so far as there is trivial order, there must be trivialized actual entities. The right co-ordination of the negative prehensions is one secret of mental progress; but unless some systematic scheme of relatedness characterizes the environment, there will be nothing left whereby to con- stitute vivid prehension of the world. The low-grade organism is merely the summation of the forms of energy which flow in upon it in all their multiplicity of detail. It receives, and it transmits; but it fails to simplify into intelligible system. The physical theory of the structural flow of energy has to do with the transmission of simple physical feelings from individual actuality to individual actuality. Thus some sort of quantum-theory in physics, relevant to the existing type of cosmic order, is to be expected. The physical theory of alternative forms of energy, and of the transformation from one form to another form, ultimately depends upon transmission conditioned by some exemplification of the categories of transmutation and reversion.
The seventh categoreal condition governs the efficacy
of conceptual feelings both in the completion of their
own subjects, and also in the objectifications of their
subjects in subsequent concrescence. It is the category
of ‘subject harmony.’
Category VII. The Category of Subjective Harmony.
The valuations of conceptual feelings are mutually deter-
mined by their adaptation to be joint elements in a
satisfaction aimed at by the subject.
This categoreal condition should be compared with the category of ‘subjective unity,’ and also with the category of ‘conceptual reversion.’ In the former category the intrinsic inconsistencies, termed ‘logical,’ are the forma- tive conditions in the pre-established harmony. In this seventh category, and in the category of reversion, aesthetic adaptation for an end is the formative condition in the vre-established harmony. These three categories
390 Process and Reality
express the ultimate particularity of feelings. For the superject which is their outcome is also the subject which is operative in their production. They are the creation of their own creature. The point to be noticed is that the actual entity, in a state of process during which it is not fully definite, determines its own ultimate definite- ness. This is the whole point of moral responsibility. Such responsibility is conditioned by the limits of the data, and by the categoreal conditions of concrescence.
But autonomy is negligible unless the complexity is such that there is great energy in the production of con- ceptual feelings according to the category of reversion. This category of reversion has to be considered in con- nection with the category of aesthetic harmony. For the contrasts produced by reversion are contrasts required for the fulfilment of the aesthetic ideal. Unless there is complexity, ideal diversities lead to physical impossibili- ties, and thence to impoverishment. It requires a complex constitution to stage diversities as consistent contrasts.
It is only by reason of the categories of subjective unity,
and of subjective harmony, that the process constitutes
the character of the product, and that conversely the
analysis of the product discloses the process.
There is, however, always this limitation to the secur- ity of direct knowledge, based on direct physical feeling, namely, that the creative emergence can import into the physical feelings of the actual world pseudo-determinants which arise from the concepts entertained in that actual world, and not from the physical feelings in that world.
This possibility of error is peculiarly evident in the
case of that special class of physical feelings which
belong to the mode of ‘presentational immediacy.’
Propositions and Feelings
THE nature of consciousness has not yet been ade- quately analysed. The initial basic feelings, physical and conceptual, have been mentioned, and so also has the final synthesis into the affirmation-negation contrast. But between the beginning and the end of the integration into consciousness, there lies the origination of a ‘propo- sitional feeling.’ A propositional feeling is a feeling whose objective datum is a proposition. Such a feeling does not in itself involve consciousness. But all forms of consciousness arise from ways of integration of propo- sitional feelings with other feelings, either physical feel- ings or conceptual feelings. Consciousness belongs to the subjective forms of such feelings.
A proposition enters into experience as the entity forming the datum of a complex feeling derived from the integration of a physical feeling with a conceptual feeling." Now a conceptual feeling does not refer to the actual world, in the sense that the history of this actual world has any peculiar relevance to its datum. This datum is an eternal object; and an eternal object refers only to the purely general any among undetermined actual entities. In itself an eternal object evades any selection among actualities or epochs. You cannot know what is red by merely thinking of redness. You can only find red things by adventuring amid physical experiences in this actual world. This doctrine is the ultimate ground of empiricism; namely, that eternal objects tell no tales as to their ingressions.
1 Cf., also ‘Physical Purposes’ considered in Ch. V.
392 Process and Reality
But now a new kind of entity presents itself. Such entities are the tales that perhaps might be told about particular actualities. Such entities are neither actual entities, nor eternal objects, nor feelings. They are propositions. A proposition must be true or false. Herein a proposition differs from an eternal object; for no eternal object is ever true or false. This difference between propositions and eternal objects arises from the fact that truth and falsehood are always grounded upon a reason. But according to the ontological principle (the seven- teenth ‘category of explanation’), a reason is always a reference to determinate actual entities. Now an eternal object, in itself, abstracts from all determinate actual entities, including even God. It is merely referent to any such entities, in the absolutely general sense of any. Then there can be no reason upon which to found the truth or falsehood of an eternal object. The very diver- sity of eternal objects has for its reason their diversity of functioning in this actual world.
Thus the endeavour to understand eternal objects in complete abstraction from the actual world results in reducing them to mere undifferentiated nonentities. This is an exemplification of the categoreal principle, that the general metaphysical character of being an entity is ‘to be a determinant in the becoming of actualities.’ Accord- ingly the differentiated relevance of eternal objects to each instance of the creative process requires their con- ceptual realization in the primordial nature of God. He does not create eternal objects; for his nature requires them in the same degree that they require him. This is an exemplification of the coherence of the categoreal types of existence. The general relationships of eternal objects to each other, relationships of diversity and of pattern, are their relationships in God’s conceptual reali- zation. Apart from this realization, there is mere isolation indistinguishable from nonentity.
But a proposition, while preserving the indeterminate- ness of an eternal object, makes an incomplete abstrac-
Propositions and Feelings — 393
tion from determinate actual entities. It is a complex
entity, with determinate actual entities among its com-
ponents. These determinate actual entities, considered
formaliter and not as in the abstraction of the proposi-
tion, do afford a reason determining the truth or false-
hood of the proposition. But the proposition in itself,
apart from recourse to these reasons, tells no tale about
itself; and in this respect it is indeterminate like the
eternal objects.
A propositional feeling (as has been stated) arises from a special type of integration synthesizing a physical feel- ing with a conceptual feeling. The objective datum of the physical feeling is either one actual entity, if the feeling be simple, or is a determinate nexus of actual entities, if the physical feeling be more complex. The datum of the conceptual feeling is an eternal object which is referent to any actual entities, where the any is abso- lutely general and devoid of selection. In the integrated objective datum the physical feeling provides its deter- minate set of actual entities, indicated by their felt physi- cal relationships to the subject of the feeling. ‘These actual entities are the logical subjects of the proposition. The absolute generality of the notion of any, inherent in an eternal object, is thus eliminated in the fusion. In the proposition, the eternal object in respect to its possi- bilities as a determinant of nexus, is restricted to these logical subjects. The proposition may have the restricted generality of referring to any among these provided logi- cal subjects; or it may have the singularity of referring to the complete set of provided logical subjects as poten- tial relata, each with its assigned status, in the complex pattern which is the eternal object. The proposition is the potentiality of the eternal object, as a determinant of definiteness, in some determinate mode of restricted reference to the logical subjects. This eternal object is the ‘predicative pattern’ of the proposition. The set of logical subjects is either completely singled out as these logical subjects in this predicative pattern or is collec-
394 Process and Reality
tively singled out as any of these logical subjects in this pattern, or as some of these logical subjects in this pat- tern. Thus the physical feeling indicates the logical sub- jects and provides them respectively with that individual definition necessary to assign the hypothetic status of each in the predicative pattern. The conceptual feeling provides the predicative pattern. Thus in a proposition the logical subjects are reduced to the status of food for a possibility. Their real rdle in actuality is abstracted from; they are no longer factors in fact, except for the purpose of their physical indication. Each logical subject becomes a bare “t’ among actualities, with its assigned hypothetical relevance to the predicate.”
It is evident that the datum of the conceptual feeling reappears as the predicate in the proposition which is the datum of the integral, propositional feeling. In this synthesis the eternal object has suffered the elimination of its absolute generality of reference. The datum of the physical feeling has also suffered elimination. For the peculiar objectification of the actual entities, really ef- fected in the physical feeling, is eliminated, except in so far as it is required for the services of the indication. The objectification remains only to indicate that definiteness which the logical subjects must have in order to be hypo- thetical food for that predicate. This necessary indica- tion of the logical subjects requires the actual world as a systematic environment. For there can be no definite position in pure abstraction. The proposition is the pcos- sibility of that predicate applying in that assigned way to those logical subjects. In every proposition, as such and without going beyond it, there is complete indeter- minateness so far as concerns its own realization in a propositional feeling, and as regards its own truth. The logical subjects are, nevertheless, in fact actual entities which are definite in their realized mutual relatedness. Thus the proposition is in fact true, or false. But its own
*Cf. my Concept of Nature, Ch. I, for another exposition of this train of thought.
Propositions and Feelings | 395
truth, or its own falsity, is no business of a proposition. That question concerns only a subject entertaining a propositional feeling with that proposition for its datum. Such an actual entity is termed a ‘prehending subject’ of the proposition. Even a prehending subject is not neces- sarily judging the proposition. That particular case has been discussed earlier in Chapter IX of Part II. In that chapter the term ‘judging subject’ was used in place of the wider term ‘prehending subject.’
To summarize this discussion of the general nature of a proposition: A proposition shares with an eternal object the character of indeterminateness, in that both are definite potentialities for actuality with undetermined realization im actuality. But they differ in that an eter- nal object refers to actuality with absolute generality, whereas a proposition refers to indicated logical subjects. Truth and falsehood always require some element of sheer givenness. Eternal objects cannot demonstrate what they are except in some given fact. The logical subjects of a proposition supply the element of givenness requisite for truth and falsehood.
A proposition has neither the particularity of a feeling, nor the reality of a nexus. It is datum for feeling, await- ing a subject feeling it. Its relevance to the actual world by means of its logical subjects makes it a lure for feeling. In fact many subjects may feel it with diverse feelings, and with diverse sorts of feelings. The fact that propo- sitions were first considered in connection with logic, and the moralistic preference for true propositions, have ob- scured the réle of propositions in the actual world. Logi- cians only discuss the judgment of propositions. Indeed some philosophers fail to distinguish propositions from judgments; and most logicians consider propositions as merely appanages to judgments. The result is that false propositions have fared badly, thrown into the dust-heap, neglected. But in the real world it is more important