This extensiveness is the pervading generic form to which morphological structure of the organisms of the world conform. These. organisms are of two types: one type consists of the individual actual entities; the other type consists of nexus of actual entities. Both types are correlated by their common extensiveness. If we confine our attention to the subdivision of an actual entity into coordinate parts, we shall conceive of extensiveness as purely derived from the notion of ‘whole and part,’ that is to say, ‘extensive whole and extensive part.’ This was the view taken in by my two earlier investigations of the
440 Process and Reality
subject. This defect of starting point revenged itself in the fact that the ‘method of extensive abstraction’ devel- oped in those works was unable to define a ‘point,’ with- out the intervention of the theory of ‘duration.’ Thus what should have been a property of ‘durations’ became the definition of a point. By this mode of approach the extensive relations of actual entities mutually external to each other were pushed into the background; though they are equally fundamental.
Since that date Professor T. de Laguna * has shown that the somewhat more general notion of ‘extensive connec- tion’ can be adopted as the starting point for the investi- gation of extension; and that the more limited notion of ‘whole and part’ can be defined in terms of it. In this way, as Professor de Laguna has shown, my difficulty in the definition of a point, without recourse to other con- siderations, can be overcome.
This whole question is investigated in the succeeding chapters of this part. Also I there give a definition of a straight line, and of ‘flat’ loci generally, in terms of purely extensive principles without reference to measurement or to durations.
An actual entity, in its character of being a physical occasion, is an act of blind perceptivity of the other physi- cal occasions of the actual world. When we consider such an occasion morphologically, as a given entity, its per- ceptive bonds are divisible by reason of the extensive divisibility of its own standpoints, and by reason of the extensive divisibility of the other actual occasions. Thus we reach perceptive bonds involving one sub-region of the basic region of the perceiver, and one subdivision of the basic region of the perceived. The relationship between these sub-regions involves the status of inter-
*Cf. The Principles of Natural Knowledge, 1919, and The Concept of Nature, 1920, Cambridge University Press, England.
* Cf. Professor de Lajuna’s three articles in the Journal of Philosophy,
SE and Scientific Method, Vol. XIX, 1922, especially the third article.
Coordinate Division 441
mediate regions functioning as agents in the process of
transmission. In other words, the perspective of one
sub-region from the other is dependent on the fact that
the extensive relations express the conditions laid on the
actual world in its function of a medium.
These extensive relations do not make determinate what is transmitted; but they do determine conditions to which all transmission must conform. They represent the systematic scheme which is involved in the real poten- tiality from which every actual occasion arises. This scheme is also involved in the attained fact which every actual occasion is. The ‘extensive’ scheme is nothing else than the generic morphology of the internal relations which bind the actual occasions into a nexus, and which bind the prehensions of any one actual occasion into a unity, coordinately divisible.
For Descartes the primary attribute of physical bodies is extension; for the philosophy of organism the primary relationship of physical occasions is extensive connection. This ultimate relationship is sui generis, and cannot be defined or explained. But its formal properties can be stated. Also in view of these formal properties, there are definable derivative notions which are of importance in expressing the morphological structure. Some general character of coordinate divisibility is probably an ulti- mate metaphysical character, persistent in every cosmic epoch of physical occasions. Thus some of the simpler characteristics of extensive connection, as here stated, are probably such ultimate metaphysical necessities.
But when we examine’ the characteristics considered in the next chapter, it is difficult to draw the line distinguish- ing characteristics so general that we cannot conceive any alternatives, from characteristics so special that we imag- ine them to belong merely to our cosmic epoch. Such an epoch may be, relatively to our powers, of immeasur- able extent, temporally and spatially. But in reference to the ultimate nature of things, it is a limited nexus. Beyond that nexus, entities with new relationships, un- realized in our experiences and unforeseen by our imagi-
442 Process and Reality
nations, will make their appearance, introducing into the universe new types of order.
But, for our epoch, extensive connection with its vari- ous characteristics is the fundamental organic relation- ship whereby the physical world is properly described as a community. There are no important physical rela- tionships outside the extensive scheme. To be an actual occasion in the physical world means that the entity in question is a relatum in this scheme of extensive connec- tion. In this epoch, the scheme defines what is physically actual.
The more ultimate side of this scheme, perhaps that
side which is metaphysically necessary, is at once evident
by the consideration of the mutual implication of exten-
sive whole and extensive part. If you abolish the whole,
you abolish its parts; and if you abolish any part, then
that whole is abolished.
In this general description of the states of extension, nothing has been said about physical time or physical space, or of the more general notion of creative advance. These are notions which presuppose the more general relationship of extension. They express additional facts about the actual occasions. The extensiveness of space is really the spatialization of extension; and the exten- siveness of time is really the temporalization of extension. Physical time expresses the reflection of genetic divisi- bility into coordinate divisibility.
So far as mere extensiveness is concerned, space might
as well have three hundred and thirty-three dimensions,
instead of the modest three dimensions of our present
epoch. The three dimensions of space form an addi-
tional fact about the physical occasions. Indeed the
sheer dimensionality of space, apart from the precise
number of dimensions, is such an additional fact, not in-
volved in the mere notion of extension. Also the
seriality of time, unique or multiple, cannot be derived
from the sole notion of extension.
Coordinate Division 443
The notion of nature as an organic extensive commu- nity omits the equally essential point of view that nature is never complete. It is always passing beyond itself. This is the creative advance of nature. Here we come to the problem of time. The immediately relevant point to notice is that time and space are characteristics of nature which presuppose the scheme of extension. But exten- sion does not in itself determine the special facts which. are true respecting physical time and physical space.
The consideration of coordination and genesis raises a question wider than any yet discussed in this chapter.
The theory of ‘prehensions’ embodies a protest against the ‘bifurcation’ of nature. It embodies even more than that: its protest is against the bifurcation of actualities. In the analysis of actuality the antithesis between pub- licity and privacy obtrudes itself at every stage. There are elements only to be understood by reference to what is beyond the fact in question; and there are elements expressive of the immediate, private, personal, individu- ality of the fact in question. The former elements ex- press the publicity of the world; the latter elements express the privacy of the individual.
An actual entity considered in reference to the pub- licity of things is a ‘superject’; namely, it arises from the publicity which it finds, and it adds itself to the pub- licity which it transmits. It is a moment of passage from decided public facts to a novel public fact. Public facts are, in their nature, coordinate.
An actual entity considered in reference to the privacy
of things is a ‘subject’; namely, it is a moment of the
genesis of self-enjoyment. It consists of a purposed self-
creation out of materials which are at hand in virtue of
their publicity.
Eternal objects have the same dual reference. An eternal object considered in reference to the publicity
444 Process and Reality
of things is an ‘universal’; namely, in its own nature it refers to the general public facts of the world without any disclosure of the empirical details of its own impli- cation in them. Its own nature as an entity requires ingression—positive or negative—in every detailed actu- ality; but its nature does not disclose the private details of any actuality.
An eternal object considered in reference to the privacy
of things is a ‘quality’ or ‘characteristic’; namely, in its
own nature, as exemplified in any actuality, it consti-
tutes an element in the private definiteness of that
actuality. It refers itself publicly; but it is enjoyed
privately.
The theory of prehensions is founded upon the doc- trine that there are no concrete facts which are merely public, or merely private. The distinction between pub- licity and privacy is a distinction of reason, and is not a distinction between mutually exclusive concrete facts. The sole concrete facts, in terms of which actualities can be analysed, are prehensions; and every prehension has its public side and its private side. Its public side is constituted by the complex datum prehended; and its private side is constituted by the subjective form through which a private quality is imposed on the public datum. The separations of perceptual fact from emotional fact; and of causal fact from emotional fact, and from per- ceptual fact, and of perceptual fact, emotional fact, and causal fact, from purposive fact; have constituted a com- plex of bifurcations, fatal to a satisfactory cosmology. The facts of nature are the actualities; and the facts into which the actualities are divisible are their prehen- sions, with their public origins, their private forms, and their private aims. But the actualities are moments of passage into a novel stage of publicity; and the coordi- nation of prehensions expresses the publicity of the world, so far as it can be considered in abstraction from private genesis. Prehensions have public careers, but they are born privately.
Coordinate Division 445
The antithesis between publicity and privacy is re- flected in the classification of eternal objects according to their primary modes of ingression into actual entities. An eternal object can only function in the concrescence of an actual entity in one of three ways: (i) it can be an element in the definiteness of some objectified nexus, or of some single actual entity, which is the datum of a feeling; (11) it can be an element in the definiteness of the subjective form of some feeling; or (iii) it can be an element in the datum of a conceptual, or propositional, feeling. All other modes of ingression arise from integrations which presuppose these modes.
Now the third mode is merely the conceptual valua-
tion of the potential ingression in one of the other two
modes. It is a real ingression into actuality; but it is a
restricted ingression with mere potentiality withholding
the immediate realization of its function of conferring
definiteness.
The two former modes of ingression thus constitute the
ways in which the functioning of an eternal object is
unrestrictedly realized. But we now ask whether either
mode is indifferently open to each eternal object. The
answer is the classification of eternal objects into two
species, the ‘objective’ species, and the ‘subjective’
species.
An eternal object of the objective species can only
obtain ingression in the first mode, and never in the sec-
ond mode. It is always, in its unrestricted realization,
an element in the definiteness of an actual entity, or a
nexus, which is the datum of a feeling belonging to the
subject in question.
Thus a member of this species can only function rela- tionally: by a necessity of its nature it is introducing one actual entity, or nexus, into the real internal constitution of another actual entity. Its sole avocation is to be an agent in objectification. It can never be an element in
446 Process and Reality
the definiteness of a subjective form. The solidarity of the world rests upon the incurable objectivity of this species of eternal objects. A member of this species inevitably introduces into the immediate subject other actualities. The definiteness with which it invests the external world may, or may not, conform to the real internal constitutions of the actualities objectified. But conformably, or non-conformably, such is the character of that nexus for that actual entity. This is a real physi- cal fact, with its physical consequences. Eternal objects of the objective species are the mathematical platonic forms. They concern the world as a medium.
But the description of sensa given above (Part II, Ch.
VIII, Sect. III) will include some members of the
subjective species.