The Concept of Nature — the Tarner Lectures, 1920

In reviewing the factors of nature as immediately disclosed in sense-awareness, we should note the fundamental character of the percept of 'being here.' We discern an event merely as a factor in a determinate complex in which each factor has its own peculiar share.

v] SPACE AND MOTION 107

There are two factors which are always ingredient in this complex, one is the duration which is represented in thought by the concept of all nature that is present now, and the other is the peculiar locus standi for mind involved in the sense-awareness. This locus standi in nature is what is represented in thought by the concept of * here,' namely of an ' event here.'

This is the concept of a definite factor in nature. This factor is an event in nature which is the focus in nature for that act of awareness, and the other events are perceived as referred to it. This event is part of the associated duration. I call it the 'percipient event.' This event is not the mind, that is to say, not the percipient. It is that in nature from which the mind perceives. The complete foothold of the mind in nature is represented by the pair of events, namely, the present duration which marks the ' when ' of awareness and the percipient event which marks the * where ' of awareness and the 'how' of awareness. This percipient event is roughly speaking the bodily life of the incarnate mind. But this identification is only a rough one. For the functions of the body shade off into those of other events in nature ; so that for some purposes the percipient event is to be reckoned as merely part of the bodily life and for other purposes it may even be reckoned as more than the bodily life. In many respects the demarcation is purely arbitrary, depending upon where in a sliding scale you choose to draw the line.

I have already in my previous lecture on Time discussed the association of mind with nature. The difficulty of the discussion lies in the liability of constant factors to be overlooked. We never note them by contrast with their absences. The purpose of a discussion of such factors may be described as being to make obvious things lo(^ odd. We cannot envisage them unless we manage to invest them with some of the freshness which is due to strangeness.

It is because of this habit of letting constant factors slip from consciousness that we constantly fall into the error of thinking of the sense-awareness of a particular factor in nature as being a two-termed relation between the mind and the factor. For example, I perceive a green leaf. Language in this statement suppresses all reference to any factors other than the percipient mind and the green leaf and the relation of sense-awareness. It discards the obvious inevitable factors which are essential elements in the perception, I am here, the leaf is there ; and the event here and the event which is the life of the leaf there are both embedded in a totality of nature which is now, and within this totality there are other discriminated factors which it is irrelevant to mention. Thus language habitually sets before the mind a misleading abstract of the indefinite complexity of the fact of sense-awareness.

What I now want to discuss is the special relation of the percipient event which is 'here' to the duration which is ' now.' This relation is a fact in nature, namely the mind is aware of nature as being with these two factors in this relation.

Within the short present duration the ' here ' of the percipient event has a definite meaning of some sort. This meaning of 'here' is the content of the special relation of the percipient event to its associated duration. I will call this relation 'cogredience.' Accordingly I ask for a description of the character of the relation of cogredience. The present snaps into a past and a present

v] SPACE AND MOTION 109

when the 'here' of cogredience loses its single determinate meaning. There has been a passage of nature from the ' here ' of perception within the past duration to the different * here ' of perception within the present duration. But the two 'heres' of sense-awareness within neighbouring durations may be indistinguishable. In this case there has been a passage from the past to the present, but a more retentive perceptive force might have retained the passing nature as one complete present instead of letting the earlier duration slip into the past. Namely, the sense of rest helps the integration of durations into a prolonged present, and the sense of motion differentiates nature into a succession of shortened durations. As we look out of a railway carriage in an express train, the present is past before reflexion can seize it. We live in snippits too quick for thought. On the other hand the immediate present is prolonged according as nature presents itself to us in an aspect of unbroken rest. Any change in nature provides ground for a differentiation among durations so as to shorten the present. But there is a great distinction between self-change in nature and change in external nature. Self-change in nature is change in the quality of the standpoint of the percipient event. It is the break up of the 'here' which necessitates the break up of the present duration. Change in external nature is compatible with a prolongation of the present of contemplation rooted in a given standpoint. What I want to bring out is that the preservation of a peculiar relation to a duration is a necessary condition for the function of that duration as a present duration for sense-awareness. This peculiar relation is the relation of cogredience between the percipient event and the duration.

Cogredience is the preservation of unbroken quality of standpoint within the duration. It is the continuance of identity of station within the whole of nature which is the terminus of sense-awareness. The duration may comprise change within itself, but cannot — so far as it is one present duration — comprise change in the quality of its peculiar relation to the contained percipient event.

In other words, perception is always 'here,' and a duration can only be posited as present for sense-awareness on condition that it affords one unbroken meaning of 'here' in its relation to the percipient event. It is only in the past that you can have been ' there ' with a standpoint distinct from your present 'here.'