Process and Reality — the Gifford Lectures, 1929

In each of these quotations Hume explicitly asserts that the eye sees. The conventional comment on such a passage is that Hume, for the sake of intelligibility, is using common forms of expression; that he is only really speaking of impressions on the mind; and that in the dim future, some learned scholar will gain reputation by emending ‘eye’ into ‘ego.’ The reason for citing the passages is to enforce the thesis that the form of speech is literary and intelligible because it expresses the ultimate truth of animal perception. The ultimate momentary ‘ego’ has as its datum the ‘eye as experiencing such and such sights.’ In the second quotation, the reference to the number of physical points is a reference to the excited area on the retina. Thus the ‘eye as experiencing such and such sights’ is passed on as a datum, from the cells of the retina, though the train of actual entities forming the relevant nerves, up to the brain. Any direct relation of eye to brain is entirely overshadowed by this intensity of indirect transmission. Of course this statement is merely a pale abstraction from the physiological theory of vision. But the physiological account does not pretend to be anything more than indirect inductive knowledge. The point here to be noticed is the immediate literary obviousness of ‘the eye as experiencing such and such sights.’ This is the very reason why Hume uses the expression in spite of his own philosophy. The conclusion, which the philosophy of organism draws, is that in human experience the fundamental fact of perception is the inclusion, in the datum, of the objectification of an antecedent part of the human body with such-and-such experiences. Hume agrees with this conclusion sufficiently well so as to argue from it, when it suits his purpose. He writes: “I would fain ask those philosophers, who found so much of their reasonings on the distinction

* Cf. Part III, Sect. 1X.

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of substance and accident, and imagine we have clear ideas of each, whether the idea of substance be derived from the impressions of sensation or reflection? If it be conveyed by our senses, I ask, which of them, and after what manner? If it be perceived by the eyes, it must be a colour; if by the ears, a sound; if by the palate, a taste; and so of the other senses.” °

We can prolong Hume’s list: the feeling of the stone is in the hand; the feeling of the food is the ache in the stomach; the compassionate yearning is in the bowels, according to biblical writers; the feeling of well-being is in the viscera passim; ill temper is the emotional tone derivative from the disordered liver.

In this list, Hume’s and its prolongation, for some cases—as in sight, for example—the supplementary phase in the ultimate subject overbalances in importance the datum inherited from the eye. In other cases, as in touch, the datum of ‘the feeling in the hand’ maintains its importance, however much the intensity, or even the character, of the feeling may be due to supplementation in the ultimate subject: this instance should be contrasted with that of sight. In the instance of the ache the stomach, as datum, is of chief importance, and the food though obscurely felt is secondary—at least, until the intellectual analysis of the situation due to the doctor, professional or amateur. In the instances of compassion, well-being, and ill temper, the supplementary feelings in the ultimate subject predominate, though there are obscure references to the bodily organs as inherited data.

This survey supports the view that the predominant basis of perception is perception of the various bodily organs, as passing on their experiences by channels of transmission and of enhancement. It is the accepted doctrine in physical science that a living body is to be interpreted according to what is known of other sections of the physical universe. This is a sound axiom; but it

3 Cf. Part I, Sect. VI.

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is double-edged. For it carries with it the converse deduction that other sections of the universe are to be interpreted in accordance with what we know of the human body.

It is also a sound rule that all interpretation should be based upon a vera causa. Now the original reliance upon ‘the grey stone’ has been shown by modern physics to be due to a misapprehension of a complex situation; but we have direct knowledge of the relationship of our central intelligence to our bodily feelings. According to this interpretation, the human body is to be conceived as a complex ‘amplifier-—to use the language of the technology of electromagnetism. The various actual entities, which compose the body, are so coordinated that the experiences of any part of the body are transmitted to one or more central occasions to be inherited with enhancements accruing upon the way, or finally added by reason of the final integration. The enduring personality is the historic route of living occasions which are severally dominant in the body at successive instants. The human body is thus achieving on a scale of concentrated efficiency a type of social organization, which with every gradation of efficiency constitutes the orderliness whereby a cosmic epoch shelters in itself intensity of satisfaction.

The crude aboriginal character of direct perception is inheritance. What is inherited is feeling-tone with evidence of its origin: in other words, vector feeling-tone. In the higher grades of perception vague feeling-tone differentiates itself into various types of sensa—those of touch, sight, smell, ete-—each transmuted into a definite prehension of tonal contemporary nexus by the final percipient.

SECTION VI

In principle, the animal body is only the more highly organized and immediate part of the general environment for its dominant actual occasion, which is the ultimatep. 183 percipient. But the transition from without to within the body marks the passage from lower to higher grades of actual occasions. The higher the grade, the more vigorous and the more original is the enhancement from the supplementary phase. Pure receptivity and transmission gives place to the trigger-action of life whereby there is release of energy in novel forms. Thus the transmitted datum acquires sensa enhanced in relevance or even changed in character by the passage from the low-grade external world into the intimacy of the human body. The datum transmitted from the stone becomes the touch-feeling in the hand, but it preserves the vectorcharacter of its origin from the stone. The touch-feeling in the hand with this vector origin from the stone is transmitted to the percipient in the brain. Thus the final perception is the perception of the stone through the touch in the hand. In this perception the stone is vague and faintly relevant in comparison with the hand. But, however dim, it is there.

In the transmission of inheritance from A to B, to C, to D, A is objectified by the eternal object S as a datum for B; where S is a sensum or a complex pattern of sensa. Then B is objectified for C. But the datum for B is thereby capable of some relevance for C, namely, A as objectified for B becomes reobjectified for C; and so on to D, and throughout the line of objectifications. Then for the ultimate subject M the datum includes A as thus transmitted, B as thus transmitted, and so on. The final objectifications for M are effected by a set S, of eternal objects which is a modification of the original group S. The modification consists partly in relegation of elements into comparative irrelevance, partly in enhancement of relevance for other elements, partly in supplementation by eliciting into important relevance some eternal objects not in the original S. Generally there will be vagueness in the distinction between A, and B, and C, and D, etc., in their function as components in the datum for M. Some of the line, A and C for instance, may stand out

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