158 Process Andi Brhal Ley
from the inorganic apparatus, and partly in respect to
their response to the inorganic apparatus, and partly in
regard to their response to each other. Physical Physi-
ology has, in the last century, established itself as a
unified science; Psychological Physiology is still in the
process of incubation.
It must be remembered that an integral living society,
as we know it, not only includes the subservient inorgani¢
apparatus, but also includes many living nexis at least
one for each ‘cell.’
SECTION Ix
It will throw light upon the cosmology of the philoso.
phy of organism to conjecture some fundamental prin.
ciples of Psychological Physiology as suggested by that
cosmology and by the preceding conjectures concerning
the ‘societies’ of our epoch. These principles are not
necessitated by this cosmology; but they seem to be the
simplest principles which are both consonant with that
cosmology, and also fit the facts.
In the first instance, consider a single living cell. Such
a cell includes subservient inorganic societies, such as
molecules and electrons. Thus, the cell is an ‘animal
body’; and we must presuppose the ‘physical physiology’
proper to this instance. But what of the individual liv-
ing occasions?
The first question to be asked is as to whether the living occasions, in abstraction from the inorganic occa- sions of the animal body, form a corpuscular sub-society, so that each living occasion is a member of an enduring entity with its personal order. In particular we may ask whether this corpuscular society reduces to the extreme instance of such a society, namely, to one enduring entity with its one personal order?
The evidence before us is of course extremely slight;
but so far as it goes, it suggests a negative answer to both
these questions. A cell gives no evidence whatever of
a single unified mentality, guided in each of its occa-
The Order of Nature 159
sions by inheritance from its own past. The problem to be solved is that of a certain originality in the response of a cell to external stimulus. The theory of an endur- ing entity with its inherited mentality gives us a reason why this mentality should be swayed by its own past. We ask for something original at the moment, and we are provided with a reason for limiting originality. Life is a bid for freedom: an enduring entity binds any one of its occasions to the line of its ancestry. The doctrine of the enduring soul with its permanent characteristics is exactly the irrelevant answer to the problem which life presents. That problem is, How can there be origi- nality? And the answer explains how the soul need be no more original than a stone.
The theory of a corpuscular society, made up of many
enduring entities, fits the evidence no better. The same
objections apply. The root fact is that ‘endurance’ is
a device whereby an occasion is peculiarly bound by a
single line of physical ancestry, while ‘life’ means noy-
elty, introduced in accordance with the Category of Con-
ceptual Reversion. There are the same objections to
many traditions as there are to one tradition. What has
to be explained is originality of response to stimulus.
This amounts to the doctrine that an organism is ‘alive’
when in some measure its reactions are inexplicable by
any tradition of pure physical inheritance.
Explanation by ‘tradition’ is merely another phrase- ology for explanation by ‘efficient cause.’ We require explanation by ‘final cause.’ Thus a single occasion is alive when the subjective aim which determines its process of concrescence has introduced a novelty of defi- niteness not to be found in the inherited data of its pri- mary phase. The novelty is introduced conceptually and disturbs the inherited ‘responsive’ adjustment of subjec- tive forms. It alters the ‘values,’ in the artist’s sense of that term.
It follows from these considerations that in abstrac- tion from its animal body an ‘entirely living’ nexus is not
160 Process and Reality
properly a society at all, since ‘life’ cannot be a defining characteristic. It is the name for originality, and not for tradition. The mere response to stimulus is character- istic of all societies whether inorganic or alive. Action and reaction are bound together. The characteristic of life is reaction adapted to the capture of intensity, under a large variety of circumstances. But the reaction is dictated by the present and not by the past. It is the clutch at vivid immediacy.
Another characteristic of a living society is that it requires food. In a museum the crystals are kept under glass cases; in zoological gardens the animals are fed. Having regard to the universality of reactions with envi- ronment, the distinction is not quite absolute. It cannot, however, be ignored. The crystals are not agencies requir- ing the destruction of elaborate societies derived from the environment; a living society is such an agency. The societies which it destroys are its food. This food is destroyed by dissolving it into somewhat simpler social elements. It has been robbed of something. Thus, all societies require interplay with their environment; and in the case of living societies this interplay takes the form of robbery. The living society may, or may not, be a higher type of organism than the food which it disintegrates. But whether or no it be for the general good, life is robbery. It is at this point that with life morals become acute. The robber requires justification.
The primordial appetitions which jointly constitute God’s purpose are seeking intensity, and not preserva- tion. Because they are primordial, there is nothing to preserve. He, in his primordial nature, is unmoved by love for this particular, or that particular; for in this foundational process of creativity, there are no pre- constituted particulars. In the foundations of his being, God is indifferent alike to preservation and to novelty.
The Order of Nature 161
He cares not whether an immediate occasion be old or new, so far as concerns derivation from its ancestry. His aim ** for it is depth of satisfaction as an intermediate step towards the fulfilment of his own being. His ten- derness is directed towards each actual occasion, as it arises.
Thus God’s purpose in the creative advance is the evocation of intensities. The evocation of societies is purely subsidiary to this absolute end. The character- istic of a living society is that a complex structure of inorganic societies is woven together for the production of a non-social nexus characterized by the intense physi- cal experiences of its members. But such an experience is derivate from the complex order of the material ani- mal body, and not from the simple ‘personal order’ of past occasions with analogous experience. There is intense experience without the shackle of reiteration from the past. This is the condition for spontaneity of conceptual reaction. The conclusion to be drawn from this argument is that life is a characteristic of ‘empty space’ and not of space ‘occupied’ by any corpuscular society. In a nexus of living occasions, there is a certain social deficiency. Life lurks in the interstices of each living cell, and in the interstices of the brain. In the history of a living society, its more vivid manifestations wander to whatever quarter is receiving from the animal body an enormous variety of physical experience. This experience, if treated inorganically, must be reduced to compatibility by the normal adjustments of mere respon- sive reception. This means the dismissal of incompatible elements into negative prehensions.
The complexity of the animal body is so ordered that
in the critical portions of its interstices the varied datum
of physical experience is complex, and on the edge of a
compatibility beyond that to be achieved by mere inor-
ganic treatment. A novel conceptual prehension disturbs
ne CiePartav.
162 Process and Reality
the subjective forms of the initial responsive phase.
Some negative prehensions are thus avoided, and higher
contrasts are introduced into experience.
So far as the functioning of the animal body is con- cerned, the total result is that the transmission of physi- cal influence, through the empty space within it, has not been entirely in conformity with the physical laws hold- ing for inorganic societies. The molecules within an ani- mal body exhibit certain peculiarities of behaviour not to be detected outside an animal body. In fact, living societies illustrate the doctrine that the laws of nature develop together with societies which constitute an epoch. There are statistical expressions of the prevalent types of interaction. In a living cell, the statistical balance has been disturbed.
The connection of ‘food’ with ‘life’ is now evident. The highly complex inorganic societies required for the structure of a cell, or other living body, lose their sta- bility amid the diversity of the environment. But, in the physical field of empty space produced by the origi- nality of living occasions, chemical dissociations and asso- ciations take place which would not otherwise occur. The structure is breaking down and being repaired. The food is that supply of highly complex societies from the outside which, under the influence of life, will enter into the necessary associations to repair the waste. Thus life acts as though it were a catalytic agent.
The short summary of this account of a living cell is as follows: (1) an extremely complex and delicately poised chemical structure; (11) for the occasions in the intersticial ‘empty’ space a complex objective datum derived from this complex structure; (iii) under normal ‘responsive’ treatment, devoid of originality, the complex detail reduced to physical simplicity by negative prehen- sions; (iv) this detail preserved for positive feeling by the emotional and purposive readjustments produced by originality of conceptual feeling (appetition); (v) the physical distortion of the field, leading to instability of
The Order of Nature 163
the structure; (vi) the structure accepting repair by food from the environment.
Section Xi
The complexity of nature is inexhaustible. So far we have argued that the nature of life is not to be sought by its identification with some society of occasions, which are living in virtue of the defining characteristic of that society. An ‘entirely living’ nexus is, in respect to its life, not social. Each member of the nexus derives the necessities of its being from its prehensions of its com- plex social environment; by itself the nexus lacks the genetic power which belongs to ‘societies.’ But a living nexus, though non-social in virtue of its ‘life,’ may sup- port a thread of personal order along some historical route of its members. Such an enduring entity is a ‘living person.’ It is not of the essence of life to be a living person. Indeed a living person requires that its immediate environment be a living, non-social nexus.
The defining characteristic of a living person is some definite type of hybrid prehensions transmitted from occasion to occasion of its existence. The term ‘hybrid’ is defined more particularly in Part III. It is sufficient to state here that a ‘hybrid’ prehension is the prehension by one subject of a conceptual prehension, or of an ‘impure’ prehension, belonging to the mentality of another subject. By this transmission the mental origi- nality of the living occasions receives a character and a depth. In this way originality is both ‘canalized’—to use Bergson’s word—and intensified. Its range is widened within limits. Apart from canalization, depth of origi- nality would spell disaster for the animal body. With it, personal mentality can be evolved, so as to combine its individual originality with the safety of the material organism on which it depends. Thus life turns back into society: it binds originality within bounds, and gains the massiveness due to reiterated character.
In the case of single cells, of vegetation, and of the