Process and Reality — the Gifford Lectures, 1929

A member of the subjective species is, in its primary character, an element in the definiteness of the subjective form of a feeling. It is a determinate way in which a feeling can feel. It is an emotion, or an intensity, or an adversion, or an aversion, or a pleasure, or a pain. It defines the subjective form of feeling of one actual entity. A, may be that component of A’s constitution through which A is objectified for B. Thus when B feels Aj, it feels ‘A with that feeling.’ In this way, the eternal object which contributes to the definiteness of A’s feeling becomes an eternal object contributing to the definiteness of A as an objective datum in B’s prehension of A. The eternal object can then function both subjectively and relatively. It can be a private element in a subjective form, and also an agent in the objectification. In this latter character it may come under the operation of the category of transmutation and become a characteristic of a nexus as objectified for a percipient.

In the first stage of B’s physical feeling, the subjective form of B’s feeling is conformed to the subjective form of A’s feeling. Thus this eternal object in B’s experience will have a two-way mode of functioning. It will be among the determinants of A for B, and it will be amongp. 447 the determinants of B’s way of sympathy with A. The intensity of physical energy belongs to the subjective species of eternal objects, but the peculiar form of the flux of energy belongs to the objective species.

For example, ‘redness’ may first be the definiteness of an emotion which is a subjective form in the experience of A; it then becomes an agent whereby A is objectified for B, so that A is objectified in respect to its prehension with this emotion. But A may be only one occasion of a nexus, such that each of its members is objectified for B by a prehension with an analogous subjective form. Then by the operation of the category of transmutation, the nexus is objectified for B as illustrated by the characteristic ‘redness.’ The nexus will also be illustrated by its mathematical forms which are eternal objects of the objective species.

SECTION VII

The feelings—or, more accurately, the quasi-feelings— introduced by the coordinate division of actual entities eliminate the proper status of the subjects entertaining the feelings. For the subjective forms of feelings are only explicable by the categoreal demands arising from the unity of the subject. Thus the coordinate division of an actual entity produces feelings whose subjective forms are partially eliminated and partially inexplicable. But this mode of division preserves undistorted the elements of definiteness introduced by eternal objects of the objective species.

Thus in so far as the relationships of these feelings require an appeal to subjective forms for their explanation, the gap must be supplied by the introduction of arbitrary laws of nature regulating the relations of intensities. Alternatively, the subjective forms become arbitrary epiphenomenal facts, inoperative in physical nature, though claiming operative importance.

The order of nature, prevalent in the cosmic epoch in question, exhibits itself as a morphological scheme inp. 448volving eternal objects of the objective species. The most fundamental elements in this scheme are those eternal objects in terms of which the general principles of coordinate division itself are expressed. These eternal objects express the theory of extension in its most general aspect. In this theory the notion of the atomicity of actual entities, each with its concrescent privacy, has been entirely eliminated. We are left with the theory of extensive connection, of whole and part, of points, lines, and surfaces, and of straightness and flatness.

The substance of this chapter can be recapitulated in a summary: Genetic division is concerned with an actual occasion in its character of a concrescent immediacy. Coordinate division is concerned with an actual occasion in its character of a concrete object. Thus for genetic division the primary fact about an occasion is its initial ‘dative’ phase; for coordinate division the primary fact is the final ‘satisfaction.’ But with the attainment of the ‘satisfaction,’ the immediacy of final causation is lost, and the occasion passes into its objective immortality, in virtue of which efficient causation is constituted. Thus in coordinate division we are analysing the complexity of the occasion in its function of an efficient cause. It is in this connection that the morphological scheme of extensiveness attains its importance. In this way we obtain an analysis of the dative phase in terms of the ‘satisfactions’ of the past world. These satisfactions are systematically disposed in their relative status, according as one is, or is not, in the actual world of another. Also they are divisible into prehensions which can be treated as quasi-actualities with the same morphological system of relative status. This morphological system gains special order from the defining characteristic of the present cosmic epoch. The extensive continuum is this specialized ordering of the concrete occasions and of the prehensions into which they are divisible.

CHAPTER II

SECTION I

in this chapter we enumerate the chief characteristics of the physical relationship termed ‘extensive connection.’ We also enumerate the derivative notions which are of importance in our physical experience. This importance has its origin in the characteristics enumerated. The definitions of the derivative notions, as mere definitions, are equally applicable to any scheme of relationship whatever its characteristics. But they are only of importance when the relationship in question has the characteristics here enumerated for extensive connection.

No attempt will be made to reduce these enumerated characteristics to a logical minimum from which the remainder can be deduced by strict deduction. There is not a unique set of logical minima from which the rest can be deduced. There are many such sets. The investigation of such sets has great logical interest, and has an importance which extends beyond logic. But it is irrelevant for the purposes of this discussion.