Process and Reality — the Gifford Lectures, 1929

sider these ‘pure’ mental operations in their most intense operations, we should choose the term ‘vision.’ A conceptual prehension is a direct vision of some possibility of good or evil—of some possibility as to how actualities may be definite. There is no reference to particular actualities, or to any particular actual world. The phrase ‘of good or of evil’ has been added to include a reference to the subjective form; the mere word ‘vision’ abstracts from this factor in a conceptual prehension. If we say that God’s primordial nature is a completeness of ‘appetion,’ we give due weight to the subjective form—at a cost. If we say that God’s primordial nature is ‘intuition,’ we suggest mentality which is ‘impure’ by reason of synthesis with physical prehension. If we say that God’s primordial nature is ‘vision,’ we suggest a maimed view of the subjective form, divesting it of yearning after concrete fact—no particular facts, but after some actuality. There is deficiency in God’s primordial nature which the term ‘vision’ obscures. One advantage of the term ‘vision’ is that it connects this doctrine of God more closely with philosophical tradition. ‘Envisagement’ is perhaps a safer term than ‘vision.’ To sum up: God’s ‘primordial nature’ is abstracted from his commerce with ‘particulars,’ and is therefore devoid of those ‘impure’ intellectual cogitations which involve propositions (cf. Part III). It is God in abstraction, alone with himself. As such it is a mere factor in God, deficient in actuality.

SECTION II

The notions of ‘social order’ and of ‘personal order’ cannot be omitted from this preliminary sketch. A ‘society,’ in the sense in which that term is here used, is a nexus with social order; and an ‘enduring object,’ or ‘enduring creature,’ is a society whose social order has taken the special form of ‘personal order.’

A nexus enjoys ‘social order’ where (i) there is a common element of form illustrated in the definitenessp. 51 of each of its included actual entities, and (ii) this common element of form arises in each member of the nexus by reason of the conditions imposed upon it by its prehensions of some other members of the nexus, and (iii) these prehensions impose that condition of reproduction by reason of their inclusion of positive feelings of that common form. Such a nexus is called a ‘society,’ and the common form is the ‘defining characteristic’ of the society. The nation of ‘defining characteristic’ is allied to the Aristotelian notion ‘substantial form.’

The common element of form is simply a complex eternal object exemplified in each member of the nexus. But the social order of the nexus is not the mere fact of this common form exhibited by all its members. The reproduction of the common form throughout the nexus is due to the genetic relations of the members of the nexus among each other, and to the additional fact that genetic relations include feelings of the common form. Thus the defining characteristic is inherited throughout the nexus, each member deriving it from those other members of the nexus which are antecedent to its own concrescence.

A nexus enjoys ‘personal order’ when (q) it is a ‘society,’ and (6) when the genetic relatedness of its members orders these members ‘serially.’

By this ‘serial ordering’ arising from the genetic relatedness, it is meant that any member of the nexus— excluding the first and the last, if there be such—constitutes a ‘cut’? in the nexus, so that (a) this member inherits from all members on one side of the cut, and from no members on the other side of the cut, and (b) if A and B are two members of the nexus and B inherits from A, then the side of B’s cut, inheriting from B, forms part of the side of A’s cut, inheriting from A, and the side of A’s cut from which A inherits forms part of the side of B’s cut from which B inherits. Thus the nexus forms a single line of inheritance of its defining characteristic. Such a nexus is called an ‘enduring object.’ It might have been termed a ‘person,’ in the legal sense

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of that term. But unfortunately ‘person’ suggests the notion of consciousness, so that its use would lead to misunderstanding. The nexus ‘sustains a character,’ and this is one of the meanings of the Latin word persona. But an ‘enduring object,’ gua ‘person,’ does more than sustain a character. For this sustenance arises out of the special genetic relations among the members of the nexus. An ordinary physical object, which has temporal endurance, is a society. In the ideally simple case, it has personal order and is an ‘enduring object.’ A society may (or may not) be analysable into many strands of ‘enduring objects.’ This will be the case for most ordinary physical objects. These enduring objects and ‘societies,’ analysable into strands of enduring objects, are the permanent entities which enjoy adventures of change throughout time and space. For example, they form the subjectmatter of the science of dynamics. Actual entities perish, but do not change; they are what they are. A nexus which (i) enjoys social order, and (ii) is analysable into strands of enduring objects may be termed a ‘corpuscular society.’ A society may be more or less corpuscular, according to the relative importance of the defining characteristics of the various enduring objects compared to that of the defining characteristic of the whole corpuscular nexus.

SECTION III

There is a prevalent misconception that ‘becoming’ involves the notion of a unique seriality for its advance into novelty. This is the classic notion of ‘time,’ which philosophy took over from common sense. Mankind made an unfortunate generalization from its experience of enduring objects. Recently physical science has abandoned this notion. Accordingly we should now purge cosmology of a point of view which it ought never to have adopted as an ultimate metaphysical principle. In these lectures the term ‘creative advance’ is not to be construed in the sense of a uniquely serial advance.

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Finally, the extensive continuity of the physical universe has usually been construed to mean that there is a continuity of becoming. But if we admit that ‘something becomes,’ it is easy, by employing Zeno’s method, to prove that there can be no continuity of becoming.’ There is a becoming of continuity, but no continuity of becoming. The actual occasions are the creatures which become, and they constitute a continuously extensive world. In other words, extensiveness becomes, but ‘becoming’ is not itself extensive.