The cell can be considered genetically and morphol- ogically. The genetic-theory is considered in this part;
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the morphological theory is considered in Part IV,
under the title of the ‘extensive analysis’ of an actual
entity.
In the genetic-theory, the cell is exhibited as appropri- ating, for the foundation of its own existence, the various elements of the universe out of which it arises. Each process of appropriation of a particular element is termed a prehension. The ultimate elements of the universe, thus appropriated, are the already-constituted actual entities, and the eternal objects. All the actual entities are positively prehended, but only a selection of the eternal objects. In the course of the integrations of these various prehensions, entities of other categoreal types become relevant; and some new entities of these types, such as novel propositions and generic contrasts, come into existence. These relevant entities of these other types are also prehended into the constitution of the concrescent cell. This genetic process has now to be traced in its main outlines.
An actual entity is a process in the course of which
many operations with incomplete subjective unity ter-
minate in a completed unity of operation, termed the
‘satisfaction.’ The ‘satisfaction’ is the contentment of
the creative urge by the fulfilment of its categoreal
demands. The analysis of these categories is one aim of
metaphysics.
The process itself is the constitution of the actual
entity; in Locke’s phrase, it is the ‘real internal constitu-
tion’ of the actual entity. In the older phraseology
employed by Descartes, the process is what the actual
entity is in itself, ‘formaliter’ The terms ‘formal’ and
‘formally’ are here used in this sense.
The terminal unity of operation, here called the ‘satis- faction,’ embodies what the actual entity is beyond itself. In Locke’s phraseology, the ‘powers’ of the actual entity are discovered in the analysis of the satisfaction. In Descartes’ phraseology, the satisfaction is the actual entity considered as analysable in respect to its existence
336 Process and Reality
‘objective.’ It is the actual entity as a definite, deter- minate, settled fact, stubborn and with unavoidable con- sequences. The actual entity as described by the mor- phology of its satisfaction is the actual entity ‘spatialized, to use Bergson’s term. The actual entity, thus spatial- ized, is given individual fact actuated by its own ‘sub- stantial form.’ Its own process, which is its own internal existence, has evaporated, worn out and satisfied; but its effects are all to be described in terms of its ‘satisfaction.’ The ‘effects’ of an actual entity are its interventions in concrescent processes other than its own. Any entity, thus intervening in processes transcending itself, is said to be functioning as an ‘object.’ According to the fourth Category of Explanation it is the one general meta- physical character of all entities of all sorts, that they function as objects. It is this metaphysical character which constitutes the solidarity of the universe. The peculiarity of an actual entity is that it can be considered both ‘objectively’ and ‘formally.’ The ‘objective’ aspect is morphological so far as that actual entity is concerned: by this it is meant that the process invelved is transcen- dent relatively to it, so that the esse of its satisfaction is sentirt. The ‘formal’ aspect is functional so far as that actual entity is concerned: by this it is meant that the process involved is immanent in it. But the objective consideration is pragmatic. It is the consideration of the actual entity in respect to its consequences. In the present chapter the emphasis is laid upon the formal con- sideration of an actual entity. But this formal considera- tion of one actual entity requires reference to the objec- tive intervention of other actual entities. This objective intervention of other entities constitutes the creative character which conditions the concrescence in question. The satisfaction of each actual entity is an element in the givenness of the universe: it limits boundless, abstract possibility into the particular real potentiality from which each novel concrescence originates. The ‘boundless, abstract possibility’ means the creativity
The Theory of Feelings 337
considered solely in reference to the possibilities of the intervention of eternal objects, and in abstraction from the objective intervention of actual entities belonging to any definite actual world, including God among the actualities abstracted from.
The possibility of finite truths depends on the fact that the satisfaction of an actual entity is divisible into a variety of determinate operations. The operations are ‘prehensions.’ But the negative prehensions which con- sist of exclusions from contribution to the concrescence can be treated in their subordination to the positive pre- hensions. These positive prehensions are termed ‘feel- ings. The process of concrescence is divisible into an initial stage of many feelings, and a succession of subse- quent phases of more complex feelings integrating the earlier simpler feelings, up to the satisfaction which is one complex unity of feeling. This is the ‘genetic’ analy- sis of the satisfaction. Its ‘co-ordinate’ analysis will be given later, in Part IV.
Thus a component feeling in the satisfaction is to be
assigned, for its origination, to an earlier phase of the
concrescence.
This is the general description of the divisible charac- ter of the satisfaction, from the genetic standpoint. The extensiveness which underlies the spatio-temporal rela- tions of the universe is another outcome of this divisible character. Also the abstraction from its own full formal constitution involved in objectifications of one actual entity in the constitutions of other actual entities equally depends upon this same divisible character, whereby the actual entity is conveyed in the particularity of some one of its feelings. A feeling—i.e. a positive prehension—is essentially a transition effecting a concrescence. Its com- plex constitution is analysable into five factors which express what that transition consists of, and effects. The factors are: (i) the ‘subject’ which feels, (ii) the ‘initial
338 Process and Reality
data’ which are to be felt, (iii) the ‘elimination’ in virtue of negative prehensions, (iv) the ‘objective datum’ which is felt, (v) the ‘subjective form’ which is how that sub- ject feels that objective datum.
A feeling is in all respects determinate, with a deter- minate subject, determinate initial data, determinate negative prehensions, a determinate objective datum, and a determinate subjective form. There is a transition from the initial data to the objective datum effected by the elimination. The initial data constitute a ‘multi- plicity,’ or merely one ‘proper’ entity, while the objective datum is a ‘nexus,’ a proposition, or a ‘proper’ entity of some categoreal type. There is a concrescence of the initial data into the objective datum, made possible by the elimination, and effected by the subjective form. The objective datum is the perspective of the initial datum. The subjective form receives its determination from the negative prehensions, the objective datum, and the con- ceptual origination of the subject. The negative prehen- sions are determined by the categoreal conditions govern- ing feelings, by the subjective form, and by the initial data. This mutual determination of the elements in- volved in a feeling is one expression of the truth that the subject of the feeling is causa sui. The partial nature of a feeling, other than the complete satisfaction, is manifest by the impossibility of understanding its generation with- out recourse to the whole subject. There is a mutual sensitivity of feelings in one subject, governed by cate- goreal conditions. This mutual sensitivity expresses the notion of final causation in the guise of a pre-established harmony.
A feeling cannot be abstracted from the actual entity entertaining it. This actual entity is termed the ‘subject’ of the feeling. It is in virtue of its subject that the feel- ing is one thing. If we abstract the subject from the feeling we are left with many things. Thus a feeling is
The Theory of Feelings 339
a particular in the same sense in which each actual entity is a particular. It is one aspect of its own subject.
The term ‘subject’ has been retained because in this sense it is familiar in philosophy. But it is misleading. The term ‘superject’ would be better. The subject-super- ject is the purpose of the process originating the feelings. The feelings are inseparable from the end at which they aim; and this end is the feeler. The feelings aim at the feeler, as their final cause. The feelings are what they are in order that their subject may be what it is. Then transcendently, since the subject is what it is in virtue of its feelings, it is only by means of its feelings that the subject objectively conditions the creativity transcendent beyond itself. In our own relatively high grade of human existence, this doctrine of feelings and their subject is best illustrated by our notion of moral responsibility. The subject is responsible for being what it is in virtue of its feelings. It is also derivatively responsible for the consequences of its existence because they flow from its feelings.
If the subject-predicate form of statement be taken to be metaphysically ultimate, it is then impossible to ex- press this doctrine of feelings and their superject. It is better to say that the feelings aim at their subject, than to say that they are aimed at their subject. For the latter mode of expression removes the subject from the scope of the feeling and assigns it to an external agency. Thus the feeling would be wrongly abstracted from its own final cause. This final cause is an inherent element in the feeling, constituting the unity of that feeling. An actual entity feels as it does feel in order to be the actual entity which it is. In this way an actual entity satisfies Spinoza’s notion of substance: it is causa sui. The cre- ativity is not an external agency with its own ulterior purposes. All actual entities share with God this charac- teristic of self-causation. For this reason every actual entity also shares with God the characteristic of trans- cending all other actual entities, including God. The
340 Process and Reality
universe is thus a creative advance into novelty. The
alternative to this doctrine is a static morphological
universe.
There are three main categoreal conditions which flow from the final nature of things. These three conditions are: (i) the category of subjective unity, (11) the cate- gory of objective identity, and (iii) the category of ob- jective diversity. Later we shall isolate five other cate- goreal conditions. But the three conditions mentioned above have an air of ultimate metaphysical generality.
The first category has to do with self-realization. Self- realization is the ultimate fact of facts. An actuality is self-realizing, and whatever is self-realizing is an actu- ality. An actual entity is at once the subject of self- realization, and the superject which is self-realized.
The second and third categories have to do with objec- tive determination. All entities, including even other actual entities, enter into the self-realization of an actu- ality in the capacity of determinants of the definiteness of that actuality. By reason of this objective functioning of entities there is truth and falsehood. For every actu- ality is devoid of a shadow of ambiguity: it is exactly what it is, by reason of its objective definition at the hands of other entities. In abstraction from actualiza- tion, truth and falsehood are meaningless: we are in the region of nonsense, a limbo where nothing has any claim to existence. But definition is the soul of actuality: the attainment of a peculiar definiteness is the final cause which animates a particular process; and its attainment halts its process, so that by transcendence it passes into its objective immortality as a new objective condition added to the riches of definiteness attainable, the ‘real potentiality’ of the universe.
A distinction must here be made. Each task of crea-
tion is a social effort, employing the whole universe.
Each novel actuality is a new partner adding a new con-
The Theory of Feelings 341
dition. Every new condition can be absorbed into addi- tional fullness of attainment. On the other hand, each condition is exclusive, intolerant of diversities; except sc far as it finds itself in a web of conditions which convert its exclusions into contrasts. A new actuality may appear in the wrong society, amid which its claims to efficacy act mainly as inhibitions. Then a weary task is set for creative function, by an epoch of new creations to remove the inhibition. Insistence on birth at the wrong season is the trick of evil. In other words, the novel fact may throw back, inhibit, and delay. But the advance, when it does arrive, will be richer in content, more fully con- ditioned, and more stable. For in its objective efficacy an actual entity can only inhibit by reason of its alterna- tive positive contribution.
A chain of facts is like a barrier reef. On one side
there is wreckage, and beyond it harbourage and safety.
The categories governing the determination of things are
the reasons why there should be evil; and are also the
reasons why, in the advance of the world, particular evil
facts are finally transcended.
Category I. The many feelings which belong to an
incomplete phase in the process of an actual entity,
though unintegrated by reason of the incompleteness of
the phase, are compatible for synthesis by reason of the
unity of their subject.
This is the category of ‘subjective unity.’ This cate-
gory is one expression of the general principle that the
one subject is the final end which conditions each com-
ponent feeling. Thus the superject is already present as
a condition, determining how each feeling conducts its
own process. Although in any incomplete phase there
are many unsynthesized feelings, yet each of these feel-
ings is conditioned by the other feelings. The process
of each feeling is such as to render that feeling integrable
with the other feelings.