Process and Reality — the Gifford Lectures, 1929

general by separating from them the circumstances of time, and place, and any other ideas that may determine them to this or that particular existence.” Here, for Locke, the operations of the mind originate from ideas ‘determined’ to particular existents. This is a fundamental principle with Locke; it is a casual concession to the habits of language with Hume; and it is a fundamental principle with the philosophy of organism. In an earlier section (II, X XIII, 1) Locke expresses more vaguely the same doctrine, though in this context he immediately waters it down into an unexplained notion of ‘going constantly together’: “The mind, being, . furnished with a great number of the simple ideas conveyed in by the senses, as they are found in exterior things, . . . takes notice, also, that a certain number of these simple ideas go constantly together.”

But Locke wavers in his use of this principle of some sort of perception of ‘particular existents’; and Hume seeks consistency by abandoning it; while the philosophy of organism seeks to reconstruct Locke by abandoning those parts of his philosophy which are inconsistent with this principle. But the principle itself is to be found plainly stated by Locke.

Hume has only impressions of ‘sensation’ and of ‘reflection.” He writes: “The first kind arises in the soul originally, from unknown causes.” ** Note the tacit presupposition of ‘the soul’ as subject, and ‘impression of sensation’ as predicate. Also note the dismissal of any intrinsic relevance to a particular existent, which is an existent in the same sense as the ‘soul’ is an existent; whereas Locke illustrates his meaning by referring (cf. III, II, 7) to a ‘child’—corresponding to ‘the soul’ in Hume’s phrase—and to its ‘nurse’ of whom the child has its ‘idea.’

Hume is certainly inconsistent, because he cannot entirely disregard common sense. But his inconsistencies are violent, and his main argument negates Locke’s use.

** Treatise, Bk. I, Sect. II.

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As an example of his glaring inconsistency of phraseology, note: “As to those impressions, which arise from the senses, their ultimate cause is, in my opinion, perfectly mexplicable by human reason, and it will always be impossible to decide with certainty, whether they arrive immediately from the object, or are produced by the creative power of the mind, or are derived from the Author of our being.” *” Here he inconsistently speaks of the object, whereas he has nothing on hand in his philosophy which justifies the demonstrative word ‘the.’ In the second reference ‘the object’ has emerged into daylight. He writes: “There is no object which implies the existence of any other, if we consider these objects in themselves, and never look beyond the ideas which we form of them.” This quotation exhibits an ingenious confusion whereby Hume makes the best of two metaphysical worlds, the world with Locke’s principle, and his own world which is without Locke’s principle.

But Locke’s principle amounts to this: That there are many actual existents, and that in some sense one actual existent repeats itself in another actual existent, so that in the analysis of the latter existent a component ‘determined to’ the former existent is discoverable. The philosophy of organism expresses this principle by its doctrines of ‘prehension’ and of ‘objectification.’ Locke always supposes that consciousness is consciousness of the ideas in the conscious mind. But he never separates the ‘ideas’ from the ‘consciousness.’ The philosophy of organism makes this separation, and thereby relegates consciousness to a subordinate metaphysical position; and gives to Locke’s Essay a metaphysical interpretation which was not in Locke’s mind. This separation asserts Kant’s principle: “Gedanken ohne Inhalt sind leer, Anschauungen ohne Begriffe sind blind.” ** But Kant’s principle is here applied in exactly the converse way to Kant’s own use of it. Kant is obsessed with the mentality

1° Cf. Treatise, Bk. III, Sects. V and VI.
16 Critique of Pure Reason, Transcendental Logic, Intro. I.

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of ‘intuition,’ and thence with its necessary involution in consciousness. This suppressed premise is ‘Intuitions are never blind.’

SECTION V

In one important respect Hume’s philosophical conceptions show a marked superiority over those of Locke. In the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, the emphasis is laid upon the morphological structure of ‘human understanding.’ The logical relationships of various sorts of ‘ideas’ are examined. Now, whether in physics, biology, or elsewhere, morphology, in the sense of the analysis of logical relationships, constitutes the first stage of knowledge. It is the basis of the new ‘mathematical’ method which Descartes introduced. Morphology deals in analytical propositions, as they are termed by Kant. For example, Locke writes: “The common names of substances, as well as other general terms, stand for sorts: which *’ is nothing else but the being made signs of such complex ideas, wherein several particular substances do or might agree, by virtue of which they are capable of being comprehended in one common conception, and be signified by one name.” And again: “Our abstract ideas are to us the measures of species.” And again: “Nor let any one say, that the power of propagation in animals by the mixture of male and female, and in plants by seeds, keeps the supposed real species distinct and entire.’ ** In technical language, Locke had no use for genetic evolution.

On the other hand, Hume’s train of thought unwittingly emphasizes ‘process.’ His very scepticism is nothing but the discovery that there is something in the world which cannot be expressed in analytic propositions. Hume discovered that “We murder to dissect.” He did not say this, because he belonged to the mid-eighteenth century; and so left the remark to Wordsworth. But, in

+7 Italics mine. 1° TIT, VI, 1, 22, 23.

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effect, Hume discovered that an actual entity is at once a process, and is atomic; so that in no sense is it the sum of its parts. Hume proclaimed the bankruptcy of morphology.