Process and Reality — the Gifford Lectures, 1929

sensa s, and s, unified by some faint contrast between 8, and s.. Occasion M responsively feels sensa s, and s2 as its own sensations. There is thus a transmission of sensation emotion from A, B, and C to M. If M had the wit of self-analysis, M would know that it felt its own sensa, by reason of a transfer from A, B, and C to itself. Thus the (unconscious) direct perception of A, B, and C is merely the causal efficacy of A, B, and C as elements in the constitution of M. Such direct perception will suffer from vagueness; for if A, B, and C tell the same tale with minor variation of intensity, the discrimination of A, and B, and C from each other will be irrelevant. There may thus remain a sense of the causal efficacy of actual presences, whose exact relationships in the external world are shrouded. Thus the experience of M is to be conceived as a quantitative emotion arising from the contribution of sensa from A, B, C and proportionately conformed to by M.

Generalizing from the language of physics, the experience of M is an intensity arising out of specific sensa, directed from A, B, C. There is in fact a directed influx from A, B, C of quantitative feeling, arising from specific forms of feeling. The experience has a vector character, a common measure of intensity, and specific forms of feelings conveying that intensity. If we substitute the term ‘energy’ for the concept of a quantitative emotional intensity, and the term ‘form of energy’ for the concept of ‘specific form of feeling,’ and remember that in physics ‘vector’ means definite transmission from elsewhere, we see that this metaphysical description of the simplest elements in the constitution of actual entities agrees absolutely with the general principles according to which the notions of modern physics are framed. The ‘datum’ in metaphysics is the basis of the vector-theory in physics; the quantitative satisfaction in metaphysics is the basis of the scalar localization of energy in physics; the ‘sensa’ in metaphysics are the basis of the diversity of specific forms under which energy clothes itself. Sci-

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entific descriptions are, of course, entwined with the specific details of geometry and physical laws, which arise from the special order of the cosmic epoch in which we find ourselves. But the general principles of physics are exactly what we should expect as a specific exemplification of the metaphysics required by the philosophy of organism. It has been a defect in the modern philosophies that they throw no light whatever on any scientific principles. Science should investigate particular species, and metaphysics should investigate the generic notions under which those specific principles should fall. Yet, modern realisms have had nothing to say about scientific principles; and modern idealisms have merely contributed the unhelpful suggestion that the phenomenal world is one of the inferior avocations of the Absolute.

The direct perception whereby the datum in the immediate subject is inherited from the past can thus, under an abstraction, be conceived as the transference of throbs of emotional energy, clothed in the specific forms provided by sensa. Since the vagueness in the experiment subject will veil the separate objectifications wherein there are individual contributions to the total satisfaction, the emotional energy in the final satisfaction wears the aspect of a total intensity capable of all gradations of ideal variation. But in its origin it represents the totality arising from the contributions of separate objects to that form of energy. Thus, having regard to its origin, a real atomic structure of each form of energy is discernible, so much from each objectified actual occasion; and only a finite number of actual occasions will be relevant.

This direct perception, characterized by mere subjective responsiveness and by lack of origination in the higher phases, exhibits the constitution of an actual entity under the guise of receptivity. In the language of causation, it describes the efficient causation operative in the actual world. In the language of epistemology, as framed by Locke, it describes how the ideas of particularp. 179 existents are absorbed into the subjectivity of the percipient and are the datum for its experience of the external world. In the language of science, it describes how the quantitative intensity of localized energy bears in itself the vector marks of its origin, and the specialities of its specific forms; it also gives a reason for the atomic quanta to be discerned in the building up of a quantity of energy. In this way, the philosophy of organism—as it should— appeals to the facts.

SECTION V

The current accounts of perception are the stronghold of modern metaphysical difficulties. They have their origin in the same misunderstanding which led to the incubus of the substance-quality categories. The Greeks looked at a stone, and perceived that it was grey. The Greeks were ignorant of modern physics; but modern philosophers discuss perception in terms of categories derived from the Greeks.

The Greeks started from perception in its most elaborate and sophisticated form, namely, visual perception. In visual perception, crude perception is most completely made over by the originative phases in experience, phases which are especially prominent in human experience. If we wish to disentangle the two earlier prehensive phases —the receptive phases, namely, the datum and the subjective response—from the more advanced originative phases, we must consider what is common to all modes of perception, amid the bewildering variety of originative amplification.

On this topic I am content to appeal to Hume. He writes: “But my senses convey to me only the impressions of coloured points, disposed in a certain manner. If the eye is sensible of anything further, I desire it may be pointed out to me.” * And again: “It is universally allowed by the writers on optics, that the eye at all times sees an equal number of physical points, and that a man

1Cf. Treatise, Part II, Sect. III. Italics not his.

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on the top of a mountain has no larger an image presented to his senses, than when he is cooped up in the narrowest court or chamber.” *