The doctrine of the philosophy of organism is that, however far the sphere of efficient causation be pushed in the determination of components of a concrescence— its data, its emotions, its appreciations, its purposes, its phases of subjective aim—beyond the determination of these components there always remains the final reaction of the self-creative unity of the universe. This final reaction completes the self-creative act by putting the decisive stamp of creative emphasis upon the determina- tions of efficient cause. Each occasion exhibits its meas- ure of creative emphasis in proportion to its measure of subjective intensity. The absolute standard of such intensity is that of the primordial nature of God, which is neither great nor small because it arises out of no actual world. It has within it no components which are stand- ards of comparison. But in the temporal world for occa- sions of relatively slight experient intensity, their decisions of creative emphasis are individually negligible compared to the determined components which they receive and transmit. But the final accumulation of all such decisions—the decision of God’s nature and the decisions of all occasions—constitutes that special ele- ment in the flux of forms in history, which is ‘given’ and incapable of rationalization beyond the fact that within it every component which is determinable is internally determined.
The doctrine is, that each concrescence is to be referred to a definite free initiation and a definite free conclusion. The initial fact is macrocosmic, in the sense of having equal relevance to ali occasions; the final fact is micro-
76 Process and Reality
cosmic, in the sense of being peculiar to that occasion.
Neither fact is capable of rationalization, in the sense
of tracing the antecedents which determine it. The
initial fact is the primordial appetition, and the final
fact is the decision of emphasis, finally creative of the
‘satisfaction.’
The antithetical terms ‘universals’ and ‘particulars’ are the usual words employed to denote respectively entities which nearly, though not quite,’ correspond to the entities here termed ‘eternal objects,’ and ‘actual entities.’ These terms, ‘universals’ and ‘particulars,’ both in the sug- gestiveness of the two words and in their current philo- sophical use, are somewhat misleading. The ontological principle, and the wider doctrine of universal relativity, on which the present metaphysical discussion is founded, blur the sharp distinction between what is universal and what is particular. The notion of a universal is of that which can enter into the description of many particulars; whereas the notion of a particular is that it is described by universals, and does not itself enter into the descrip- tion of any other particular. According to the doctrine of relativity which is the basis of the metaphysical sys- tem of the present lectures, both these notions involve a misconception. An actual entity cannot be described, even inadequately, by universals; because other actual entities do enter into the description of any one actual entity. Thus every so-called ‘universal’ is particular in the sense of being just what it is, diverse from everything else; and every so-called ‘particular’ is universal in the sense of entering into the constitutions of other actual entities. The contrary opinion led to the collapse of Descartes’ many substances into Spinoza’s one substance; to Leibniz’s windowless monads with their pre-estab- lished harmony; to the sceptical reduction of Hume’s philosophy—a reduction first effected by Hume himself,
° For example, prehensions and subjective forms are also ‘particulars.’
FACT AND FORM re
and reissued with the most beautiful exposition by Santayana in his Scepticism and Animal Faith.
The point is that the current view of universals and
particulars inevitably leads to the epistemological posi-
tion stated by Descartes:
“From this I should conclude that I knew the wax by
means of vision and not simply by the intuition of the
mind; unless by chance I remember that, when looking
from a window and saying I see men who pass in the
street, I really do not see them, but infer that what I see
is men, just as I say that I see wax. And yet what do I
see from the window but hats and coats which may cover
automatic machines? Yet I judge these to be men. And
similarly solely by the faculty of judgment (judicand?)
which rests in my mind, I comprehend that which I
believed I saw with my eyes.” *°
In this passage it is assumed ** that Descartes—the Ego in question—is a particular, characterized only by universals. Thus his impressions—to use Hume’s word— are characterizations by universals. Thus there is no perception of a particular actual entity. He arrives at the belief in the actual entity by ‘the faculty of judg- ment.’ But on this theory he has absolutely no analogy upon which to found any such inference with the faintest shred of probability. Hume, accepting Descartes’ account of perception (in this passage), which also belongs to Locke in some sections of his Hssay, easily draws the sceptical conclusion. Santayana irrefutably exposes the full extent to which this scepticism must be carried. The philosophy of organism recurs to Descartes’ alternative theory of ‘realitas objectiva, and endeavours to interpret it in terms of a consistent ontology. Descartes endeay- oured to combine the two theories; but his unquestioned acceptance of the subject-predicate dogma forced him
1° Cf. Meditation II.
11 Perhaps inconsistently with what Descartes says elsewhere: in other passages the mental activity involved seems to be analysis which
discovers ‘realitas objectiva’ as a component element of the idea in question. There is thus ‘inspectio’ rather than ‘judicvum,’
78 Process and Reality
into a representative theory of perception, involving a ‘judicium’ validated by our assurance of the power and the goodness of God. The philosophy of organism in its account of prehension takes its stand upon the Cartesian terms ‘realitas objectiva, ‘inspectio, and ‘intuitio.’ The two latter terms are transformed into the notion of a ‘positive prehension,’ and into operations described in the various categories of physical and conceptual origina- tion. <A recurrence to the notion of ‘God’ is still neces- sary to mediate between physical and conceptual prehen- sions, but not in the crude form of giving a limited letter of credit to a ‘judicium.’
Hume, in effect, agrees that ‘mind’ is a process of conerescence arising from primary data. In his account, these data are ‘impressions of sensation’; and in such impressions no elements other than universals are dis- coverable. For the philosophy of organism, the primary data are always actual entities absorbed into feeling in virtue of certain universals shared alike by the objectified actuality and the experient subject (ef. Part III). Des- cartes takes an intermediate position. He explains per- ception in Humian terms, but adds an apprehension of particular actual entities in virtue of an ‘inspectio’ and a ‘judicium’ effected by the mind (Meditations II and III). Here he is paving the way for Kant, and for the degrada- tion of the world into ‘mere appearance.’
All modern philosophy hinges round the difficulty of describing the world in terms of subject and predicate, substance and quality, particular and universal. The result always does violence to that immediate experience which we express in our actions, our hopes, our sym- pathies, our purposes, and which we enjoy in spite of our lack of phrases for its verbal analysis. We find ourselves in a buzzing ** world, amid a democracy of fellow crea- tures; whereas, under some disguise or other, orthodox philosophy can only introduce us to solitary substances, each enjoying an illusory experience: “O Bottom, thou
** This epithet is, of course, borrowed from William James.
Fact and Form 79
art changed! what do I see on thee?” The endeavour to
interpret experience in accordance with the overpowering
deliverance of commonsense must bring us back to some
restatement of Platonic realism, modified so as to avoid
the pitfalls which the philosophical investigations of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have disclosed.
The true point of divergence is the false notion sug- gested by the contrast between the natural meanings of the words ‘particular’ and ‘universal.’ The ‘particular’ is thus conceived as being just its individual self with no necessary relevance to any other particular. It answers to Descartes’ definition of substance: “And when we con- ceive of substance, we merely conceive an existent thing which requires nothing but itself in order to exist.” ** This definition is a true derivative from Aristotle’s defini- tion: A primary substance is “neither asserted of a sub- ject nor present in a subject.” ** We must add the title phrase of Descartes’ The Second Meditation: “Of the Nature of the Human Mind; and that it is more easily known than the Body,” together with his two state- ments: “. . . thought constitutes the nature of thinking substance,” and “everything that we find in mind is but so many diverse forms of thinking.” *” This sequence of quotations exemplifies the set of presuppositions which led to Locke’s empiricism and to Kant’s critical philos- ophy—the two dominant influences from which modern thought is derived. This is the side of seventeenth-cen- tury philosophy which is here discarded.
The principle of universal relativity directly traverses Aristotle’s dictum, ‘(A substance) is not present in a subject.’ On the contrary, according to this principle an actual entity 7s present: in other actual entities. In fact if we allow for degrees of relevance, and for negligible relevance, we must say that every actual entity is present in every other actual entity. The philosophy of organism
13 Cf. Principles of Philosophy, Part I, 51.
14 Cf. Aristotle by W. D. Ross, Ch. II.
+" Cf. Principles of Philosophy, Parte laos:
80 Process and Reality
is mainly devoted to the task of making clear the notion of ‘being present in another entity.’ This phrase is here borrowed from Aristotle: it is not a fortunate phrase, and in subsequent discussion it will be replaced by the term ‘objectification.’ The Aristotelian phrase suggests the crude notion that one actual entity is added to another simpliciter. This is not what is meant. One role of the eternal objects is that they are those elements which express how any one actual entity is constituted by its synthesis of other actual entities, and how that actual entity develops from the primary dative phase into its own individual actual existence, involving its individual enjoyments and appetitions. An actual entity is concrete because it is such a particular concrescence of the universe.
A short examination of Locke’s Essay on Human
Understanding will throw light on the presuppositions
from which the philosophy of organism originates. These
citations from Locke are valuable as clear statements of
the obvious deliverances of common sense, expressed
with their natural limitations. They cannot be bettered
in their character of presentations of facts which have to
be accepted by any satisfactory system of philosophy.
The first point to notice is that in some of his state- ments Locke comes very near to the explicit formulation of an organic philosophy of the type being developed here. It was only his failure to notice that his problem required a more drastic revision of traditional categories than that which he actually effected, that led to a vague- ness of statement, and the intrusion of inconsistent ele- ments. It was this conservative, other side of Locke which led to his sceptical overthrow by Hume. In his turn, Hume (despite his explicit repudiation in his Treatise, Part I, Sect. VI) was a thorough conservative, and in his explanation of mentality and its content never moved away from the subject-predicate habits of thought
Fact and Form 81
which had been impressed on the European mind by the
overemphasis on Aristotle’s logic during the long
mediaeval period. In reference to this twist of mind,
probably Aristotle was not an Aristotelian. But Hume’s
sceptical reduction of knowledge entirely depends (for its
arguments) on the tacit presupposition of the mind as
subject and of its contents as predicates—a presupposi-
tion which explicitly he repudiates.