detail. We can, however, see at once that there are grades of ‘delusiveness.’ There is the non-delusive case, when we see a chair-image and there is a chair. There is the par- tially delusive case when we have been looking in a mirror; in this case, the chair-image we see is not the culmination of the corpuscular society of entities which we call the real chair. Finally, we may have been taking drugs, so that the chair-image we see has no familiar counterpart in any historical route of a corpuscular society. Also there are other delusive grades where the lapse of time is the main element. These cases are illus- trated by our perceptions of the heavenly bodies. In delusive cases we are apt, in a confusing way, to say that the societies of entities which we did not see but correctly inferred are the things that we ‘really’ saw.
The conclusion of this discussion is that the ingression of the eternal objects termed ‘sense-data,’ into the experi- ence of a subject cannot be construed as the simple objec- tification of the actual entity to which, in ordinary speech, we ascribe that sense-datum as a quality. The ingression involves a complex relationship, whereby the sense-datum emerges as the ‘given’ eternal object by which some past entities are objectified (for example, colour seen with the eyes and bad temper inherited from the viscera) and whereby the sense-datum also enters into the objectifica- tion of a society of actual entities in the contemporary world. Thus a sense-datum has ingression into experi- ence by reason of its forming the what of a very complex multiple integration of prehensions within that occasion. For example, the ingression of a visual sense-datum involves the causal objectification of various antecedent bodily organs and the presentational objectification of the shape seen, this shape being a nexus of contemporary actual entities. In this account of the ingression of sense- data, the animal body is nothing more than the most intimately relevant part of the antecedent settled world. To sum up this account: When we perceive a contempo- rary extended shape which we term a ‘chair,’ the sense-
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data involved are not necessarily elements in the ‘real internal constitution’ of this chair-image: they are ele- ments—in some way of feeling—in the ‘real internal con- stitutions’ of those antecedent organs of the human body with which we perceive the ‘chair.’ The direct recognition of such antecedent actual entities, with which we perceive contemporaries, is hindered and, apart from exceptional circumstances, rendered impossible by the spatial and temporal vagueness which infect such data. Later (cf. Part III, Chs. III to V) the whole question of this per- ception of a nexus vaguely, that is to say, without dis- tinction of the actual entities composing it, is discussed in terms of the theory of prehensions, and in relation to the Category of Transmutation.
This account of ‘presentational immediacy’ presup- poses two metaphysical assumptions:
(i) That the actual world, in so far as it is a com- munity of entities which are settled, actual, and already become, conditions and limits the potentiality for creativeness beyond itself. This ‘given’ world provides determinate data in the form of those objectifications of themselves which the characters of its actual entities can provide. This is a limitation laid upon the general potentiality provided by eternal objects, considered merely in respect to the generality of their natures. Thus, relatively to any actual entity, there is a ‘given’ world of settled actual entities and a ‘real’ potentiality, which is the datum for creativeness beyond that standpoint. This datum, which is the primary phase in the process constituting an actual entity, is nothing else than the actual world itself in its character of a possibility for the process of being felt. This exemplifies the metaphysical principle that every ‘being’ is a potential for a ‘becoming.’ The actual world is the ‘objective content’ of each new creation.
Thus we have always to consider two meanings of
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potentiality: (a) the ‘general’ potentiality, which is the bundle of possibilities, mutually consistent or alternative, provided by the multiplicity of eternal objects, and (b) the ‘real’ potentiality, which is conditioned by the data provided by the actual world. General potentiality is absolute, and real potentiality is relative to some actual entity, taken as a standpoint whereby the actual world is defined. It must be remembered that the phrase ‘actual world’ is like ‘yesterday’ and ‘tomorrow,’ in that it alters its meaning according to standpoint. The actual world must always mean the community of all actual entities, including the primordial actual entity called ‘God’ and the temporal actual entities.
Curiously enough, even at this early stage of meta- physical discussion, the influence of the ‘relativity theory’ of modern physics is important. According to the classical ‘uniquely serial’ view of time, two contemporary actual entities define the same actual world. According to the modern view no two actual entities define the same actual world. Actual entities are called ‘contemporary’ when neither belongs to the ‘given’ actual world defined by the other.
The differences between the actual worlds of a pair of contemporary entities, which are in a certain sense ‘neigh- bours,’ are negligible for most human purposes. Thus the difference between the ‘classical’ and the ‘relativity’ view of time only rarely has any important relevance. I shall always adopt the relativity view; for one reason, because it seems better to accord with the general philosophical doctrine of relativity which is presupposed in the philosophy of organism; and for another reason, because with rare exceptions the classical doctrine can be looked on as a special case of the relativity doctrine—a case which does not seem to accord with experimental evi- dence. In other words, the classical view seems to limit a general philosophical doctrine; it is the larger assump- tion; and its consequences, taken in conjunction with other scientific principles, seem to be false.
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(ii) The second metaphysical assumption is that the real potentialities relative to all standpoints are coordi- nated as diverse determinations of one extensive con- tinuum. This extensive continuum is one relational complex in which all potential objectifications find their niche. It underlies the whole world, past, present, and future. Considered in its full generality, apart from the additional conditions proper only to the cosmic epoch of electrons, protons, molecules, and star-systems, the prop- erties of this continuum are very few and do not include the relationships of metrical geometry. An extensive continuum is a complex of entities united by the various allied relationships of whole to part, and of overlapping so as to possess common parts, and of contact, and of other relationships derived from these primary relation- ships. The notion of a ‘continuum’ involves both the property of indefinite divisibility and the property of unbounded extension. There are always entities beyond entities, because nonentity is no boundary. This exten- sive continuum expresses the solidarity of all possible standpoints throughout the whole process of the world. It is not a fact prior to the world; it is the first deter- mination of order—that is, of real potentiality—arising out of the general character of the world. In its full gen- erality beyond the present epoch, it does not involve shapes, dimensions, or measurability; these are additional determinations of real potentiality arising from our cosmic epoch.
This extensive continuum is ‘real,’ because it expresses a fact derived from the actual world and concerning the contemporary actual world. All actual entities are related according to the determinations of this continuum; and all possible actual entities in the future must exemplify these determinations in their relations with the already actual world. The reality of the future is bound up with the reality of this continuum. It is the reality of what is potential, in its character of a real component of what is actual. Such a real component must be interpreted in
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terms of the relatedness of prehensions. This task will be undertaken in Chapter V of Part IV of these lectures.
Actual entities atomize the extensive continuum. This continuum is in itself merely the potentiality for division ; an actual entity effects this division. The objectification of the contemporary world merely expresses that world in terms of its potentiality for subdivision and in terms of the mutual perspectives which any such subdivision will bring into real effectiveness. These are the primary governing data for any actual entity; for they express how all actual entities are in the solidarity of one world. With the becoming of any actual entity what was previously potential in the space-time continuum is now the primary real phase in something actual. For each process of concrescence a regional standpoint in the world, defining a limited potentiality for objectifications, has been adopted. In the mere extensive continuum there is no principle to determine what regional quanta shall be atomized, so as to form the real perspective standpoint for the primary data constituting the basic phase in the concrescence of an actual entity. The factors in the actual world whereby this determination is effected will be discussed at a later stage of this investigation. They constitute the initial phase of the ‘subjective aim.’ This initial phase is a direct derivate from God’s primordial nature. In this function, as in every other, God is the organ of novelty, aiming at intensification.
In the mere continuum there are contrary poten- tialities; in the actual world there are definite atomic actualities determining one coherent system of real divi- sions throughout the region of actuality. Every actual entity in its relationship to other actual entities is in this sense somewhere in the continuum, and arises out of the data provided by this standpoint. But in another sense it 1s everywhere throughout the continuum; for its constitution includes the objectifications of the actual world and thereby includes the continuum; also the
The Extensive Continuum 105
potential objectifications of itself contribute to the real
potentialities whose solidarity the continuum expresses.
Thus the continuum is present in each actual entity, and
each actual entity pervades the continuum.
This conclusion can be stated otherwise. Extension, apart from its spatialization and temporalization, is that general scheme of relationships providing the capacity that many objects can be welded into the real unity of one experience. Thus, an act of experience has an objec- tive scheme of extensive order by reason of the double fact that its own perspective standpoint has extensive content, and that the other actual entities are objectified with the retention of their extensive relationships. These extensive relationships are more fundamental than their more special spatial and temporal relationships. Exten- sion is the most general scheme of real potentiality, pro- viding the background for all other organic relations. The potential scheme does not determine its own atomiza- tion by actual entities. It is divisible; but its real divi- sion by actual entities depends upon more particular characteristics of the actual entities constituting the ante- cedent environment. In respect to time, this atomization takes the special form * of the ‘epochal theory of time.’ In respect to space, it means that every actual entity in the temporal world is to be credited with a spatial volume for its perspective standpoint. These conclusions are required by the consideration * of Zeno’s arguments, in connection with the presumption that an actual entity is an act of experience. The authority of William James can be quoted in support of this conclusion. He writes: “Hither your experience is of no content, of no change, or it is of a perceptible amount of content or change. Your acquaintance with reality grows literally by buds or drops of perception. Intellectually and on reflection you can divide these into components, but as immediately given,
? Cf. my Science and the Modern World, Ch. VII. * Cf. loc, ctt.; and Part IV of the present work.
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they come totally or not at all.”* James also refers to Zeno. Insubstance I agree with his argument from Zeno; though I do not think that he allows sufficiently for those elements in Zeno’s paradoxes which are the product of inadequate mathematical knowledge. But I agree that a valid argument remains after the removal of the invalid parts.