Process and Reality — the Gifford Lectures, 1929

It will be shown later (ef. Part IV, Chs. III and IV) that this dogma of the indefinability of straight lines is mistaken. Thus the systematic relation of the body to the presented locus occasions no theoretical difficulty.

All measurement is effected by observations of sensap. 195 with geometrical relations within this presented locus. Also all scientific observation of the unchanged character of things ultimately depend upon the maintenance of directly observed geometrical analogies within such loci.

However far the testing of instruments is carried, finally all scientific interpretation is based upon the assumption of directly observed unchangeability of some instrument for seconds, for hours, for months, for years. When we test this assumption we can only use another instrument; and these cannot be an infinite regress of instruments.

Thus ultimately all science depends upon direct observation of homology of status within a system. Also the observed system is the complex of geometrical relations within some presented locus.

In the second place, a locus of entities in ‘unison of becoming’ obviously depends on the particular actual entities. The question, as to how the extensive continuum is in fact atomized by the atomic actualities, is relevant to the determination of the locus. The factor of temporal endurance selected for any one actuality will depend upon its initial ‘subjective aim.’ The categoreal conditions which govern the ‘subjective aim’ are discussed later in Part III. They consist generally in satisfying some condition of a maximum, to be obtained by the transmission of inherited types of order. This is the foundation of the ‘stationary’ conditions in terms of which the ultimate formulations of physical science can be mathematically expressed.

Thus the loci of ‘unison of becoming’ are only determinable in terms of the actual happenings of the world. But the conditions which they satisfy are expressed in terms of measurements derived from the qualification of actualities by the systematic character of the extensive continuum.

The term ‘duration’ will be used for a locus of ‘unison of becoming,’ and the terms ‘presented locus’ and ‘strainp. 196 locus’ for the systematic locus involved in presentational immediacy.”

The strain loci provide the systematic geometry with its homology of relations throughout all its regions; the durations share in the deficiency of homology characteristic of the physical field which arises from the peculiarities of the actual events.

SECTION X

We can now sum up this discussion of organisms, order, societies, nexus.

The aim of the philosophy of organism is to express a coherent cosmology based upon the notions of ‘system,’ ‘process,’ ‘creative advance into novelty,’ ‘res vera’ (in Descartes’ sense), ‘stubborn fact,’ ‘individual unity of experience,’ ‘feeling,’ ‘time as perpetual perishing,’ ‘endurance as re-creation,’ ‘purpose,’ ‘universals as forms of definiteness,’ ‘particulars—ie. rés verae—as ultimate agents of stubborn fact.’

Every one of these notions is explicitly formulated either by Descartes or by Locke. Also no one can be dropped without doing violence to common sense. But neither Descartes nor Locke weaves these notions into one coherent system of cosmology. In so far as either philosopher is systematic, he relies on alternative notions which in the end lead to Hume’s extreme of sensationalism.

In the philosophy of organism it is held that the notion of ‘organism’ has two meanings, interconnected but intellectually separable, namely, the microscopic meaning and the macroscopic meaning. The microscopic meaning is concerned with the formal constitution of an actual occasion, considered as a process of realizing an individual unity of experience. The macroscopic meaning is concerned with the givenness of the actual world, considered as the stubborn fact which at once limits and provides

*In The Concept of Nature these two loci were not discriminated, namely, durations and strain loci.

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opportunity for the actual occasion. The canalization of the creative urge, exemplified in its massive reproduction of social nexiis, is for common sense the final illustration of the power of stubborn fact. Also in our experience, we essentially arise out of our bodies which are the stubborn facts of the immediate relevant past. We are also carried on by our immediate past of personal experience; we finish a sentence because we have begun it. The sentence may embody a new thought, never phrased before, or an old one rephrased with verbal novelty. There need be no well-worn association between the sounds of the earlier and the later words. But it remains remorselessly true, that we finish a sentence because we have begun it. We are governed by stubborn fact.

It is in respect to this ‘stubborn fact’ that the theories of modern philosophy are weakest. Philosophers have worried themselves about remote consequences, and the inductive formulations of science. They should confine attention to the rush of immediate transition. Their explanations would then be seen in their native absurdity.

CHAPTER V
LOCKE AND HUME

SECTION I

A more detailed discussion of Descartes, Locke, and Hume—in this and in the succeeding chapter—may make plain how deeply the philosophy of organism is founded on seventeenth-century thought and how at certain critical points it diverges from that thought.

We shall understand better the discussion, if we start with some analysis of the presuppositions upon which Hume’s philosophy rests. These presuppositions were not original to Hume, nor have they ceased with him. They were largely accepted by Kant and are widely prevalent in modern philosophy. The philosophy of organism can be best understood by conceiving it as accepting large portions of the expositions of Hume and Kant, with the exception of these presuppositions, and of inferences directly derived from them. Hume is a writer of unrivalled clearness; and, as far as possible, it will be well to allow him to express his ideas in his own words. He writes: “We may observe, that it is universally allowed by philosophers, and is besides pretty obvious of itself, that nothing is ever really present with the mind but its perceptions or impressions and ideas, and that external objects become known to us only by those perceptions they occasion. To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; all this is nothing but to perceive.” * Again: “All the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct kinds, which I shall call impressions and ideas. The difference betwixt these consists in

* Treatise, Part II, Sect. VI.

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p. 199

the degrees of force and liveliness with which they strike upon the mind, and make their way into our thought or consciousness. Those perceptions which enter with most force and violence, we may name impressions; and, under this name, I comprehend all our sensations, passions, and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul. By ideas, I mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning; such as, for instance, are all the perceptions excited by the present discourse, excepting only those which arise from the sight and touch, and excepting the immediate pleasure or uneasiness it may occasion.” ”

The exceptions made in the above quotation are, of course, due to the fact that the ‘perceptions’ arising in these excepted ways are ‘impressions’ and not ‘ideas.’ Hume immediately draws attention to the fact that he deserts Locke’s wide use of the term ‘idea,’ and restores it to its more usual and narrow meaning. He divides both ideas and impressions into ‘simple’ and ‘complex.’ He then adds: “. . . we shall here content ourselves with establishing one general proposition, That all our sumple ideas in their first appearance, are derived from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which they exactly represent.” *