The second question for discussion concerns the physi- cal importance of ‘external connection.’ So long as the atomic character of actual entities is unrecognized, the application of Zeno’s method of argument makes it difficult to understand the notion of continuous trans- mission which reigns in physical science. But the con- cept of ‘actual occasions,’ adopted in the philosophy of organism, allows of the following explanation of physical transmission.
Let two actual occasions be termed ‘contiguous’ when
the regions constituting their ‘standpoints’ are exter-
nally connected. Then by reason of the absence of inter-
mediate actual occasions, the objectification of the
antecedent occasion in the later occasion is peculiarly
complete. There will be a set of antecedent, contiguous
occasions objectified in any given occasion; and the
abstraction which attends every objectification will
merely be due to the necessary harmonizations of these
objectifications. The objectifications of the more distant
past will be termed ‘mediate’; the contiguous occasions
will have ‘immediate’ objectification. The mediate
objectifications will be transmitted through various
routes of successive immediate objectifications. Thus
the notion of continuous transmission in science must be
replaced by the notion of immediate transmission
through a route of successive quanta of extensiveness.
These quanta of extensiveness are the basic regions of
successive contiguous occasions. It is not necessary for
the philosophy of organism entirely to deny that there
Peatseoci 469
is direct objectification of one occasion in a later occasion which is not contiguous to it. Indeed, the contrary opinion would seem the more natural for this doctrine. Provided that physical science maintains its denial of ‘action at a distance,’ the safer guess is that direct objec- tification is practically negligible except for contiguous occasions; but that this practical negligibility is a char- acteristic of the present cosmic epoch, without any meta- physical generality. Also a further distinction should be introduced. Physical prehensions fall into two species, pure physical prehensions and hybrid physical prehen- sions. A pure physical prehension is a prehension whose datum is an antecedent occasion objectified in respect to one of its own physical prehensions. A hybrid prehen- sion has as its datum an antecedent occasion objectified in respect to a conceptual prehension. Thus a pure physical prehension is the transmission of physical feel- ing, while hybrid prehension is the transmission of men- tal feeling.
There is no reason to assimilate the conditions for hybrid prehensions to those for pure physical prehensions. Indeed the contrary hypothesis is the more natural. For the conceptual pole does not share in the coordinate divisibility of the physical pole, and the extensive con- tinuum is derived from this coordinate divisibility. Thus the doctrine of immediate objectification for the mental poles and of mediate objectification for the physi- cal poles seems most consonant to the philosophy of organism in its application to the present cosmic epoch. This conclusion has some empirical support, both from the evidence for peculiar instances of telepathy, and from the instinctive apprehension of a tone of feeling in ordi- nary social intercourse.
But of course such immediate objectification is also
reinforced, or weakened, by routes of mediate objectifica-
tion. Also pure and hybrid prehensions are integrated
and thus hopelessly intermixed. Hence it will only be
in exceptional circumstances that an immediate hybrid
470 Process and Reality
prehension has sufficient vivid definition to receive a subjective form of clear conscious attention.
We have now traced the main characteristics of that real potentiality from which the first phase of a physical occasion takes its rise. These characteristics remain inwoven in the constitution of the subject throughout its adventure of self-formation. The actual entity is the product of the interplay of physical pole with mental pole. In this way, potentiality passes into actuality, and extensive relations mould qualitative content and objec- tifications of other particulars into a coherent finite experience.
In general, consciousness is negligible; and even the approach to it in vivid propositional feelings has failed to attain importance. Blind physical purposes reign. It is now obvious that blind prehensions, physical and men- tal, are the ultimate bricks of the physical universe. They are bound together within each actuality by the subjective unity of aim which governs their allied genesis and their final concrescence. They are also bound to- gether beyond the limits of their peculiar subjects by the way in which the prehension in one subject become the objective datum for the prehension in a later subject, thus objectifying the earlier subject for the later sub- ject. The two types of interconnection of prehensions are themselves bound together in one common scheme, the relationship of extension.
It is by means of ‘extension’ that the bonds between prehensions take on the dual aspect of internal relations, which are yet in a sense external relations. It is evident that if the solidarity of the physical world is to be rele- vant to the description of its individual actualities, it can only be by reason of the fundamental internality of the relationships in question. On the other hand, if the individual discreteness of the actualities is to have its weight, there must be an aspect in these relationships
Pia, LO:C1 471
from which they can be conceived as external, that is,
as bonds between divided things. The extensive scheme
serves this double purpose.
The Cartesian subjectivism in its application to physi- cal science became Newton’s assumption of individually existent physical bodies, with merely external relation- ships. We diverge from Descartes by holding that what he has described as primary attributes of physical bodies, are really the forms of internal relationships between actual occasions, and within actual occasions. Such a change of thought is the shift from materialism to organ- ism, as the basic idea of physical science.
In the language of physical science, the change from materialism to ‘organic realism’—as the new outlook may be termed—is the displacement of the notion of static stuff by the notion of fluent energy. Such energy has its structure of action and flow, and is inconceivable apart from such structure. It is also conditioned by ‘quantum’ requirements. These are the reflections into physical science of the individual prehensions, and of the individual actual entities to which these prehensions belong. Mathematical physics translates the saying of Heraclitus, ‘All things flow,’ into its own language. It then becomes, All things are vectors. Mathematical physics also accepts the atomistic doctrine of Democritus. It translates it into the phrase, All flow of energy obeys ‘quantum’ conditions.
But what has vanished from the field of ultimate sci-
entific conceptions is the notion of vacuous material
existence with passive endurance, with primary individ-
ual attributes, and with accidental adventures. Some
features of the physical world can be expressed in that
way. But the concept is useless as an ultimate notion in
science, and in cosmology,
Strains
Tuene is nothing in the real world which is merely an inert fact. Every reality is there for feeling: it pro- motes feeling; and it is felt. Also there is nothing which belongs merely to the privacy of feeling of one individual actuality. All origination is private. But what has been thus originated, publicly pervades the world. Thus the geometrical facts concerning straight and flat loci are public facts characterizing the feelings of actual entities. It so happens that in this epoch of the universe the feel- ings involving them are of dominating importance. A feeling in which the forms exemplified in the datum con- cern geometrical, straight, and flat loci will be called a ‘strain.’ In a strain qualitative elements, other than the geometrical forms, express themselves as qualities impli- cated in those forms; also the forms are the forms ingredient in particular nextis forming the objective data of the physical feelings in question. It is to be remem- bered that two points determine a complete straight line, that three non-collinear points determine a complete plane, and that four non-coplanar points determine a complete three-dimensional flat locus.
Thus a strain has a complex distribution of geometri- cal significance. There is the geometrical ‘seat’ which is composed of a limited set of loci which are certain sets of points. These points belong to the volume defining the standpoint of the experient subject. A strain is a complex integration of simpler feelings; and it includes in its complex character simpler feelings in which the qualities concerned are more particularly associated with
Strains 473
this seat. But the geometrical interest which dominates the growth of a strain lifts into importance the complete lines, planes, and three-dimensional flats, which are de- fined by the seat of the strain. In the process of inte- gration, these wider geometrical elements acquire impli- cation with the qualities originated in the simpler stages. The process is an example of the category of transmuta- tion; and is to be explained by the intervention of inter- mediate conceptual feelings. Thus extensive regions, which are penetrated by the geometrical elements con- cerned, acquire objectification by means of the qualities and geometrical relations derived from the simpler feel- ings. This type of objectification is characterized by the close association of qualities and definite geometrical relations. It is the basis of the so-called ‘projection’ of sensa. This projection of sensa in a strain takes many forms according to the differences among various strains. Sometimes the ‘seat’ retains its individual importance; sometimes in the final synthesis it has been almost elimi- nated from the final synthesis of feelings into the one strain. Sometimes the whole extensive region indicated by the wider geometrical elements is only vaguely geo- metricized. In this case, there is feeble geometrical indi- cation: the strain then takes the vague form of feeling certain qualities which are vaguely external. Sometimes the extensive region is geometricized without any corre- sponding elimination of importance from the seat. In this case there is a dual reference, to the seat here, and to some objectified region there. The here is usually some portion of an animal body; whereas the geometricized region may be within, or without, the animal body con- cerned.
It is obvious that important feelings of strain involve
complex processes of concrescence. They are accordingly
only to be found in comparatively high-grade actual
entities. They do not in any respect necessarily involve
consciousness, or even that approach to consciousness
which we associate with life. But we shall find that the
474 Process and Reality
behaviour of enduring physical objects is only explicable by reference to the peculiarities of their strains. On the other hand, the occurrences in empty space require less emphasis on any peculiar ordering of strains. But the growth of ordered physical complexity is dependent on the growth of ordered relationships among strains. Fun- damental equations in mathematical physics, such as Maxwell’s electromagnetic equations, are expressions of the ordering of strains throughout the physical universe.
Presentational immediacy is our perception of the con- temporary world by means of the senses. It is a physical feeling. But it is a physical feeling of a complex type to the formation of which conceptual feelings, more primi- tive physical feelings, and transmutation have played their parts amid processes of integration. Its objective datum is a nexus of contemporary events, under the defi- nite illustration of certain qualities and relations: these qualities and relations are prehended with the subjective form derived from the primitive physical feelings, thus becoming our ‘private’ sensations. Finally, as in the case of all physical feelings, this complex derivative physical feeling acquires integration with the valuation inherent in its conceptual realisation as a type of experi- ence.
Naive common sense insists, first, on the ‘subject’ entertaining this feeling; and, secondly, on the analytic components in the order: (i) region in contemporary world as datum, (i1) sensations as derivative from, and illustrative of, this datum, (iii) integral feeling involv- ing these elements, (iv) appreciative subjective form. (v) interpretative subjective form, (vi) purposive sub- jective form. But this analysis of presentational imme- diacy has not exhausted the content of the feeling. For we feel with the body. There may be some further spe- cialization into a particular organ of sensation; but in any case the “withness’ of the body is an ever-present,