Process and Reality — the Gifford Lectures, 1929

The connection of ‘food’ with ‘life’ is now evident. The highly complex inorganic societies required for the structure of a cell, or other living body, lose their stability amid the diversity of the environment. But, in the physical field of empty space produced by the originality of living occasions, chemical dissociations and associations take place which would not otherwise occur. The structure is breaking down and being repaired. The food is that supply of highly complex societies from the outside which, under the influence of life, will enter into the necessary associations to repair the waste. Thus life acts as though it were a catalytic agent.

The short summary of this account of a living cell is as follows: (1) an extremely complex and delicately poised chemical structure; (11) for the occasions in the intersticial ‘empty’ space a complex objective datum derived from this complex structure; (iii) under normal ‘responsive’ treatment, devoid of originality, the complex detail reduced to physical simplicity by negative prehensions; (iv) this detail preserved for positive feeling by the emotional and purposive readjustments produced by originality of conceptual feeling (appetition); (v) the physical distortion of the field, leading to instability ofp. 163 the structure; (vi) the structure accepting repair by food from the environment.

SECTION XI

The complexity of nature is inexhaustible. So far we have argued that the nature of life is not to be sought by its identification with some society of occasions, which are living in virtue of the defining characteristic of that society. An ‘entirely living’ nexus is, in respect to its life, not social. Each member of the nexus derives the necessities of its being from its prehensions of its complex social environment; by itself the nexus lacks the genetic power which belongs to ‘societies.’ But a living nexus, though non-social in virtue of its ‘life,’ may support a thread of personal order along some historical route of its members. Such an enduring entity is a ‘living person.’ It is not of the essence of life to be a living person. Indeed a living person requires that its immediate environment be a living, non-social nexus.

The defining characteristic of a living person is some definite type of hybrid prehensions transmitted from occasion to occasion of its existence. The term ‘hybrid’ is defined more particularly in Part III. It is sufficient to state here that a ‘hybrid’ prehension is the prehension by one subject of a conceptual prehension, or of an ‘impure’ prehension, belonging to the mentality of another subject. By this transmission the mental originality of the living occasions receives a character and a depth. In this way originality is both ‘canalized’—to use Bergson’s word—and intensified. Its range is widened within limits. Apart from canalization, depth of originality would spell disaster for the animal body. With it, personal mentality can be evolved, so as to combine its individual originality with the safety of the material organism on which it depends. Thus life turns back into society: it binds originality within bounds, and gains the massiveness due to reiterated character.

In the case of single cells, of vegetation, and of thep. 164 lower forms of animal life, we have no ground for conjecturing living personality. But in the case of the higher animals there is central direction, which suggests that in their case each animal body harbours a living person, or living persons. Our own self-consciousness is direct. awareness of ourselves as such persons.*” There are limits to such unified control, which indicate dissociation of personality, multiple personalities in successive alternations, and even multiple personalities in joint possession. This last case belongs to the pathology of religion, and in primitive times has been interpreted as demoniac possession. Thus, though life in its essence is the gain of intensity through freedom, yet it can also submit to canalization and so gain the massiveness of order. But it is not necessary merely to presuppose the drastic case of personal order. We may conjecture, though without much evidence, that even in the lowest form of life the entirely living nexus is canalized into some faint form of mutual conformity. Such conformity amounts to social order depending on hybrid prehensions of originalities in the mental poles of the antecedent members of the nexus. The survival power, arising from adaptation and regeneration, is thus explained. Thus life is a passage from physical order to pure mental originality, and from pure mental originality to canalized mental originality. It must also be noted that the pure mental originality works by the canalization of relevance arising from the primordial nature of God. Thus an originality in the temporal world is conditioned, though not determined, by an initial subjective aim supplied by the ground of all order and of all originality.

Finally, we have to consider the type of structural society which gives rise to the traditional body-mind problem. For example, human mentality is partly the outcome of the human body, partly the single directive a This account of a living personality requires completion by referaa its objectification in the consequent nature of God. Cf. Part V,p. 165 agency of the body, partly a system of cogitations which have a certain irrelevance to the physical relationships of the body. The Cartesian philosophy is based upon the seeming fact—the plain fact—of one body and one mind, which are two substances in casual association. For the philosophy of organism the problem is transformed.

Each actuality is essentially bipolar, physical and mental, and the physical inheritance is essentially accompanied by a conceptual reaction partly conformed to, and partly introductory of, a relevant novel contrast, but always introducing emphasis, valuation, and purpose. The integration of the physical and mental side into a unity of experience is a self-formation which is a process of concrescence, and which by the principle of objective immortality characterizes the creativity which transcends it. So though mentality is non-spatial, mentality is always a reaction from, and integration with, physical experience which is spatial. It is obvious that we must not demand another mentality presiding over these other actualities (a kind of Uncle Sam, over and above all the U. S. citizens). All the life in the body is the life of the individual cells. There are thus millions upon millions of centres of life in each animal body. So what needs to be explained is not dissociation of personality but unifying control, by reason of which we not only have unified behaviour, which can be observed by others, but also consciousness of a unified experience.

A good many actions do not seem to be due to the unifying control, e.g., with proper stimulants a heart can be made to go on beating after it has been taken out of the body. There are centres of reaction and control which cannot be identified with the centre of experience. This is still more so with insects. For example, worms and jellyfish seem to be merely harmonized cells, very little centralized; when cut in two, their parts go on performing their functions independently. Through a series of animals we can trace a progressive rise into ap. 166 centrality of control. Insects have some central control; even in man, many of the body’s actions are done with some independence, but with an organ of central control of very high-grade character in the brain.