In discussing the relations of situation in particular and of ingression in general, the first requisite is to note that objects are of radically different types. For each type * situation ' and ' ingression ' have their own special meanings which are different from their meanings for other types, though connexions can be pointed out..
V"] Objects 149
It is necessary therefore in discussing them to deter- mine what type of objects are under consideration. There are, I think, an indefinite number of types of objects. Happily we need not think of them all. The idea of situation has its peculiar importance in reference to three types of objects which I call sense-objects, perceptual objects and scientific objects. The suitability of these names for the three types is of minor import- ance, so long as I can succeed in explaining what I mean by them.
These three types form an ascending hierarchy, of which each member presupposes the type below. The base of the hierarchy is formed by the sense-objects. These objects do not presuppose any other type of objects. A sense-object is a factor of nature posited by sense-awareness which (i), in that it is an object, does not share in the passage of nature and (ii) is not a relation between other factors of nature. It will of course be a relatum in relations which also implicate other factors of nature. But it is always a relatum and never the relation itself. Examples of sense-objects are a particular sort of colour, say Cambridge blue, or a particular sort of sound, or a particular sort of smell, or a particular sort of feeling. I am not talking of a particular patch of blue as seen during a particular second of time at a definite date. Such a patch is an event where Cambridge blue is situated. Similarly I am noftalking of any particular concert-room as filled with the note. I mean the note itself and not the patch of volume filled by the sound for a tenth of a second. It is natural for us to think of the note in itself, but in the case of colour we are apt to think of it merely as a property of the patch. No one thinks of the note as a
150 THE CONCEPT OF NATURE L^h.
property of the concert-room. We see the blue and we
hear the note. Both the blue and the note are im-
mediately posited by the discrimination of sense-aware-
ness which relates the mind to nature. The blue is
posited as in nature related to other factors in nature.
In particular it is posited as in the relation of being
situated in the event which is its situation.
The difficulties which cluster around the relation of situation arise from the obstinate refusal of philosophers to take seriously the ultimate fact of multiple relations. By a multiple relation I mean a relation which in any concrete instance of its occurrence necessarily involves more than two relata. For example, when John likes Thomas there are only two relata, John and Thomas. But when John gives that book to Thomas there are three relata, John, that book, and Thomas.
Some schools of philosophy, under the influence of
the Aristotelian logic and the Aristotelian philosophy,
endeavour to get on without admitting any relations at
all except that of substance and attribute. Namely all
apparent relations are to be resolvable into the con-
current existence of substances with contrasted at-
tributes. It is fairly obvious that the Leibnizian monad-
ology is the necessary outcome of any such philosophy.
If you dislike pluralism, there will be only one monad.
Other schools of philosophy admit relations but
obstinately refuse to contemplate relations with more^
than two relata. I do not think that this limitation is
based on any set purpose or theory. It merely arises
from the fact that more complicated relations are a
bother to people without adequate mathematical training,
when they are admitted into the reasoning.
I must repeat that we have nothing to do in these
Vii] Objects
lectures with the ultimate character of reality. It is quite possible that in the true philosophy of reality there are only individual substances with attributes, or that there are only relations with pairs of relata. I do not believe that such is the case ; but I am not concerned to argue about it now. Our theme is Nature. So long as we confine ourselves to the factors posited in the sense-awareness of nature, it seems to me that there certainly are instances of multiple relations between these factors, and that the relation of situation for sense- objects is one example of such multiple relations.
Consider a blue coat, a flannel coat of Cambridge blue belonging to some athlete. The coat itself is a perceptual object and its situation is not what I am talking about. We are talking of someone's definite sense-awareness of Cambridge blue as situated in some event of nature. He may be looking at the coat directly. He then sees Cambridge blue as situated practically in the same event as the coat at that instant. It is true that the blue which he sees is due to light which left the coat some inconceivably small fraction of a second before. This difference would be important if he were looking at a starwhosecolourwas Cambridge blue. The star might have ceased to exist days ago, or even years ago. The situation of the blue will not then be very intimately connected with the situation (in another sense of ' situation ') of any perceptual object. This disconnexion of the situation of the blue and the situation of some associated perceptual object does not require a star for its exemphfication. Any looking glass will suffice. Look at the coat through a looking glass. Then blue is seen as situated behind the mirror. The event which is its situation depends upon the position of the observer.
152 THE CONCEPT OF NATURE [ch.
The sense-awareness of the blue as situated in a certain event which I call the situation, is thus ex- hibited as the sense-awareness of a relation between the blue, the percipient event of the observer, the situation, and intervening events. All nature is in fact required, though only certain intervening events require their characters to be of certain definite sorts. The ingression of blue into the events of nature is thus exhibited as systematically correlated. The awareness of the observer depends on the position of the percipient event in this systematic correlation. I will use the term 'ingression into nature ' for this systematic correlation of the blue with nature. Thus the ingression of blue into any definite event is a part statement of the fact of the ingression of blue into nature.
1 In respect to the ingression of blue into nature events may be roughly put into four classes which overlap and are not very clearly separated. These classes are (i) the percipient events, (ii) the situations, (iii) the active conditioning events, (iv) the passive conditioning events. To understand this classification of events in the general fact of the ingression of blue into nature, let us confine attention to one situation for one percipient event and to the consequent rSles of the conditioning events for the ingression as thus limited. The percipient event is the relevant bodily state of the observer. The situation is where he sees the blue, say, behind the mirror. The active conditioning events are the events whose charac- ters are particularly relevant for the event (which is the situation) to be the situation for that percipient event, namely the coat, the mirror, and the state of the room as to light and atmosphere. The passive conditioning events are the events of the rest of nature.
Vii] Objects . 153
In general the situation is an active conditioning
event; namely the coat itself, when there is no mirror
or other such contrivance to produce abnormal effects.
But the example of the mirror shows us that the situation
may be one of the passive conditioning events. We are
then apt to say that our senses have been cheated,
because we demand as a right that the situation should
be an active condition in the ingression.
This demand is not so baseless as it may seem when presented as I have put it. All we know of the characters of the events of nature is based on the analysis of the relations of situations to percipient events. If situations were not in general active conditions, this analysis would tell us nothing. Nature would be an unfathom- able enigma to us and there could be no science. Ac- cordingly the incipient discontent when a situation is found to be a passive condition is in a sense justifiable ; because if that sort of thing went on too often, the rSle of the intellect would be ended.
Furthermore the mirror is itself the situation of other
sense-objects either for the same observer with the
same percipient event, or for other observers with
other percipient events. Thus the fact that an event is a
situation in the ingression of one set of sense-objects
into nature is presumptive evidence that that event is
an active condition in the ingression of other sense-
objects into nature which may have other situations.
This is a fundamental principle of science which it has derived from common sense.
I now turn to perceptual objects. When we look at
the coat, we do not in general say, There is a patch of
Cambridge blue; what naturally occurs to us is. There
is a coat. Also the judgment that what we have seen is
154 the Concept of Nature [Ch
a garment of man's attire is a detail. What we perceive is an object other than a mere sense-object. It is not a mere patch of colour, but something more; and it is that something more which we judge to be a coat. I will use the word 'coat' as the name for that crude object which is more than a patch of colour, and without any allusion to the judgments as to its usefulness as an article of attire either in the past or the future. The coat which is perceived — in this sense of the word * coat ' — is what I call a perceptual object. We have to investigate the general character of these perceptual objects.
It is a law of nature that in general the situation of a sense-object is not only the situation of that sense- object for one definite percipient event, but is the situation of a variety of sense-objects for a variety of percipient events. For example, for any one percipient event, the situation of a sense-object of sight is apt also to be the situations of sense-objects of sight, of touch, of smell, and of sound. Furthermore this concurrence in the situations of sense-objects has led to the body — i.e. the percipient event — so adapting itself that the perception of one sense-object in a certain situation leads to a subconscious sense-awareness of other sense- objects in the same situation. This interplay is especially the case between touch and sight. There is a certain correlation between the ingressions of sense-objects of touch and sense-objects of sight into nature, and in a slighter degree between the ingressions of other pairs of sense-objects, I call this sort of correlation the ' con- veyance' of one sense-object by another. When you see the blue flannel coat you subconsciously feel yourself wearing it or otherwise touching it. If you are a smoker, you may also subconsciously be aware of the
V"] Objects 155
faint aroma of tobacco. The peculiar fact, posited by this sense-awareness of the concurrence of subconscious sense-objects along with one or more dominating sense- objects in the same situation, is the sense-awareness of the perceptual object. The perceptual object is not primarily the issue of a judgment. It is a factor of nature directly posited in sense-awareness. The element of judgment comes in when we proceed to classify the particular perceptual object. For example, we say, That is flannel, and we think of the properties of flannel and the uses of athletes' coats. But that all takes place after we have got hold of the perceptual object. Anti- cipatory judgments affect the perceptual object per- ceived by focussing and diverting attention.
The perceptual object is the outcome of the habit of experience. Anything which conflicts with this habit hinders the sense-awareness of such an object. A sense- object is not the product of the association of intellectual ideas ; it is the product of the association of sense-objects in the same situation. This outcome is not intellectual ; it is an object of peculiar type with its own particular ingression into nature.
There are two kinds of perceptual objects, namely,
'delusive perceptual objects' and 'physical objects.'
The situation of a delusive perceptual object is a
passive condition in the ingression of that object into
nature. Also the event which is the situation will have
the relation of situation to the object only for one
particular percipient event. For example, an observer
sees the image of the blue coat in a mirror. It is a blue
coat that he sees and not a mere patch of colour. This
shows that the active conditions for the conveyance
of a group of subconscious sense-objects by a dominating