Process and Reality — the Gifford Lectures, 1929

experiential process. This is inevitable because we can only discuss experiences which have entered into conscious analysis. But perception is a feeling which has its seat in the two earlier phases of the experiental process, namely, the ‘responsive’ phase, and the ‘supplemental’ phase. Perception, in these phases, is the appropriation of the datum by the subject, so as to transform the datum into a unity of subjective feeling. The mode of efficacity belongs to the responsive phase, in which the objectifications are felt according to their relevance in the datum: the mode of immediacy belongs to the supplemental phase in which the faint indirect relevance, in the datum, of relationships to regions of the presented locus are lifted into distinct, prominent, relevance. The question as to which regions have their relatedness to other constituents of the datum—such as ‘grey,’ for instance—thus accentuated, depends upon the coordination of the bodily organs through which the routes of inheritance pass. In a fortunately construed animal body, this selection is determined chiefly by the inheritance received by the superficial organs,—the skin, the eyes, etc—from the external environment, and preserves the relevance of the vector character of that external inheritance. When this is the case, the perceptive mode of immediacy has definite relevance to the future efficacy of the external environment, and then indirectly illustrates the inheritance which the presented locus receives from the immediate past.

But this illustration does not gain its first importance from any rational analysis. The two modes are unified by a blind symbolic reference by which supplemental feelings derived from the intensive, but vague, mode of efficacity are precipitated upon the distinct regions illustrated in the mode of immediacy. The integration of the two modes in supplemental feeling makes what would have been vague to be distinct, and what would have been shallow to be intense. This is the perception of the grey stone, in the mixed mode of symbolic reference.

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Such perception can be erroneous, in the sense that the feeling associates regions in the presented locus with inheritances from the past, which in fact have not been thus transmitted into the present regions. In the mixed mode, the perceptive determination is purely due to the bodily organs, and thus there is a gap in the perceptive logic—so to speak. This gap is not due to any conceptual freedom on the part of the ultimate subject. It is not a mistake due to consciousness. It is due to the fact that the body, as an instrument for synthesizing and enhancing feelings, is faulty, in the sense that it produces feelings which have but slight reference to the real state of the presented duration.

SECTION VI

Symbolic reference between the two perceptive modes affords the main example of the principles which govern all symbolism. The requisites for symbolism are that there be two species of percepta; and that a perceptum of one species has some ‘ground’ in common with a perceptum of another species, so that a correlation between the pair of percepta is established. The feelings, and emotions, and general characteristics associated with the members of one species are in some ways markedly diverse from those associated with the other species. Then there is ‘symbolic reference’ between the two species when the perception of a member of one species evokes its correlate in the other species, and precipitates upon this correlate the fusion of feelings, emotions, and derivate actions, which belong to either of the pair of correlates, and which are also enhanced by this correlation. The species from which the symbolic reference starts is called the ‘species of symbols,’ and the species which it ends is called the ‘species of meanings.’ In this way there can be symbolic reference between two species in the same perceptive mode: but the chief example of symbolism, upon which is based a great portion of the livesp. 275 of all high-grade animals, is that between the two perceptive modes.

Symbolism can be justified, or unjustified. The test of justification must always be pragmatic. In so far symbolism has led to a route of inheritance, along the percipient occasions forming the percipient ‘person,’ which constitutes a fortunate evolution, the symbolism is justified; and, in so far as the symbolism has led to an unfortunate evolution, it is unjustified. In a slightly narrower sense the symbolism can be right or wrong; and rightness or wrongness is also tested pragmatically. Along the ‘historic route’ there is the inheritance of feelings derived from symbolic reference: now, if feelings respecting some definite element in experience be due to two sources, one source being this inheritance, and the other source being direct perception in one of the pure modes, then, if the feelings from the two sources enhance each other by synthesis, the symbolic reference is right; but, if they are at variance so as to depress each other, the symbolic reference is wrong. The rightness, or wrongness, of symbolism is an instance of the symbolism being fortunate or unfortunate; but mere ‘rectitude,’ in the sense defined above, does not cover all that can be included in the more general concept of ‘fortune.’ So much of human experience is bound up with symbolic reference, that it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the very meaning of truth is pragmatic. But though this statement is hardly an exaggeration, still it 7s an exaggeration, for the pragmatic test can never work, unless on some occasion—in the future, or in the present—there is a definite determination of what is true on that occasion. Otherwise the poor pragmatist remains an intellectual Hamlet, perpetually adjourning decision of judgment to some later date. According to the doctrines here stated, the day of judgment arrives when the ‘meaning’ is sufficiently distinct and relevant, as a perceptum in its proper pure mode, to afford comparison with the precipitate of feeling derivedp. 276 from symbolic reference. There is no inherent distinction between the sort of percept which are symbols, and the sort of percepta which are meanings. When two species are correlated by a ‘ground’ of relatedness, it depends upon the experiential process, constituting the precipient subject, as to which species is the group of symbols, and which is the group of meanings. Also it equally depends upon the percipient as to whether there is any symbolic reference at all.

Language is the example of symbolism which most naturally presents itself for consideration of the uses of symbolism. Its somewhat artificial character makes the various constitutive elements in symbolism to be the more evident. For the sake of simplicity, only spoken language will be considered here.