But Descartes asserts one principle which is the basis of all philosophy: he holds that the whole pyramid of knowledge is based upon the immediate operation of knowing which is either an essential (for Descartes), or a contributory, element in the composition of an imme- diate actual entity. This is also a first principle for the philosophy of organism. But Descartes allowed the sub- ject-predicate form of proposition, and the philosophical tradition derived from it, to dictate his subsequent meta- physical development. For his philosophy, ‘actuality’ meant ‘to be a substance with inhering qualities.’ For the philosophy of organism, the percipient occasion 1s its own standard of actuality. If in its knowledge other actual entities appear, it can only be because they con- form to its standard of actuality. There can only be
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evidence of a world of actual entities, if the immediate actual entity discloses them as essential to its own com- position. Descartes’ notion of an unessential experience of the external world is entirely alien to the organic philosophy. This is the root point of divergence; and is the reason why the organic philosophy has to abandon any approach to the substance-quality notion of actual- ity. The organic philosophy interprets experience as meaning the ‘self-enjoyment of being one among many, and of being one arising out of the composition of many.’ Descartes interprets experiences as meaning the self- enjoyment, by an individual substance, of its qualifica- tion by ideas.
Locke explicitly discards metaphysics. His enquiry has a limited scope: ‘This therefore being my purpose, to inquire into the original, certainty and extent of human knowledge, together with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent, I shall not at present meddle with the physical consideration of the mind, or trouble myself to examine wherein its essence consists, . . . It shall suffice to my present purpose, to consider the dis- cerning faculties of a man as they are employed about the objects which they have to do with; ...”* The enduring importance of Locke’s work comes from the candour, clarity, and adequacy with which he stated the evidence, uninfluenced by the bias of metaphysical the- ory. He explained, in the sense of stating plainly, and not in the more usual sense of ‘explaining away.’ By an ironic development in the history of thought, Locke’s successors, who arrogated to themselves the title of ‘empiricists,’ have been chiefly employed in explaining away the obvious facts of experience in obedience to the a priori doctrine of sensationalism, inherited from the mediaeval philosophy which they despised. Locke’s Essay is the invaluable storehouse for those who wish to
* Cf. Essay, I, I, 2.
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confront their metaphysical constructions by a recourse to the facts.
Hume clipped his explanation by this a priori theory, which he states explicitly in the first quotation made from his Treatise in the previous chapter. It cannot be too often repeated: “We may observe, that it is univer- sally allowed by philosophers, and is besides pretty obvi- ous of itself, that nothing is ever really present with the mind but its preceptions or impressions and _ ideas, and that external objects become known to us only by those perceptions they occasion. To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; all this is nothing but to perceive.
Hume, in agreement with what ‘is universally allowed by philosophers,’ interprets this statement in a sensa- tionalist sense. In accordance with this sense, an impres- sion is nothing else than a particular instance of the mind’s awareness of a universal, which may either be simple, or may be a manner of union of many simple universals. For Hume, hating, loving, thinking, feeling, are nothing but perceptions derivate from these funda- mental impressions. This is the a priori sensationalist dogma, which bounds all Hume’s discoveries in the realm of experience. It is probable that this dogma was in Locke’s mind throughout the earlier portion of his Essay. But Locke was not seeking consistency with any a priori dogma. He also finds in experience ‘ideas’ with char- acteristics which ‘determine them to this or that particu- lar existent.’ Such inconsistency with their dogma shocks empiricists, who refuse to admit experience, naked and unashamed, devoid of their a priori figleaf. Locke is merely stating what,.in practice, nobody doubts. But Locke would have agreed with Hume in refusing to admit that ‘ideas of reflection’ may be directly ‘deter- mined to some particular existent,’ without the inter- vention of ‘ideas of sensation.’ In this respect, Locke was a sensationalist, and the philosophy of organism is not sensationalist. But Locke’s avoidance of metaphysics only led him up to a stage of thought for which meta-
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physics is essential to clarity. The questions as to the status of a ‘particular existent,’ and of an ‘idea deter- mined to a particular existent,’ demand metaphysical discussion. Locke is never tired of disparaging the notion of ‘substance’; but he gives no hint of alternative cate- gories which he would employ to analysis the notions of an ‘actual entity’ and of ‘reality.’ But his Essay, however, does contain a line of thought which can be developed into a metaphysic. In the first place, he dis- tinctly holds that ideas of particular existents—for example, the child’s idea of its mother—constitute the fundamental data which the mental functioning welds into a unity by a determinate process of absorption, including comparison, emphasis, and abstraction. He also holds that ‘powers’ are to be ascribed to particular existents whereby the constitutions of other particulars are conditioned. Correlatively, he holds that the con- stitutions of particular existents must be described so as to exhibit their ‘capacities’ for being conditioned by such ‘powers’ in other particulars. He also holds that all qualities have in some sense a relational element in them. Perhaps, though Locke does not say so, this notion of the relational element in qualities is illustrated in the following passage: “Besides, there is scarce any partic- ular thing existing, which, in some of its simple ideas, does not communicate with a greater, and in others with a less, number of particular beings: . . .”* Locke here expresses the notion of an identity between two simple ideas in the form of a ‘communication’ between the particular existents which possess that common quality. This passage also illustrates Locke’s habit of employing the term ‘idea,’ in a sense other than partic- ular content of an act of awareness. Finally, Locke’s notion of the passage of time is that something is ‘per- petually perishing.’ If he had grasped the notion that the actual entity ‘perishes’ in the passage of time, so that no actual entity changes, he would have arrived * Cf. Essay, III, IX, 14.
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at the point of view of the philosophy of organism. What he does say, is “perpetually perishing parts of suc- cession.” * Here, as elsewhere, Locke’s neglect of ulti- mate questions revenges itself upon him. Nothing can make the various parts of his Hssay mutually consistent. He never revises the substance-quality categories which remain presupposed throughout his Essay. In the first two books of the Essay, he professes to lay the founda- tions of his doctrine of ideas. These books are implicitly dominated by the notion of the ideas as mere qualifica- tions of the substrate mind. In the third book of the Essay he is apparently passing on to the application of his established doctrine of ideas to the subordinate ques- tion of the function of language. But he tacitly intro- duces a new doctrine of ideas, which is difficult to con- ciliate with the sensationalist doctrine of the preceding books. Hume concentrates upon the doctrine of Locke’s earlier books; the philosophy of organism concentrates upon that of the later books in the Essay. If Locke’s Essay is to be interpreted as a consistent scheme of thought, undoubtedly Hume is right; but such an inter- pretation offers violence to Locke’s contribution to phi- losophy.
In the philosophy of organism it is assumed that an actual entity is composite. ‘Actuality’ is the funda- mental exemplification of composition; all other mean- ings of ‘composition’ are referent to this root-meaning. But ‘actuality’ is a general term, which merely indicates this ultimate type of composite unity: there are many composite unities to which this general term applies. There is no general fact of composition, not expressible in terms of the composite constitutions of the individual occasions. Every proposition is entertained in the con- stitution of some one actual entity, or severally in the constitutions of many actual entities. This is only
AGE dh OG Near
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another rendering of the ‘ontological principle.’ It fol- lows from the ontological principle, thus interpreted, that the notion of a ‘common world’ must find its exemplifi- cation in the constitution of each actual entity, taken by itself for analysis. For an actual entity cannot be a member of a ‘common world,’ except in the sense that the ‘common world’ is a constituent of its own constitu- tion. It follows that every item of the universe, includ- ing all the other actual entities, are constituents in the constitution of any one actual entity. This conclusion has already been employed under the title of the ‘prin- ciple of relativity.’ This principle of relativity is the axiom by which the ontological principle is rescued from issuing in an extreme monism. Hume adumbrates this principle in his notion of ‘repetition.’
Some principle is now required to rescue actual entities from being undifferentiated repetitions, each of the other, with mere numerical diversity. This requisite is supplied by the ‘principle of intensive relevance.’ The notion of intensive relevance is fundamental for the meaning of such concepts as ‘alternative possibilities,’ ‘more or less,’ ‘important or negligible.’ The principle asserts that any item of the universe, however preposterous as an abstract thought, or however remote as an actual entity, has its own gradation of relevance, as prehended, in the consti- tution of any one actual entity: it might have had more relevance; and it might have had less relevance, includ- ing the zero of relevance involved in the negative pre- hension; but in fact it has just that relevance whereby it finds its status in the constitution of that actual entity. It will be remembered that Hume finds it necessary to introduce the notion of variations in ‘force and vivacity.’ He is here making a particular application—and, as I believe, an unsuccessful application—of the general prin- ciple of intensive relevance.
There is interconnection between the degrees of rele-
vance of different items in the same actual entity. This
fact of interconnection is asserted in the ‘principle of
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compatibility and contrariety.’ There are items which, in certain respective gradations of relevance, are con- traries to each other; so that those items, with their respective intensities of relevance, cannot coexist in the constitution of one actual entity. If some group of items, with their variety of relevance, can coexist in one actual entity, then the group, as thus variously relevant, is a compatible group. The various specific essences of one genus, whereby an actual entity may belong to one or other of the species but cannot belong to more than one, illustrate the incompatibility between two groups of items. Also in so far as a specific essence is complex, the specific essence is necessarily composed of compatible items, if there has been any exemplification of that species. But ‘feelings’ are the entities which are pri- marily ‘compatible’ or ‘incompatible.’ All other usages of these terms are derivative.
The words ‘real’ and ‘potential’ are, in this exposition, taken in senses which are antithetical. In their primary senses, they qualify the ‘eternal objects.’ These eternal objects determine how the world of actual entities enters into the constitution of each one of its members via its feelings. And they also express how the constitution of any one actual entity is analysable into phases, related as presupposed and presupposing. Eternal objects express how the predecessor-phase is absorbed into the successor phase without limitation of itself, but with additions necessary for the determination of an actual unity in the form of individual satisfaction. The actual entities enter into each others’ constitutions under limi- tations imposed by incompatibilities ‘ of feelings. Such incompatibilities relegate various elements in the con- stitutions of felt objects to the intensive zero, which is termed ‘irrelevance.’ The preceding phases enter into their successors with additions which eliminate the inde-
“Dr. H. M. Sheffer has pointed out the fundamental logical im- portance of the notion of ‘incompatibility’; cf. Trans. Amer. Math. Soc., Vol. XIV, pp. 481-488; and Introduction to Vol. I of Principia Mathematica (2nd edition).