Thus, in general, a transmuted physical feeling only arises as the outcome of a complex process of incom- patibilities and inhibitions. Apart from exceptional cir- cumstances only to be found in few high-grade organ- isms, transmutation only accounts for physical feelings of negligible intensity. It is, however, important to note that even authentic physical feelings can distort the character of the nexus felt by transmuting felt concept into felt physical fact. In this way authentic perceptive feelings can introduce error into thought; and transmuted physical feelings can introduce novelty into the physical world. Such novelty may be either fortunate or disas- trous. But the point is that novelty in the physical world, and error in authentic perceptive feeling, arise by conceptual functioning, according to the category of reversion.
Putting aside the case when these transmuted percep-
tive feelings have importance, consider the prehending
subject with its direct perceptive feeling. The subject
has its concrescent phase involving two factors, the orig-
Higher Phases of Experience 411
inal physical feeling, and the derived perceptive feeling. In the earlier factor the nexus, physically felt, is objec- tified through its own proper physical bonds. There are no incompatibilities between fact and reverted concept to produce attenuation. The objective datum is therefore felt with its own proper intensities, transmitted to the subjective form of the physical feeling. The other factor in the integration is the ‘perceptive’ feeling. The datum of this feeling is the proposition with the actual entities of the nexus as its logical subjects, and with its predicate also derived from the nexus. The whole origination of this perceptive feeling has its sole basis in the physical feeling, which plays the part both of ‘indicative feeling’ and of ‘physical recognition’ (cf. Part III, Ch. IV, Sect. III).
The integration of the two factors into the conscious
perception thus confronts the nexus as fact, with the
potentiality derived from itself, limited to itself, and
exemplified in itself. This confrontation is the generic
contrast which is the objective datum of the integral
feeling. The subjective form thus assumes its vivid
immediate consciousness of what the nexus really 7s in
the way of potentiality realized. In Hume’s phraseology,
there is an ‘impression’ of the utmost ‘force and vivacity.’
There are therefore two immediate guarantees of the correctness of a conscious perception: one is Hume’s test of ‘force and vivacity,’ and the other is the illumination by consciousness of the various feelings involved in the process. Thus the fact, that the physical feeling has not transmuted concept into physical bond, lies open for inspection. Neither of these tests is infallible. There is also the delayed test, that the future conforms to expecta- tions derived from this assumption. This latter test can be realized only by future occasions in the life of an enduring object, the enduring percipient.
It is to be observed that what is in doubt is not the immediate perception of a nexus which is a fragment of
412 Process and Reality
the actual world. The dubitable element is the defini- tion of this nexus by the observed predicate.
An unauthentic perceptive feeling arises in the subject when its own conceptual origination from its own basic physical feeling passed on to the secondary stage of pro- ducing a reverted conceptual feeling to play the part of predicative feeling. The physical feeling may, or may not, have also suffered loss of direct relevance by reason of derivation from conceptual reversions in the nexus. But anyhow the subject by its own process of reversion has produced for the logical subjects a predicate which has no immediate relevance to the nexus, either as physical fact or as conceptual functioning in the nexus. Thus the comparative feeling which integrates the physical feeling with the unauthentic perceptive feeling has for its datum the generic contrast of the nexus with a proposition, whose logical subjects comprise the actualities in the nexus, and whose predicate partly agrees with the com- plex pattern exemplified in the nexus and partly disagrees with it. This case is really the conscious perception of a proposition imaginatively arrived at, which concerns the nexus and disagrees with the facts. The case is in fact more analogous to intellectual feelings of the second species, namely, to intuitive judgments. But by reason of the use of one basic physical feeling, in the double function of indicative feeling and of physical recollection, the proposition in the comparative feeling will have some of the vivid relevance to the nexus in the same feeling, which arises in the case of authentic perceptions. Prac- tically, however, this case is an intuitive judgment in which there is consciousness of a proposition as erroneous.
The term ‘judgment’ refers to three species among the
comparative feelings with which we are concerned. In
each of these feelings the datum is the generic contrast
between an objectified nexus and a proposition whose
logical subjects make up the nexus. The three species
Higher Phases of Experience 413
are composed of (i) those feelings in the ‘yes-form,’ (ii) those feelings in the ‘no-form,’ and (iii) those feelings in the ‘suspense-form.’
In all three species of felt contrast, the datum obtains its unity by reason of the objective identity of the actual entities on both sides of the contrast. In the ‘yes-form’ there is the further ground of unity by reason of the identity of the pattern of the objectified nexus with the predicate. In the ‘no-form’ this latter ground of unity is replaced by a contrast involving incompatible diversity. In the suspense-form the predicate is neither identical, nor incompatible, with the pattern. It is diverse from, and compatible with, the pattern in the nexus as objecti- fied: the nexus, in its own ‘formal’ existence, may, or may not, in fact exemplify both the pattern and the predicate. In this species of comparative feeling there is therefore contrast between pattern and _ predicate, without incompatibility.
In intuitive judgments, as has been stated, the com- parative feeling is the integration of the physical feeling of a nexus with a propositional feeling whose logical sub- jects are the actual entities in the nexus. So far as this general description is concerned intuitive judgments and conscious perceptions do not differ, and are therefore classed together as ‘intellectual’ feelings. But in the case of intuitive judgments there is a more complex process of origination. There are two distinct physical feelings, the indicative feeling and the physical recollection (Part III, Ch. IV, Sect. III). The predicative feeling origi- nates from the physical recollection, either immediately according to categoreal condition IV or mediately accord- ing to categoreal condition V. The integration of the predicative feeling with the indicative feeling produces the ‘imaginative feelings’ (cf. Part III, Ch. IV, Sect. V). This is a propositional feeling with the logical subjects of its doctrine derived from the indicative feelings and with the predicative pattern derived from physical recol- lection. These two physical feelings may be relatively
414 Process and Reality
disconnected in their origination. Thus the imaginative
feeling may have in its subjective form no bias as to
belief or disbelief; or, if there be such bias, the intensity
of the emotion may be slight.
The intuitive judgment is the comparative feeling with its datum constituted by the generic contrast between the nexus involved in the indicative feeling and the prop- osition involved in the imaginative feeling. In this gen- eric contrast each actual entity has its contrast of two-way functioning. One way is its functioning in the exemplified pattern of the nexus, and the other way is its functioning in the potential pattern of the proposition. If in addition to the contrast between exemplification and potentiality, there be identity as to pattern and predicate, then by the category of objective unity there is also the single complex eternal object in its two-way functioning, namely, as exemplified and as potential. In this case, the proposition coheres with the nexus and this coherence is its truth. Thus ‘truth’ is the absence of incompatibility or of any ‘material contrast’ in the patterns of the nexus and of the proposition in their generic contrast. The sole contrast, involving the cate- gory of objective diversity, is merely that between exemplification and potentiality, and in all other respects the coherence is governed by the category of objective identity.
If a contrast arise in any respect other than that
between exemplification and potentiality, then the
two patterns are not identical. Then the proposition
in some sense, important or unimportant, is not felt as
true.
It will be noted that the intuitive judgment in its subjective form conforms to what there is to feel in its datum. Thus error cannot arise from the subjective form of the integration constituting the judgment. But it can arise because the indicative feeling, which is one of the factors integrated, may in its origin have involved
Higher Phases of Experience 415
reversion. Thus error arises by reason of operations
which lie below consciousness, though they may emerge
into consciousness and lie open for criticism.
Finally, what differentiates an intuitive judgment from a conscious perception is that a conscious perception is the outcome of an originative process which has its closest possible restriction to the fact, thus consciously perceived. But the distinction between the two species is not absolute. Among the conscious perceptions we find transmutations by which concepts entertained in the nexus are transmuted into physical feelings in the nexus, and also the unauthentic propositional feelings in which a proposition with a ‘reverted’ predicate has arisen. These are cases in which conscious perceptions take on the general character of intuitive judgments. On the other hand the diversity between the two physical feel- ings—when they are diverse—may be trivial. The nexus which is the datum of the one may be practically identi- cal with the nexus which is the datum of the other. In such a case an intuitive judgment approximates to a conscious perception.
The condensed analysis of the stages of origination of an intuitive judgment is (i) the ‘physical recollection’ and the ‘indicative feeling,’ (11) the ‘predicative feeling,’ derived from the physical recollection, (iii) the ‘imagina- tive feeling’ derived by integration of the ‘predicative feeling’ with the ‘indicative feeling,’ (iv) the intuitive judgment, derived by integration of the ‘imaginative feeling’ with the indicative feeling.
It is a great mistake to describe the subjective form of an intuitive judgment as necessarily including definite belief or disbelief in the proposition. ‘Three cases arise. The generic contrast which is the datum of the intuitive judgment may exhibit the predicate of the proposition as exemplified in the objectified nexus. In this case, the subjective form will include definite belief. Secondly, the predicate may be exhibited as incompatible with the
416 Process and Reality
eternal objects exemplified in the objectified nexus. In this case, the subjective form will include definite dis- belief. But there is a third case, which is in fact the more usual one: the predicate may be exhibited as irrele- vant, wholly or partially, to the eternal objects exempli- fied in the objectified nexus. In this case, the subjective form need exhibit neither belief nor disbelief. It may include one or the other, of these decisions, but it need not do so. This third case will be termed the case of ‘suspended judgment.’ Thus an intuitive judgment may be a belief, or a disbelief, or a suspended judgment. It is the task of the inferential process sometimes to con- vert a suspended judgment into a belief, or a disbelief, so far as the final satisfaction is concerned.
But the main function of intellectual feelings is neither belief, nor disbelief, nor even suspension of judgment. The main function of these feelings is to heighten the emotional intensity accompanying the valuations in the conceptual feelings involved, and in the more physical purposes which are more primitive than any intellectual feelings. They perform this function by the sharp-cut way in which they limit abstract valuation to express possibilities relevant to definite logical subjects. In so far as these logical subjects, by reason of other prehen- sions, are topics of interest, the proposition becomes a lure for the conditioning of creative action. In other words, its prehension effects a modification of the subjective aim.
Intellectual feelings, in their primary function, are concentration of attention involving increase of impor- tance. This concentration of attention also introduces the criticism of physical purposes, which is the intellec- tual judgment of truth or falsehood. But intellectual feelings are not to be understood unless it be remembered that they already find at work ‘physical purposes’ more primitive than themselves. Consciousness follows, and does not precede, the entry of the conceptual prehensions of the relevant universals.