In this connection, I can only repeat, as a final sum- mary, a paragraph from my Science and the Modern World (Ch. III): “You will observe that I do not hold induction to be in its essence the derivation of general laws. It is the derivation of some characteristics of a particular future from the known characteristics of a particular past. The wider assumption of general laws holding for all cognizable occasions appears a very unsafe addendum to attach to this limited knowledge. All we can ask of the present occasion is that it shall determine a particular community of occasions, which are in some respects mutually qualified by reason of their inclusion within that same community.” It is evident that, in this discussion of induction, the philosophy of organism
Theyppropositions 311
appears as an enlargement of the premise in ethical dis- cussions: that man is a social animal. Analogously, every actual occasion is social, so that when we have presumed the existence of any persistent type of actual occasions, we have thereby made presumptions as to types of societies comprised in its environment. Another way of stating this explanation of the validity of induc- tion is, that in every forecast there is a presupposition of a certain type of actual entities, and that the question then asked is, Under what circumstances will these enti- ties find themselves? The reason that an answer can be given is that the presupposed type of entities requires a presupposed type of data for the primary phases of these actual entities; and that a presupposed type of data requires a presupposed type of social environment. But the laws of nature are the outcome of the social environment. Hence when we have presupposed a type of actual occasions, we have already some information as to the laws of nature in operation throughout the environment.
In every inductive judgment, there is therefore con- tained a presupposition of the maintenance of the general order of the immediate environment, so far as concerns actual entities within the scope of the induction. The inductive judgment has regard to the statistical proba- bilities inherent in this given order. The anticipations are devoid of meaning apart from the definite cosmic order which they presuppose. Also survival requires order, and to presuppose survival, apart from the type of order which that type of survival requires, is a contra- diction. It is at this point that the organic philosophy differs from any form of Cartesian ‘substance-philoso- phy.’ For if a substance requires nothing but itself in order to exist, its survival can tell no tale as to the sur- vival of order in its environment. Thus no conclusion can be drawn respecting the external relationships of the surviving substance to its future environment. For
312 Process and Reality
the organic philosophy, anticipations as to the future
of a piece of rock presuppose an environment with the
type of order which that piece of rock requires. Thus
the completely unknown environment never enters into
an inductive judgment. The induction is about the sta-
tistical probabilities of this environment, or about the
graded relevance to it of eternal objects.
Thus the appeal to the mere unknown is automatically
ruled out. The question, as to what will happen to an
unspecified entity in an unspecified environment, has no
answer. Induction always concerns societies of actual
entities which are important for the stability of the
immediate environment.
In the preceding section there has been a covert appeal to probability. It is the purpose of this section to explain how the probability, thus invoked, can be explained according to the statistical theory. First, we have to note exactly where this appeal to probability enters into the notion of induction. An inductive argument always includes an hypothesis, namely, that the environment which is the subject matter considered contains a society of actual occasions analogous to a society in the present. But analogous societies require analogous data for their several occasions; and analogous data can be provided only by the objectifications provided by analogous envi- ronments. But the laws of nature are derived from the characters of the societies dominating the environment. Thus the laws of nature dominating the environment in question have some analogy to the laws of nature domi- nating the immediate environment.
Now the notions of ‘analogy’ and of ‘dominance’ both
leave a margin of uncertainty. We can ask, How far
analogous? and How far dominant? If there were exact
analogy, and complete dominance, there would be a mix-
ture of certainty as to general conditions and of com-
plete ignorance as to specific details. But such a descrip-
TA PROrOS TTPO NS 313
tion does not apply either to our knowledge of the imme-
diate present, or of the past, or to our inductive knowl-
edge of the future. Our conscious experience involves
a baffling mixture of certainty, ignorance, and proba-
bility.
Now it is evident that the theory of cosmic epochs, due to the dominance of societies of actual occa- sions, provides the basis for a statistical explanation of probability. In any one epoch there are a definite set of dominant societies in certain ordered interconnections. There is also an admixture of chaotic occasions which cannot be classified as belonging to any society. But, having regard to the enormous extension of any cosmic epoch, we are practically dealing with infinities, so that some method of sampling is required, rooted in the nature of the case and not arbitrarily adopted.
This natural method of sampling is provided by the data which form the primary phase of any one actual occasion. Each actual occasion objectifies the other actual occasions in its environment. This environment can be limited to the relevant portion of the cosmic epoch. It is a finite region of the extensive continuum, so far as adequate importance is concerned in respect to individual differences among actual occasions. Also, in respect to the importance of individual differences, we may assume that there is a lower limit to the extension of each relevant occasion within this region. With these two presumptions, it follows that the relevant objectifi- cations, forming the relevant data for any one occasion, refer to a finite sample of actual occasions in the environ- ment. Accordingly our knowledge of the external world, and of the conditions upon which its laws depend is, through and through, of that numerical character which a statistical theory of probability requires. Such a theory does not require that exact statistical calculations are made. All that is meant by such a theory is that our probability judgments are ultimately derivable from vague estimates of ‘more or less’ in a numerical sense.
314 Process and Reality
We have an unprecise intuition of the statistical basis of the sort of way in which things happen.
Nore—By far the best discussion of the philosophical theory of probability is to be found in Mr. J. Maynard Keynes’ book, A Treatise on Probability. This treatise must long remain the standard work on the subject. My conclusions in this chapter do not seem to me to differ fundamentally from those of Mr. Keynes as set out towards the conclusion of his Chapter XXI. But Mr. Keynes here seems to revert to a view of probability very analogous to that form of the ‘frequency theory,’ which as suggested by me he criticized acutely (and rightly, so far as concerned that special form) in his Chapter VIII.
So far the argument of the two preceding sections has
been devoted to the explanation of the statistical ground
for a probability judgment. But the same discussion also
discloses an alternative non-statistical ground for such
a judgment.
The main line of thought has been (i) that each actual occasion has at the base of its own constitution the envi- ronment from which it springs; (ii) that in this function of the environment abstraction has been made from its indefinite multiplicity of forms of definiteness, so as to obtain a concordant experience of the elements retained; (111) that any actual occasion belonging to an assigned species requires an environment adapted to that species, so that the presupposition of a species involves a pre- supposition concerning the environment; (iv) that in every inductive judgment, and in every judgment of probability, there is a presupposition, implicit or explicit, of one, or more, species of actual occasions implicated in the situation considered, so that [by (iii)] there is a presupposition of some general type of environment.
Thus the basis of all probability and induction is the
fact of analogy between an environment presupposed and
an environment directly experienced.
The argument, as to the statistical basis of probability, then recurred to the doctrine of social order. According to this doctrine, all social order depends on the statisti- cal dominance in the environment of occasions belonging
The Propositions 315
to the requisite societies. The laws of nature are sta-
tistical laws derived from this fact. Thus the judgment
of probability can be derived from an intuition—in gen-
eral vague and unprecise—as to the statistical basis of
the presupposed environment. This judgment can be
derived from the analogy with the experienced environ-
ment. There will be such factors in experience adequate
to justify a judgment of the inductive type.
But there is another factor from which, in combina- tion with the four premises, a non-statistical judgment of probability can be derived. The principle of the grad- uated ‘intensive relevance’ of eternal objects to the pri- mary physical data of experience expresses a real fact as to the preferential adaptation of selected eternal objects to novel occasions originating from an assigned environment.
This principle expresses the prehension by every crea-
ture of the graduated order of appetitions constituting
the primordial nature of God. There can thus be an
intuition of an intrinsic suitability of some definite out-
come from a presupposed situation. There will be noth-
ing statistical in this suitability. It depends upon the
fundamental graduation of appetitions which lies at the
base of things, and which solves all indeterminations of
transition.
In this way, there can be an intuition of probability respecting the origination of some novelty. It is evident that the statistical theory entirely fails to provide any basis for such judgments.
It must not be thought that these non-statistical judg- ments are in any sense religious. They lie at a far lower level of experience than do the religious emotions. The secularization of the concept of God’s functions in the world is at least as urgent a requisite of thought as is the secularization of other elements in experience. The concept of God is certainly one essential element in reli- gious feeling. But the converse is not true; the concept of religious feeling is not an essential element in the con-
316 Process and Reality
cept of God’s function in the universe. In this respect
religious literature has been sadly misleading to philo-
sophic theory, partly by attraction and partly by
repulsion.
CHAPTER X PROCESS
Twat ‘all things flow’ is the first vague generalization
which the unsystematized, barely analysed, intuition of
men has produced. It is the theme of some of the best
Hebrew poetry in the Psalms; it appears as one of the
first generalizations of Greek philosophy in the form of
the saying of Heraclitus; amid the later barbarism of
Anglo-Saxon thought it reappears in the story of the
sparrow flitting through the banquetting hall of the
Northumbrian king; and in all stages of civilization its
recollection lends its pathos to poetry. Without doubt,
if we are to go back to that ultimate, integral experi-
ence, unwarped by the sophistications of theory, that
experience whose elucidation is the final aim of philoso-
phy, the flux of things is one ultimate generalization
around which we must weave our philosophical system.
At this point we have transformed the phrase, ‘all things flow,’ into the alternative phrase, ‘the flux of things.’ In so doing, the notion of the ‘flux’ has been held up before our thoughts as one primary notion for further analysis. But in the sentence ‘all things flow,’ there are three words—and we have started by isolating the last word of the three. We move backward to the next word ‘things’ and ask, What sort of things flow? Finally we reach the first word ‘all’ and ask, What is the meaning of the ‘many’ things engaged in this common flux, and in what sense, if any, can the word ‘all’ refer to a definitely indicated set of these many things?
The elucidation of meaning involved in the phrase ‘all things flow,’ is one chief task of metaphysics.
318 Process and Reality
But there is a rival notion, antithetical to the former.
I cannot at the moment recall one immortal phrase
which expresses it with the same completeness as the
alternative notion has been rendered by Heraclitus. This
other notion dwells on permanences of things—the solid
earth, the mountains, the stones, the Egyptian Pyramids,
the spirit of man, God.