. Locke developed the lines of thought which kept
philosophy on the move; for example he emphasized the appeal to
psychology. He initiated the age of epoch-making enquiries into
urgent problems of limited scope. Undoubtedly, in so doing, he
infected philosophy with something of the anti-rationalism of science.
But the very groundwork of a fruitful methodology is to start from
those clear postulates which must be held to be ultimate so far as
concerns the occasion in question. The criticism of such
methodological postulates is thus reserved for another opportunity.
Locke discovered that the philosophical situation bequeathed by
Descartes involved the problems of epistemology and psychology.
Bergson introduced into philosophy the organic conceptions of
physiological science. He has most completely moved away from the
static materialism of the seventeenth century. His protest against
spatialisation is a protest against taking the Newtonian conception of
nature as being anything except a high abstraction. His so-called
anti-intellectualism should be construed in this sense. In some
respects he recurs to Descartes; but the recurrence is accompanied
with an instinctive grasp of modern biology.
There is another reason for associating Locke and Bergson. The
germ of an organic theory of nature is to be found in Locke. His most
recent expositor, Professor Gibson,[14] states that Locke’s way of
conceiving the identity of self-consciousness ‘like that of a living
organism, involves a genuine transcending of the mechanical view of
nature and of mind, embodied in the composition theory.’ But it is to
be noticed that in the first place Locke wavers in his grasp of this
position; and in the second place, what is more important still, he
only applies his idea to self-consciousness. The physiological
attitude has not yet established itself. The effect of physiology was to
put mind back into nature. The neurologist traces first the effect of
stimuli along the bodily nerves, then integration at nerve centres, and
finally the rise of a projective reference beyond the body with a
resulting motor efficacy in renewed nervous excitement. In
biochemistry, the delicate adjustment of the chemical composition of
the parts to the preservation of the whole organism is detected. Thus
the mental cognition is seen as the reflective experience of a totality,
reporting for itself what it is in itself as one unit occurrence. This unit
is the integration of the sum of its partial happenings, but it is not
their numerical aggregate. It has its own unity as an event. This total
unity, considered as an entity for its own sake, is the prehension into
unity of the patterned aspects of the universe of events. Its
knowledge of itself arises from its own relevance to the things of
which it prehends the aspects. It knows the world as a system of
mutual relevance, and thus sees itself as mirrored in other things.
These other things include more especially the various parts of its
own body.
14. Cf. his book, Locke’s Theory of Knowledge and its Historical
Relations, Camb. Univ. Press, 1917.
It is important to discriminate the bodily pattern, which endures,
from the bodily event, which is pervaded by the enduring pattern,
and from the parts of the bodily event. The parts of the bodily event
are themselves pervaded by their own enduring patterns, which form
elements in the bodily pattern. The parts of the body are really
portions of the environment of the total bodily event, but so related
that their mutual aspects, each in the other, are peculiarly effective in
modifying the pattern of either. This arises from the intimate
character of the relation of whole to part. Thus the body is a portion
of the environment for the part, and the part is a portion of the
environment for the body; only they are peculiarly sensitive, each to
modifications of the other. This sensitiveness is so arranged that the
part adjusts itself to preserve the stability of the pattern of the body. It
is a particular example of the favourable environment shielding the
organism. The relation of part to whole has the special reciprocity
associated with the notion of organism, in which the part is for the
whole; but this relation reigns throughout nature and does not start
with the special case of the higher organisms.
Further, viewing the question as a matter of chemistry, there is no
need to construe the actions of each molecule in a living body by its
exclusive particular reference to the pattern of the complete living
organism. It is true that each molecule is affected by the aspect of
this pattern as mirrored in it, so as to be otherwise than what it would
have been if placed elsewhere. In the same way, under some
circumstances an electron may be a sphere, and under other
circumstances an egg-shaped volume. The mode of approach to the
problem, so far as science is concerned, is merely to ask if
molecules exhibit in living bodies properties which are not to be
observed amid inorganic surroundings. In the same way, in a
magnetic field soft iron exhibits magnetic properties which are in
abeyance elsewhere. The prompt self-preservative actions of living
bodies, and our experience of the physical actions of our bodies
following the determinations of will, suggest the modification of
molecules in the body as the result of the total pattern. It seems
possible that there may be physical laws expressing the modification
of the ultimate basic organisms when they form part of higher
organisms with adequate compactness of pattern. It would, however,
be entirely in consonance with the empirically observed action of
environments, if the direct effects of aspects as between the whole
body and its parts were negligible. We should expect transmission.
In this way the modification of total pattern would transmit itself by
means of a series of modifications of a descending series of parts,
so that finally the modification of the cell changes its aspect in the
molecule, thus effecting a corresponding alteration in the molecule,
—or in some subtler entity. Thus the question for physiology is the
question of the physics of molecules in cells of different characters.
We can now see the relation of psychology to physiology and to
physics. The private psychological field is merely the event
considered from its own standpoint. The unity of this field is the unity
of the event. But it is the event as one entity, and not the event as a
sum of parts. The relations of the parts, to each other and to the
whole, are their aspects, each in the other. A body for an external
observer is the aggregate of the aspects for him of the body as a
whole, and also of the body as a sum of parts. For the external
observer the aspects of shape and of sense-objects are dominant, at
least for cognition. But we must also allow for the possibility that we
can detect in ourselves direct aspects of the mentalities of higher
organisms. The claim that the cognition of alien mentalities must
necessarily be by means of indirect inferences from aspects of
shape and of sense-objects is wholly unwarranted by this philosophy
of organism. The fundamental principle is that whatever merges into
actuality, implants its aspects in every individual event.
Further, even for self-cognition, the aspects of the parts of our own
bodies partly take the form of aspects of shape, and of sense-
objects. But that part of the bodily event, in respect to which the
cognitive mentality is associated, is for itself the unit psychological
field. Its ingredients are not referent to the event itself; they are
aspects of what lies beyond that event. Thus the self-knowledge
inherent in the bodily event is the knowledge of itself as a complex
unity, whose ingredients involve all reality beyond itself, restricted
under the limitation of its pattern of aspects. Thus we know
ourselves as a function of unification of a plurality of things which are
other than ourselves. Cognition discloses an event as being an
activity, organising a real togetherness of alien things. But this
psychological field does not depend on its cognition; so that this field
is still a unit event as abstracted from its self-cognition.
Accordingly, consciousness will be the function of knowing. But
what is known is already a prehension of aspects of the one real
universe. These aspects are aspects of other events as mutually
modifying, each the others. In the pattern of aspects they stand in
their pattern of mutual relatedness.
The aboriginal data in terms of which the pattern weaves itself are
the aspects of shapes, of sense-objects, and of other eternal objects
whose self-identity is not dependent on the flux of things. Wherever
such objects have ingression into the general flux, they interpret
events, each to the other. They are here in the perceiver; but, as
perceived by him, they convey for him something of the total flux
which is beyond himself. The subject-object relation takes its origin
in the double rôle of these eternal objects. They are modifications of
the subject, but only in their character of conveying aspects of other
subjects in the community of the universe. Thus no individual subject
can have independent reality, since it is a prehension of limited
aspects of subjects other than itself.
 The technical phrase ‘subject-object’ is a bad term for the
fundamental situation disclosed in experience. It is really reminiscent
of the Aristotelian ‘subject-predicate.’ It already presupposes the
metaphysical doctrine of diverse subjects qualified by their private
predicates. This is the doctrine of subjects with private worlds of
experience. If this be granted, there is no escape from solipsism.
The point is that the phrase ‘subject-object’ indicates a fundamental
entity underlying the objects. Thus the ‘objects,’ as thus conceived,
are merely the ghosts of Aristotelian predicates. The primary
situation disclosed in cognitive experience is ‘ego-object amid
objects.’ By this I mean that the primary fact is an impartial world
transcending the ‘here-now’ which marks the ego-object, and
transcending the ‘now’ which is the spatial world of simultaneous
realisation. It is a world also including the actuality of the past, and
the limited potentiality of the future, together with the complete world
of abstract potentiality, the realm of eternal objects, which
transcends, and finds exemplification in and comparison with, the
actual course of realisation. The ego-object, as consciousness here-
now, is conscious of its experient essence as constituted by its
internal relatedness to the world of realities, and to the world of
ideas. But the ego-object, in being thus constituted, is within the
world of realities, and exhibits itself as an organism requiring the
ingression of ideas for the purpose of this status among realities.
This question of consciousness must be reserved for treatment on
another occasion.
The point to be made for the purposes of the present discussion is
that a philosophy of nature as organic must start at the opposite end
to that requisite for a materialistic philosophy. The materialistic
starting point is from independently existing substances, matter and
mind. The matter suffers modifications of its external relations of
locomotion, and the mind suffers modifications of its contemplated
objects. There are, in this materialistic theory, two sorts of
independent substances, each qualified by their appropriate
passions. The organic starting point is from the analysis of process
as the realisation of events disposed in an interlocked community.
The event is the unit of things real. The emergent enduring pattern is
the stabilisation of the emergent achievement so as to become a fact
which retains its identity throughout the process. It will be noted that
endurance is not primarily the property of enduring beyond itself, but
of enduring within itself. I mean that endurance is the property of
finding its pattern reproduced in the temporal parts of the total event.
It is in this sense that a total event carries an enduring pattern. There
is an intrinsic value identical for the whole and for its succession of
parts. Cognition is the emergence, into some measure of
individualised reality, of the general substratum of activity, poising
before itself possibility, actuality, and purpose.
It is equally possible to arrive at this organic conception of the
world if we start from the fundamental notions of modern physics,
instead of, as above, from psychology and physiology. In fact by
reason of my own studies in mathematics and mathematical physics,
I did in fact arrive at my convictions in this way. Mathematical
physics presumes in the first place an electromagnetic field of
activity pervading space and time. The laws which condition this field
are nothing else than the conditions observed by the general activity
of the flux of the world, as it individualises itself in the events. In
physics, there is an abstraction. The science ignores what anything
is in itself. Its entities are merely considered in respect to their
extrinsic reality, that is to say, in respect to their aspects in other
things. But the abstraction reaches even further than that; for it is
only the aspects in other things, as modifying the spatio-temporal
specifications of the life histories of those other things, which count.
The intrinsic reality of the observer comes in: I mean what the
observer is for himself is appealed to. For example, the fact that he
will see red or blue enters into scientific statements. But the red
which the observer sees does not in truth enter into science. What is
relevant is merely the bare diversity of the observer’s red
experiences from all of his other experiences. Accordingly, the
intrinsic character of the observer is merely relevant in order to fix
the self-identical individuality of the physical entities. These entities
are only considered as agencies in fixing the routes in space and in
time of the life histories of enduring entities.
The phraseology of physics is derived from the materialistic ideas
of the seventeenth century. But we find that, even in its extreme
abstraction, what it is really presupposing is the organic theory of
aspects as explained above. First, consider any event in empty
space where the word ‘empty’ means devoid of electrons, or protons,
or of any other form of electric charge. Such an event has three rôles
in physics. In the first place, it is the actual scene of an adventure of
energy, either as its habitat or as the locus of a particular stream of
energy: anyhow, in this rôle the energy is there, either as located in
space during the time considered, or as streaming through space.
In its second rôle, the event is a necessary link in the pattern of
transmission, by which the character of every event receives some
modification from the character of every other event.
In its third rôle, the event is the repository of a possibility, as to
what would happen to an electric charge, either by way of
deformation or of locomotion, if it should have happened to be there.
If we modify our assumption by considering an event which
includes in itself a portion of the life-history of an electric charge,
then the analysis of its three rôles still remains; except that the
possibility embodied in the third rôle is now transformed into an
actuality. In this replacement of possibility by actuality, we obtain the
distinction between empty and occupied events.
Recurring to the empty events, we note the deficiency in them of
individuality of intrinsic content. Considering the first rôle of an empty
event, as being a habitat of energy, we note that there is no
individual discrimination of an individual bit of energy, either as
statically located, or as an element in the stream. There is simply a
quantitative determination of activity, without individualisation of the
activity in itself. This lack of individualisation is still more evident in
the second and third rôles. An empty event is something in itself, but
it fails to realise a stable individuality of content. So far as its content
is concerned, the empty event is one realised element in a general
scheme of organised activity.
Some qualification is required when the empty event is the scene
of the transmission of a definite train of recurrent wave-forms. There
is now a definite pattern which remains permanent in the event. We
find here the first faint trace of enduring individuality. But it is
individuality without the faintest capture of originality: for it is merely
a permanence arising solely from the implication of the event in a
larger scheme of patterning.
 Turning now to the examination of an occupied event, the electron
has a determinate individuality. It can be traced throughout its life-
history through a variety of events. A collection of electrons, together
with the analogous atomic charges of positive electricity, forms a
body such as we ordinarily perceive. The simplest body of this kind
is a molecule, and a set of molecules forms a lump of ordinary
matter, such as a chair, or a stone. Thus a charge of electricity is the
mark of individuality of content, as additional to the individuality of an
event in itself. This individuality of content is the strong point of the
materialistic doctrine.
It can, however, be equally well explained on the theory of
organism. When we look into the function of the electric charge, we
note that its rôle is to mark the origination of a pattern which is
transmitted through space and time. It is the key of some particular
pattern. For example, the field of force in any event is to be
constructed by attention to the adventures of electrons and protons,
and so also are the streams and distributions of energy. Further, the
electric waves find their origin in the vibratory adventures of these
charges. Thus the transmitted pattern is to be conceived as the flux
of aspects throughout space and time derived from the life history of
the atomic charge. The individualisation of the charge arises by a
conjunction of two characters, in the first place by the continued
identity of its mode of functioning as a key for the determination of a
diffusion of pattern; and, in the second place, by the unity and
continuity of its life history.
We may conclude, therefore, that the organic theory represents
directly what physics actually does assume respecting its ultimate
entities. We also notice the complete futility of these entities, if they
are conceived as fully concrete individuals. So far as physics is
concerned, they are wholly occupied in moving each other about,
and they have no reality outside this function. In particular for
physics, there is no intrinsic reality.
It is obvious that the basing of philosophy upon the presupposition
of organism must be traced back to Leibniz.[15] His monads are for
him the ultimately real entities. But he retained the Cartesian
substances with their qualifying passions, as also equally expressing
for him the final characterisation of real things. Accordingly for him
there was no concrete reality of internal relations. He had therefore
on his hands two distinct points of view. One was that the final real
entity is an organising activity, fusing ingredients into a unity, so that
this unity is the reality. The other point of view is that the final real
entities are substances supporting qualities. The first point of view
depends upon the acceptance of internal relations binding together
all reality. The latter is inconsistent with the reality of such relations.
To combine these two points of view, his monads were therefore
windowless; and their passions merely mirrored the universe by the
divine arrangement of a preëstablished harmony. This system thus
presupposed an aggregate of independent entities. He did not
discriminate the event, as the unit of experience, from the enduring
organism as its stabilisation into importance, and from the cognitive
organism as expressing an increased completeness of
individualisation. Nor did he admit the many-termed relations,
relating sense-data to various events in diverse ways. These many-
termed relations are in fact the perspectives which Leibniz does
admit, but only on the condition that they are purely qualities of the
organising monads. The difficulty really arises from the unquestioned
acceptance of the notion of simple location as fundamental for space
and time, and from the acceptance of the notion of independent
individual substance as fundamental for a real entity. The only road
open to Leibniz was thus the same as that later taken by Berkeley [in
a prevalent interpretation of his meaning], namely an appeal to a
Deux ex machinâ who was capable of rising superior to the
difficulties of metaphysics.
15. Cf. Bertrand Russell, The Philosophy of Leibniz, for the
suggestion of this line of thought.
In the same way as Descartes introduced the tradition of thought
which kept subsequent philosophy in some measure of contact with
the scientific movement, so Leibniz introduced the alternative
tradition that the entities, which are the ultimate actual things, are in
some sense procedures of organisation. This tradition has been the
foundation of the great achievements of German philosophy. Kant
reflected the two traditions, one upon the other. Kant was a scientist,
but the schools derivative from Kant have had but slight effect on the
mentality of the scientific world. It should be the task of the
philosophical schools of this century to bring together the two
streams into an expression of the world-picture derived from science,
and thereby end the divorce of science from the affirmations of our
aesthetic and ethical experiences.
 CHAPTER X

ABSTRACTION

In the previous chapters I have been examining the reactions of

the scientific movement upon the deeper issues which have
occupied modern thinkers. No one man, no limited society of men,
and no one epoch can think of everything at once. Accordingly for
the sake of eliciting the various impacts of science upon thought, the
topic has been treated historically. In this retrospect I have kept in
mind that the ultimate issue of the whole story is the patent
dissolution of the comfortable scheme of scientific materialism which
has dominated the three centuries under review. Accordingly various
schools of criticism of the dominant opinions have been stressed;
and I have endeavoured to outline an alternative cosmological
doctrine, which shall be wide enough to include what is fundamental
both for science and for its critics. In this alternative scheme, the
notion of material, as fundamental, has been replaced by that of
organic synthesis. But the approach has always been from the
consideration of the actual intricacies of scientific thought, and of the
peculiar perplexities which it suggests.
In the present chapter, and in the immediately succeeding chapter,
we will forget the peculiar problems of modern science, and will put
ourselves at the standpoint of a dispassionate consideration of the
nature of things, antecedently to any special investigation into their
details. Such a standpoint is termed ‘metaphysical.’ Accordingly
those readers who find metaphysics, even in two slight chapters,
irksome, will do well to proceed at once to the Chapter on ‘Religion
and Science,’ which resumes the topic of the impact of science on
modern thought.
 These metaphysical chapters are purely descriptive. Their
justification is to be sought, (i) in our direct knowledge of the actual
occasions which compose our immediate experience, and (ii) in their
success as forming a basis for harmonising our systematised
accounts of various types of experience, and (iii) in their success as
providing the concepts in terms of which an epistemology can be
framed. By (iii) I mean that an account of the general character of
what we know must enable us to frame an account of how
knowledge is possible as an adjunct within things known.
In any occasion of cognition, that which is known is an actual
occasion of experience, as diversified[16] by reference to a realm of
entities which transcend that immediate occasion in that they have
analogous or different connections with other occasions of
experience. For example a definite shade of red may, in the
immediate occasion, be implicated with the shape of sphericity in
some definite way. But that shade of red, and that spherical shape,
exhibit themselves as transcending that occasion, in that either of
them has other relationships to other occasions. Also, apart from the
actual occurrence of the same things in other occasions, every
actual occasion is set within a realm of alternative interconnected
entities. This realm is disclosed by all the untrue propositions which
can be predicated significantly of that occasion. It is the realm of
alternative suggestions, whose foothold in actuality transcends each
actual occasion. The real relevance of untrue propositions for each
actual occasion is disclosed by art, romance, and by criticism in
reference to ideals. It is the foundation of the metaphysical position
which I am maintaining that the understanding of actuality requires a
reference to ideality. The two realms are intrinsically inherent in the
total metaphysical situation. The truth that some proposition
respecting an actual occasion is untrue may express the vital truth
as to the aesthetic achievement. It expresses the ‘great refusal’
which is its primary characteristic. An event is decisive in proportion
to the importance (for it) of its untrue propositions: their relevance to
the event cannot be dissociated from what the event is in itself by
way of achievement. These transcendent entities have been termed
‘universals.’ I prefer to use the term ‘eternal objects,’ in order to
disengage myself from presuppositions which cling to the former
term owing to its prolonged philosophical history. Eternal objects are
thus, in their nature, abstract. By ‘abstract’ I mean that what an
eternal object is in itself—that is to say, its essence—is
comprehensible without reference to some one particular occasion of
experience. To be abstract is to transcend particular concrete
occasions of actual happening. But to transcend an actual occasion
does not mean being disconnected from it. On the contrary, I hold
that each eternal object has its own proper connection with each
such occasion, which I term its mode of ingression into that
occasion. Thus an eternal object is to be comprehended by
acquaintance with (i) its particular individuality, (ii) its general
relationships to other eternal objects as apt for realisation in actual
occasions, and (iii) the general principle which expresses its
ingression in particular actual occasions.
16. Cf. my Principles of Natural Knowledge, Ch. V, Sec. 13.
These three headings express two principles. The first principle is
that each eternal object is an individual which, in its own peculiar
fashion, is what it is. This particular individuality is the individual
essence of the object, and cannot be described otherwise than as
being itself. Thus the individual essence is merely the essence
considered in respect to its uniqueness. Further, the essence of an
eternal object is merely the eternal object considered as adding its
own unique contribution to each actual occasion. This unique
contribution is identical for all such occasions in respect to the fact
that the object in all modes of ingression is just its identical self. But
it varies from one occasion to another in respect to the differences of
its modes of ingression. Thus the metaphysical status of an eternal
object is that of a possibility for an actuality. Every actual occasion is
defined as to its character by how these possibilities are actualised
for that occasion. Thus actualisation is a selection among
possibilities. More accurately, it is a selection issuing in a gradation
of possibilities in respect to their realisation in that occasion. This
conclusion brings us to the second metaphysical principle: An
eternal object, considered as an abstract entity, cannot be divorced
from its reference to other eternal objects, and from its reference to
actuality generally; though it is disconnected from its actual modes of
ingression into definitive actual occasions. This principle is
expressed by the statement that each eternal object has a ‘relational
essence.’ This relational essence determines how it is possible for
the object to have ingression into actual occasions.
In other words: If A be an eternal object, then what A is in itself
involves A’s status in the universe, and A cannot be divorced from
this status. In the essence of A there stands a determinateness as to
the relationships of A to other eternal objects, and an
indeterminateness as to the relationships of A to actual occasions.
Since the relationships of A to other eternal objects stand
determinately in the essence of A, it follows that they are internal
relations. I mean by this that these relationships are constitutive of A;
for an entity which stands in internal relations has no being as an
entity not in these relations. In other words, once with internal
relations, always with internal relations. The internal relationships of
A conjointly form its significance.
Again an entity cannot stand in external relations unless in its
essence there stands an indeterminateness which is its patience for
such external relations. The meaning of the term ‘possibility’ as
applied to A is simply that there stands in the essence of A a
patience for relationships to actual occasions. The relationships of A
to an actual occasion are simply how the eternal relationships of A to
other eternal objects are graded as to their realisation in that
occasion.
Thus the general principle which expresses A’s ingression in the
particular actual occasion α is the indeterminateness which stands in
the essence of A as to its ingression into α, and is the
determinateness which stands in the essence of α as to the
ingression of Α into α. Thus the synthetic prehension, which is α, is
the solution of the indeterminateness of Α into the determinateness
of α. Accordingly the relationship between Α and α is external as
regards Α, and is internal as regards α. Every actual occasion α is
the solution of all modalities into actual categorical ingressions: truth
and falsehood take the place of possibility. The complete ingression
of Α into α is expressed by all the true propositions which are about
both Α and α, and also—it may be—about other things.
The determinate relatedness of the eternal object Α to every other
eternal object is how Α is systematically and by the necessity of its
nature related to every other eternal object. Such relatedness
represents a possibility for realisation. But a relationship is a fact
which concerns all the implicated relata, and cannot be isolated as if
involving only one of the relata. Accordingly there is a general fact of
systematic mutual relatedness which is inherent in the character of
possibility. The realm of eternal objects is properly described as a
‘realm,’ because each eternal object has its status in this general
systematic complex of mutual relatedness.
In respect to the ingression of Α into an actual occasion α, the
mutual relationships of Α to other eternal objects, as thus graded in
realisation, require for their expression a reference to the status of Α
and of the other eternal objects in the spatio-temporal relationship.
Also this status is not expressible (for this purpose) without a
reference to the status of α and of other actual occasions in the
same spatio-temporal relationship. Accordingly the spatio-temporal
relationship, in terms of which the actual course of events is to be
expressed, is nothing else than a selective limitation within the
general systematic relationships among eternal objects. By
‘limitation,’ as applied to the spatio-temporal continuum, I mean
those matter-of-fact determinations—such as the three dimensions
of space, and the four dimensions of the spatio-temporal continuum
—which are inherent in the actual course of events, but which
present themselves as arbitrary in respect to a more abstract
possibility. The consideration of these general limitations at the base
of actual things, as distinct from the limitations peculiar to each
actual occasion, will be more fully resumed in the chapter on ‘God.’
Further, the status of all possibility in reference to actuality
requires a reference to this spatio-temporal continuum. In any
particular consideration of a possibility we may conceive this
continuum to be transcended. But in so far as there is any definite
reference to actuality, the definite how of transcendence of that
spatio-temporal continuum is required. Thus primarily the spatio-
temporal continuum is a locus of relational possibility, selected from
the more general realm of systematic relationship. This limited locus
of relational possibility expresses one limitation of possibility inherent
in the general system of the process of realisation. Whatever
possibility is generally coherent with that system falls within this
limitation. Also whatever is abstractedly possible in relation to the
general course of events—as distinct from the particular limitations
introduced by particular occasions—pervades the spatio-temporal
continuum in every alternative spatial situation and at all alternative
times.
Fundamentally, the spatio-temporal continuum is the general
system of relatedness of all possibilities, in so far as that system is
limited by its relevance to the general fact of actuality. Also it is
inherent in the nature of possibility that it should include this
relevance to actuality. For possibility is that in which there stands
achievability, abstracted from achievement.
It has already been emphasised that an actual occasion is to be
conceived as a limitation; and that this process of limitation can be
still further characterised as a gradation. This characteristic of an
actual occasion (α, say) requires further elucidation: An
indeterminateness stands in the essence of any eternal object (Α,
say). The actual occasion α synthesises in itself every eternal object;
and, in so doing, it includes the complete determinate relatedness of
Α to every other eternal object, or set of eternal objects. This
synthesis is a limitation of realisation but not of content. Each
relationship preserves its inherent self-identity. But grades of entry
into this synthesis are inherent in each actual occasion, such as α.
These grades can be expressed only as relevance of value. This
relevance of value varies—as comparing different occasions—in
grade from the inclusion of the individual essence of Α as an element
in the aesthetic synthesis (in some grade of inclusion) to the lowest
grade which is the exclusion of the individual essence of Α as an
element in the aesthetic synthesis. In so far as it stands in this lowest
grade, every determinate relationship of Α is merely ingredient in the
occasion in respect to the determinate how this relationship is an
unfulfilled alternative, not contributing any aesthetic value, except as
forming an element in the systematic substratum of unfulfilled
content. In a higher grade, it may remain unfulfilled, but be
aesthetically relevant.
Thus A, conceived merely in respect to its relationships to other
eternal objects, is ‘A conceived as not-being’; where ‘not-being’
means ‘abstracted from the determinate fact of inclusions in, and