The ontological principle asserts the relativity of deci- sion; whereby every decision expresses the relation of the actual thing, for which a decision is made, to an actual thing by which that decision is made. But ‘decision’ cannot be construed as a casual adjunct of an actual entity. It constitutes the very meaning of actuality. An actual entity arises from decisions for it, and by its very existence provides decisions for other actual entities which supersede it. Thus the ontological principle is the first stage in constituting a theory embracing the notions of ‘actual entity,’ ‘givenness,’ and ‘process.’ Just as ‘potentiality for process’ is the meaning of the more general term ‘entity,’ or ‘thing’; so ‘decision’ is the addi- tional meaning imported by the word ‘actual’ into the phrase ‘actual entity.’ ‘Actuality’ is the decision amid ‘potentiality.’ It represents stubborn fact which cannot be evaded. The real internal constitution of an actual
tee Plato, The Man and His Work, Lincoln MacVeagh, New York,
Fact and Form 6s
entity progressively constitutes a decision conditioning the creativity which transcends that actuality. The Castle Rock at Edinburgh exists from moment to mo- ment, and from century to century, by reason of the deci- sion effected by its own historic route of antecedent occasions. And if, in some vast upheaval of nature, it were shattered into fragments, that convulsion would still be conditioned by the fact that it was the destruc- tion of that rock. The point to be emphasized is the insistent particularity of things experienced and of the act of experiencing. Bradley’s doctrine *—Wolf-eating- Lamb as a universal qualifying the absolute—is a travesty of the evidence. That wolf eat that lamb at that spot at that time: the wolf knew it; the lamb knew it; and the carrion birds knew it. Explicitly in the verbal sentence, or implicitly in the understanding of the sub- ject entertaining it, every expression of a proposition includes demonstrative elements. In fact each word, and each symbolic phrase, is such an element, exciting the conscious prehension of some entity belonging to one of the categories of existence.
Conversely, where there is no decision involving exclu- sion, there is no givenness. For example, the total mul- tiplicity of Platonic forms is not ‘given.’ But in respect of each actual entity, there is givenness of such forms. The determinate definiteness of each actuality is an expression of a selection from these forms. It grades them in a diversity of relevance. This ordering of rele- vance starts from those forms which are, in the fullest sense, exemplified, and passes through grades of relevance down to those forms which in some faint sense are proxi- mately relevant by reason of contrast with actual fact. This whole gamut of relevance is ‘given,’ and must be referred to the decision of actuality.
The term ‘Platonic form’ has here been used as the
® Cf. Logic, Bk. I, Ch. II, $42.
70 Process and Reality
briefest way of indicating the entities in question. But these lectures are not an exegesis of Plato’s writings; the entities in question are not necessarily restricted to those which he would recognize as ‘forms.’ Also the term ‘idea’ has a subjective suggestion in modern philosophy, which is very misleading for my present purposes; and in any case it has been used in many senses and has become ambiguous. The term ‘essence,’ as used by the Critical Realists, also suggests their use of it, which diverges from what I intend. Accordingly, by way of employing a term devoid of misleading suggestions, I use the phrase ‘eternal object’ for what in the preceding paragraph of this section I have termed a ‘Platonic form. Any entity whose conceptual recognition does not involve a necessary reference to any definite actual entities of the temporal world is called an ‘eternal object.’
In this definition the ‘conceptual recognition’ must of
course be an operation constituting a real feeling belong-
ing to some actual entity. The point is that the actual
subject which is merely conceiving the eternal object is
not thereby in direct relationship to some other actual
entity, apart from any other peculiarity in the composi-
tion of that conceiving subject. This doctrine applies
also to be primordial nature of God, which is his
complete envisagement of eternal objects; he is not
thereby directly related to the given course of history.
The given course of history presupposes his primor-
dial nature, but his primordial nature does not presup-
pose it.
An eternal object is always a potentiality for actual entities; but in itself, as conceptually felt, it is neutral as to the fact of its physical ingression in any particular actual entity of the temporal world. ‘Potentiality’ is the correlative of ‘givenness.’ The meaning of ‘givenness’ is that what zs ‘given’ might not have been ‘given’; and that what 7s not ‘given’ might have been ‘given.’
Further, in the complete particular ‘givenness’ for an actual entity there is an element of exclusiveness. The
Fact and Form 71
various primary data and the concrescent feelings do not form a mere multiplicity. Their synthesis in the final unity of one actual entity is another fact of ‘givenness.’ The actual entity terminates its becoming in one complex feeling involving a completely determinate bond with every item in the universe, the bond being either a posi- tive or a negative prehension. This termination is the ‘satisfaction’ of the actual entity. Thus the addition of another component alters this synthetic ‘givenness.’ Any additional component is therefore contrary to this integral ‘givenness’ of the original. This principle may be illustrated by our visual perception of a picture. The pattern of colours is ‘given’ for us. But an extra patch of red does not constitute a mere addition; it alters the whole balance. Thus in an actual entity the balanced unity of the total ‘givenness’ excludes anything that is not given.
This is the doctrine of the emergent unity of the super-
ject. An actual entity is to be conceived both as a sub-
ject presiding over its own immediacy of becoming, and
a superject which is the atomic creature exercising its
function of objective immortality. It has become a
‘being’; and it belongs to the nature of every ‘being’
that it is a potential for every ‘becoming.’
This doctrine, that the final ‘satisfaction’ of an actual entity is intolerant of any addition, expresses the fact that every actual entity—since it is what it is—is finally its own reason for what it omits. In the real internal constitution of an actual entity there is always some ele- ment which is contrary to an omitted element. Here ‘contrary’ means the impossibility of joint entry in the same sense. In other words, indetermination has evap- orated from ‘satisfaction,’ so that there is a complete determination of ‘feeling,’ or of ‘negation of feeling,’ respecting the universe. This evaporation of indetermi- nation is merely another way of considering the process whereby the actual entity arises from its data. Thus, in another sense, each actual entity includes the uni-
72 Process and Reality
verse, by reason of its determinate attitude towards every element in the universe.
Thus the process of becoming is dipolar, (i) by reason of its qualification by the determinateness of the actual world, and (ii) by its conceptual prehensions of the inde- terminateness of eternal objects. The process is consti- tuted by the influx of eternal objects into a novel deter- minateness of feeling which absorbs the actual world into a novel actuality.
The ‘formal’ constitution of an actual entity is a process of transition from indetermination towards ter- minal determination. But the indetermination is refer- ent to determinate data. The ‘objective’ constitution of an actual entity is its terminal determination, considered as a complex of component determinates by reason of which the actual entity is a datum for the creative advance. The actual entity on its physical side is com- posed of its determinate feelings of its actual world, and on its mental side is originated by its conceptual appetitions.
Returning to the correlation of ‘givenness’ and ‘poten- tiality,’ we'see that ‘givenness’ refers to ‘potentiality,’ and ‘potentiality’ to ‘givenness’; also we see that the completion of ‘givenness’ in actual fact converts the ‘not- given’ for that fact into ‘impossibility’ for that fact. The individuality of an actual entity involves an exclusive limitation. This element of ‘exclusive limitation’ is the definiteness essential for the synthetic unity of an actual entity. This synthetic unity forbids the notion of mere addition to the included elements.
It is evident that ‘givenness’ and ‘potentiality’ are both meaningless apart from a multiplicity of potential entities. These potentialities are the ‘eternal objects.’ Apart from ‘potentiality’ and ‘givenness,’ there can be no nexus of actual things in process of supersession by novel actual things. The alternative is a static monistic uni- verse, without unrealized potentialities; since ‘potential- ity’ is then a meaningless term.
Fact and Form 73
The scope of the ontological principle is not exhausted by the corollary that ‘decision’ must be referable to an actual entity. Everything must be somewhere; and here ‘somewhere’ means ‘some actual entity.’ Accordingly the general potentiality of the universe must be some- where; since it retains its proximate relevance to actual entities for which it is unrealized. This ‘proximate rele- vance’ reappears in subsequent concrescence as final causation regulative of the emergence of novelty. This ‘somewhere’ is the non-temporal actual entity. Thus ‘proximate relevance’ means ‘relevance as in the primor- dial mind of God.
It is a contradiction in terms to assume that some explanatory fact can float into the actual world out of nonentity. Nonentity is nothingness. Every explana- tory fact refers to the decision and to the efficacity of an actual thing. The notion of ‘subsistence’ is merely the notion of how eternal objects can be components of the primordial nature of God. This is a question for subse- quent discussion (cf. Part V). But eternal objects, as in God’s primordial nature, constitute the Platonic world of ideas.
There is not, however, one entity which is merely the class of all eternal objects. For if we conceive any class of eternal objects, there are additional eternal objects which presuppose that class but do not belong to it. For this reason, at the beginning of this section, the phrase the ‘multiplicity of Platonic forms’ was used, instead of the more natural phrase the ‘class of Platonic forms.’ A multiplicity is a type of complex thing which has the unity derivative from some qualification which partici- pates in each of its components severally; but a multi- plicity has no unity derivative merely from its various components.
The doctrine just stated—that every explanatory fact refers to the decision and to the efficacity of an actual
74 Process and Reality
thing—requires discussion in reference to the ninth Cate-
goreal Obligation. This category states that “The con-
crescence of each individual actual entity is internally
determined and is externally free.’
The peculiarity of the course of history illustrates the joint relevance of the ‘ontological principle’ and of this categoreal obligation. The evolution of history can be rationalized by the consideration of the determination of successors by antecedents. But, on the other hand, the evolution of history is incapable of rationalization because it exhibits a selected flux of participating forms. No reason, internal to history, can be assigned why that flux of forms, rather than another flux, should have been illustrated. It is true that any flux must exhibit the character of internal determination. So much follows from the ontological principle. But every instance of internal determination assumes that flux up to that point. There is no reason why there could be no alterna- tive flux exhibiting that principle of internal determina- tion. The actual flux presents itself with the character of being merely ‘given.’ It does not disclose any peculiar character of ‘perfection.’ On the contrary, the imperfec- tion of the world is the theme of every religion which offers a way of escape, and of every sceptic who deplores the prevailing superstition. The Leibnizian theory of the ‘best of possible worlds’ is an audacious fudge pro- duced in order to save the face of a Creator constructed by contemporary, and antecedent, theologians. Further, in the case of those actualities whose immediate experi- ence is most completely open to us, namely, human beings, the final decision of the immediate subject-super- ject, constituting the ultimate modification of subjective aim, is the foundation of our experience of responsi- bility, of approbation or of disapprobation, of self- approval or of self-reproach, of freedom, of emphasis. This element in experience is too large to be put aside merely as misconstruction. It governs the whole tone of human life. It can be illustrated only by striking
Fact and Form 75
instances from fact or from fiction. But these instances
are only conspicuous illustrations of human experience
during each hour and each minute. The ultimate free-
dom of things, lying beyond all determinations, was
whispered by Galileo—E pur st muove—freedom for the
inquisitors to think wrongly, for Galileo to think rightly,
and for the world to move in despite of Galileo and
inquisitors.