 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leon Meyer. The Concept of Nature by Alfred North Whitehead Preface The contents of this book were originally delivered at Trinity College in the autumn of 1919 as the inaugural course of Turner Lectures. The Turner Lectureship is an occasional office founded by the liberality of Mr. Edward Turner. The duty of each of the successive holders of the post will be to deliver a course on the philosophy of the sciences and the relations or want of relations between the different departments of knowledge. The present book embodies the endeavor of the first lecturer of the series to fulfill his task. The chapters retain their original lecture form and remain as delivered with the exception of minor changes designed to remove obscurities of expression. The lecture form has the advantage of suggesting an audience with a definite mental background, which it is the purpose of the lecture to modify in a specific way. In the presentation of a novel outlook with wide ramifications, a single line of communications from premises to conclusions is not sufficient for intelligibility. Your audience will construe whatever you say into conformity with their pre-existing outlook. For this reason the first two chapters and the last two chapters are essential for intelligibility, though they hardly add to the formal completeness of the exposition. Their function is to prevent the reader from bolting up sidetracks in pursuit of misunderstandings. The same reason dictates my avoidance of the existing technical terminology of philosophy. The modern natural philosophy is shot through and through with the fallacy of bifurcation, which is discussed in the second chapter of this work. Accordingly, all its technical terms in some subtle way presuppose a misunderstanding of my thesis. It is perhaps as well to state explicitly that if the reader indulges in the facile vice of bifurcation, not a word of what I have here written will be intelligible. The last two chapters do not properly belong to the special course. Chapter 8 is a lecture delivered in the spring of 1920 before the chemical society of the students of the Imperial College of Science and Technology. It has been appended here as conveniently summing up and applying the doctrine of the book for an audience with one definitive type of outlook. This volume on the concept of nature forms a companion book to my previous work, an inquiry concerning the principles of natural knowledge. Either book can be read independently, but they supplement each other. In part, the present book supplies points of view which were omitted from its predecessor. In part, it traverses the same ground with an alternative exposition. For one thing, mathematical notation has been carefully avoided, and the results of mathematical deductions are assumed. Some of the explanations have been improved, and others have been set in a new light. On the other hand, important points of the previous work have been omitted where I have had nothing fresh to say about them. On the whole, whereas the former work based itself chiefly on ideas directly drawn from mathematical physics, the present book keeps closer to certain fields of philosophy and physics to the exclusion of mathematics. The two works meet in their discussions of some details of space and time. I am not conscious that I have in any way altered my views. Some developments have been made. Those that are capable of a non-mathematical exposition have been incorporated in the text. The mathematical developments are alluded to in the last two chapters. They concern the adaptation of the principles of mathematical physics to the form of the relativity principle, which is here maintained. Einstein's method of using the theory of tensors is adopted, but the application is worked out on different lines and from different assumptions. Those of his results, which have been verified by experience, are obtained also by my methods. The divergence chiefly arises from the fact that I do not accept his theory of non-uniform space or his assumption as to the peculiar fundamental character of light signals. I would not, however, be misunderstood to be lacking in appreciation of the value of his recent work on general relativity, which has the high merit of first disclosing the way in which mathematical physics should proceed in the light of the principle of relativity. But in my judgment he has cramped the development of his brilliant mathematical method in the narrow bounds of a very doubtful philosophy. The object of the present volume and of its predecessor is to lay the basis of a natural philosophy which is the necessary presupposition of a reorganized speculative physics. The general assimilation of space and time, which dominates the constructive thought, can claim the independent support of Minkowski from the side of science and also of succeeding relativists. While on the side of philosophers it was, I believe, one theme of Professor Alexander's Gifford Lectures, delivered some few years ago, but not yet published. He also summarized his conclusions on this question in a lecture to the Aristotelian Society in the July of 1918. Since the publication of an inquiry concerning the principles of natural knowledge, I have had the advantage of reading C. D. Broad's Perception, Physics, and Reality, Cambridge University Press, 1914. This valuable book has assisted me in my discussion in Chapter 2, though I am unaware as to how far Mr. Broad would have sent to any of my arguments as they are stated. It remains for me to thank the staff of the University Press, its compositors, its proofreaders, its clerks, and its managing officials, not only for the technical excellence of their work, but for the way they have cooperated so as to secure my convenience. A. N. W. Imperial College of Science and Technology, April 1920 End of preface. Chapter 1 of The Concept of Nature This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by M. B. The Concept of Nature The Tarner Lectures, delivered in Trinity College, November 1919, by Alfred North Whitehead. Chapter 1 Nature and Thought The subject matter of the Tarner Lectures is defined by the founder to be The philosophy of the sciences and the relations or want of relations between the different departments of knowledge. It is fitting at the first lecture of this new foundation to dwell for a few moments on the intentions of the donor as expressed in this definition. And I do so the more willingly as I shall thereby be enabled to introduce the topics to which the present course is to be devoted. We are justified, I think, in taking the second clause of the definition as in part explanatory of the earlier clause. What is the philosophy of the sciences? It is not a bad answer to say that it is the study of the relations between the different departments of knowledge. Then, with admirable solicitude for the freedom of learning, there is inserted in the definition after the word relations, the phrase or want of relations. A disproof of relations between sciences would in itself constitute a philosophy of the sciences. But we could not dispense either with the earlier or the later clause. It is not every relation between sciences which enters into their philosophy. For example, biology and physics are connected by the use of the microscope. Still, I may safely assert that a technical description of the uses of the microscope in biology is not part of the philosophy of the sciences. Again, you cannot abandon the later clause of the definition, namely that referring to the relations between the sciences, without abandoning the explicit reference to an ideal in the absence of which philosophy must languish from lack of intrinsic interest. That ideal is the attainment of some unifying concept which will set in assigned relationships within itself all that there is for knowledge, for feeling, and for emotion. That far-off ideal is the motive power of philosophic research, and claims allegiance even as you expel it. The philosophic pluralist is a strict logician. The Hegelian thrives on contradictions by the help of his absolute. The Mohammedan divine bows before the creative will of Allah, and the pragmatist will swallow anything so long as it works. The mention of these vast systems and of the age-long controversies from which they spring warns us to concentrate. Our task is the simpler one of the philosophy of the sciences. Now, a science has already a certain unity for which is the very reason why that body of knowledge has been instinctively recognized as forming a science. The philosophy of science is the endeavor to express explicitly those unifying characteristics which pervade that complex of thoughts, and make it to be a science. The philosophy of the sciences conceived as one subject is the endeavor to exhibit all sciences as one science, or, in case of defeat, the disproof of such a possibility. Again, I will make a further simplification and confine attention to the natural sciences, that is, to the sciences whose subject matter is nature. By postulating a common subject matter for this group of sciences, a unifying philosophy of natural science has been thereby presupposed. What do we mean by nature? We have to discuss the philosophy of natural science. Natural science is the science of nature. But what is nature? Nature is that which we observe in perception through the senses. In this sense perception we are aware of something which is not thought and which is self-contained forethought. This property of being self-contained forethought lies at the base of natural science. It means that nature can be thought of as a closed system whose mutual relations do not require the expression of the fact that they are thought about. Thus, in a sense, nature is independent of thought. By this statement no metaphysical pronouncement is intended. What I mean is that we can think about nature without thinking about thought. I shall say then that we are thinking homogeneously about nature. Of course it is possible to think of nature in conjunction with thought about the fact that nature is thought about. In such a case I shall say that we are thinking heterogeneously about nature. In fact, during the last few minutes we have been thinking heterogeneously about nature. Natural science is exclusively concerned with homogenous thoughts about nature. But sense perception has in it an element which is not thought. It is a difficult psychological question whether sense perception involves thought. And if it does involve thought what is the kind of thought which it necessarily involves? Note that it has been stated above that sense perception is an awareness of something which is not thought. Namely, nature is not thought. But this is a different question namely that the fact of sense perception has a factor which is not thought. I call this factor sense awareness. Accordingly, the doctrine that natural science is exclusively concerned with homogenous thoughts about nature does not immediately carry with it the conclusion that natural science is not concerned with sense awareness. However, I do assert this further statement namely that though natural science is concerned with nature which is the terminus of sense perception, it is not concerned with the sense awareness itself. I repeat the main line of this argument and expand it in certain directions. Thought about nature is different from the sense perception of nature. Hence, the fact of sense perception has an ingredient or factor which is not thought. I call this ingredient sense awareness. It is indifferent to my argument whether sense perception has or has not thought as another ingredient. If sense perception does not involve thought, then sense awareness and sense perception are identical. But the something perceived is perceived as an entity which is the terminus of the sense awareness, something which forethought is beyond the fact of that sense awareness. Also, the something perceived certainly does not contain other sense awarenesses which are different from the sense awareness which is an ingredient in that perception. Accordingly, nature as disclosed in sense perception is self-contained against sense awareness in addition to being self-contained as against thought. I will also express this self-containedness of nature by saying that nature is closed to mind. This closure of nature does not carry with it any metaphysical doctrine of the disjunction of nature and mind. It means that in sense perception nature is disclosed as a complex of entities whose mutual relations are expressible in thought without reference to mind. That is without reference either to sense awareness or to thought. Furthermore, I do not wish to be understood as implying that sense awareness and thought are the only activities which are to be inscribed to the mind. Also, I am not denying that there are relations of natural entities to mind or minds other than being the terminus of the sense awareness of minds. Accordingly, I will extend the meaning of the terms homogenous thoughts and heterogeneous thoughts which have already been introduced. We are thinking homogeneously about nature when we are thinking about it without thinking about thought or about sense awareness and we are thinking heterogeneously about nature when we are thinking about it in conjunction with thinking either about thought or about sense awareness or about both. I also take the homogeneity of thought about nature as excluding any reference to moral or aesthetic values whose apprehension is vivid in proportion to self-conscious activity. The values of nature are perhaps the key to the metaphysical synthesis of existence. But such a synthesis is exactly what I am not attempting. I am concerned exclusively with the generalizations of widest scope which can be affected respecting that which is known to us as the direct deliverance of sense awareness. I have said that nature is disclosed in sense perception as a complex of entities. It is worth considering what we mean by an entity in this connection. Entity is simply the Latin equivalent for thing unless some arbitrary distinction is drawn between the words for technical purposes. All thought has to be about things. We can gain some idea of the necessity of things for thought by examination of the structure of a proposition. Let us suppose that a proposition is being communicated by an expository to a recipient. Such a proposition is composed of phrases. Some of these phrases may be demonstrative and others may be descriptive. By a demonstrative phrase I mean a phrase which makes the recipient aware of an entity in a way which is independent of the particular demonstrative phrase. I will understand that I am here using demonstration in the non-logical sense namely in the sense in which a lecturer demonstrates by the aid of a frog and microscope the circulation of the blood for an elementary class of medical students. I will call such demonstration speculative demonstration remembering Hamlet's use of the word speculation when he says there is no speculation in those eyes. Thus a demonstrative phrase demonstrates an entity speculatively. It may happen that the expositor has meant some other entity namely the phrase demonstrates to him an entity which is diverse from the entity which it demonstrates to the recipient. In that case there is confusion for there are two diverse propositions namely the proposition for the expositor and the proposition for the recipient. I put this possibility aside as irrelevant for our discussion though in practice it may be difficult for two persons to concur in the consideration of exactly the same proposition or even for one person to have determined exactly the proposition which he is considering. Again the demonstrative phrase may fail to demonstrate any entity. In this case there is no proposition for the recipient. I think we may assume perhaps rashly that the expositor knows what he means. A demonstrative phrase is a gesture. It is not itself a constituent of the proposition but the entity which it demonstrates is such a constituent. You may quarrel with a demonstrative phrase as in some way obnoxious to you but if it demonstrates the right entity the proposition is unaffected though your taste may be offended. This suggestiveness of the phraseology is part of the literary quality of the sentence which conveys the proposition. This is because a sentence directly conveys one proposition while in its phraseology it suggests a penumbra of other propositions charged with emotional value. We are now talking of the one proposition directly conveyed in any phraseology. The doctrine is obscured by the fact that in most cases what is in form a mere part of the demonstrative gesture is in fact a part of the proposition which it is desired directly to convey. In such a case we will call the phraseology of the proposition elliptical. In ordinary intercourse the phraseology of nearly all propositions is elliptical. Let us take some examples. Suppose that the expositor is in London say in Regents Park and in Bedford College the Great Women's College which is situated in that park. He is speaking in the college hall and he says this college building is commodious. The phrase this college building is a demonstrative phrase. Now suppose the recipient answers this is not a college building it is the lion house in the zoo. Then provided that the expositor's original proposition has not been couched in elliptical phraseology the expositor sticks to his original proposition when he replies anyhow it is commodious. Note that the recipient's answer accepts the speculative demonstration of the phrase this college building. He does not say what do you mean? He accepts the phrase as demonstrating an entity but declares that same entity to be the lion house in the zoo. In his reply the expositor in his turn recognizes the success of his original gesture as a speculative demonstration and waves the question of the suitability of its mode of suggestiveness within anyhow. But he is now in a position to repeat the original proposition with the aid of a demonstrative gesture robbed of any of its suggestiveness suitable or unsuitable by saying it is commodious. The it of this final statement presupposes that thought has seized on the entity as a bare objective for consideration. We confine ourselves to entities disclosed in sense awareness. The entity is so disclosed as a relative in the complex which is nature. It dawns on an observer because of its relations but it is an objective for thought in its own bare individuality. Thought cannot proceed otherwise namely it cannot proceed without the ideal bare it which is speculatively demonstrated. This setting up of the entity as a bare objective does not ascribe to it an existence apart from the complex in which it has been found by sense perception. The it for thought is essentially a relative for sense awareness. The chances are that the dialogue as to the college building takes another form. Whatever the expository originally meant he almost certainly now takes his former statement as couched in elliptical phraseology and assumes that he was meaning this is a college building and is commodious. Here the demonstrative phrase or the gesture which demonstrates the it which is commodious has now been reduced to this and the attenuated phrase under the circumstances in which it is uttered is sufficient for the purpose of corrected demonstration. This brings out the point that the verbal form is never the whole phraseology of the proposition. This phraseology also includes the general circumstances of its production. Thus the aim of a demonstrative phrase exhibits a definite it as a bare objective for thought. But the modus operandi of a demonstrative phrase is to produce an awareness of the entity as a particular relative in an auxiliary complex chosen merely for the sake of the speculative demonstration and irrelevant to the proposition. For example in the above dialogue colleges and buildings as related to the it effectively demonstrated by the phrase this college building set that it in an auxiliary complex which is irrelevant to the proposition it is commodious. Of course in language every phrase is invariably highly elliptical. Accordingly the sentence this college building is commodious means probably this college building is commodious as a college building but it will be found that in the above discussion we can replace commodious by commodious as a college building without altering our conclusion though we can guess that the recipient who thought he was in the lion house of the zoo would be less likely to ascend to anyhow it is commodious as a college building. A more obvious instance of elliptical phraseology arises if the expositors should address the recipient with the remark that criminal is your friend. The recipient might answer he is my friend and you are insulting. Here the recipient assumes that the phrase that criminal is elliptical and not merely demonstrative. In fact pure demonstration is impossible though it is the ideal of thought. This practical impossibility of a pure demonstration is a difficulty which arises in the communication of thought and in the retention of thought. Namely a proposition about a particular factor in nature can neither be expressed to others nor retained for repeated consideration without the aid of auxiliary complexes which are irrelevant to it. I now pass to descriptive phrases. The expositor says a college in Regent's Park is commodious. The recipient knows Regent's Park well. The phrase a college in Regent's Park is descriptive for him. If its phraseology is not elliptical which in ordinary life it certainly will be in some way or other. This proposition simply means there is an entity which is a college building in Regent's Park and is commodious. If the recipient rejoins the lion house in the zoo is the only commodious building in Regent's Park he now contradicts the expositor on the assumption that a lion house in a zoo is not a college building. Thus whereas in the first dialogue the recipient merely quarreled with the expositor without contradicting him in this dialogue he contradicts him. Thus a descriptive phrase is part of the proposition which it helps to express whereas a demonstrative phrase is not part of the proposition which it helps to express. Again the expositor might be standing in Green Park where there are no college buildings and say this college building is commodious probably no proposition will be received by the recipient because the demonstrative phrase this college building has failed to demonstrate owing to the absence of the background of sense awareness which it presupposes. But if the expositor had said a college building in Green Park is commodious the recipient would have received a proposition but a false one. Language is usually ambiguous and it is rash to make general assertions as to its meanings but phrases which commence with this or that are usually demonstrative whereas phrases which commence with the or a are often descriptive. In studying the theory of prepositional expression it is important to remember the wide difference between the analogous modest words this and that on the one hand and a and the on the other hand. The sentence the college building in Regents Park is commodious means according to the analysis first made by Bertrand Russell the proposition there is an entity which one is a college building in Regents Park and two is commodious and three is such that any college building in Regents Park is identical with it. The descriptive character of the phrase the college building in Regents Park is thus evident. Also the proposition is denied by the denial of any one of its three component clauses or by the denial of any combination of the component clauses. If we had substituted Green Park for Regents Park a false proposition would have resulted. Also the erection of a second college in Regents Park would make the proposition false though in ordinary life common sense would politely treat it as merely ambiguous. The Iliad for a classical scholar is usually a demonstrative phrase for it demonstrates to him a well-known poem but for the majority of mankind the phrase is descriptive namely it is synonymous with the poem named the Iliad. Names may be either demonstrative or descriptive phrases for example Homer is for us a descriptive phrase namely the word with some slight difference in suggestiveness means the man who wrote the Iliad. This discussion illustrates that thought places before itself bear objectives entities as we call them which the thinking clothes by expressing their mutual relations. Sense awareness discloses fact with factors which are the entities for thought. The separate distinction of an entity in thought is not a metaphysical assertion but a method of procedure necessary for the finite expression of individual propositions. Apart from entities there could be no finite truths they are the means by which the infinitude of irrelevance is kept out of thought. To sum up the termination for thought are entities primarily with bare individuality secondarily with properties and relations ascribed to them in the procedure of thought. The termination for self-awareness are factors in the force of nature primarily relata and only secondarily discriminated distinct individualities. No characteristic of nature which is immediately posited for knowledge by self-awareness can be explained. It is impenetrable by thought in the sense that its peculiar essential character which enters into experience by sense awareness is for thought merely the guardian of its individuality as bare entity. Thus for thought red is merely a definite entity though for awareness red has the content of its individuality. The transition from red of awareness to the red of thought is accompanied by a definite loss of content namely by the transition from the factor red to the entity red. This loss in the transition to thought is compensated by the fact that thought is communicable whereas sense awareness is incommunicable. There are three components in our knowledge of nature namely fact, factors, and entities. Fact is the undifferentiated terminus of sense awareness. Factors are the terminus of sense awareness differentiated as elements of fact. Entities are factors in their function as the termini of thought. The entities thus spoken of are natural entities. Thought is wider than nature so that there are entities for thought which are not natural entities. When we speak of nature as a complex of related entities the complex is fact as an entity for thought to whose bare individuality is ascribed the property of embracing in its complexity the natural entities. It is our business to analyze this conception and in the course of the analysis space and time should appear. Evidently the relations holding between natural entities are themselves natural entities namely they are also factors of fact therefore sense awareness. Accordingly the structure of the natural complex can never be completed in thought just as the factors of fact can never be exhausted in sense awareness. Unexhaustiveness is an essential character of our knowledge of nature. Also nature does not exhaust the matter for thought namely there are thoughts which would not occur in any homogeneous thinking about nature. The question as to whether sense perception involves thought is largely verbal. If sense perception involves a cognition of individuality abstracted from the actual position of the entity as a factor in fact then it undoubtedly does involve thought but if it is conceived as sense awareness of a factor in fact competent to evoke emotion and purposeful action without further cognition then it does not involve thought. In such a case the terminus of the sense awareness is something for mind but nothing for thought. The sense perception of some lower forms of life may be conjectured to approximate to this character habitually. Also occasionally our own sense perception in moments when thought activity has been lulled to quiescence is not far off the attainment of this ideal limit. The process of discrimination in sense awareness has two distinct sides. There is the discrimination of fact into parts and the discrimination of any part of fact as exhibiting relations to entities which are not parts of fact though they are ingredients in it. Namely the immediate fact for awareness is the whole occurrence of nature. It is nature as an event present for sense awareness and essentially passing. There is no holding nature still and looking at it. We cannot redouble our efforts to improve our knowledge of the terminus of our present sense awareness. It is our subsequent opportunity in subsequent sense awareness which gains the benefit of our good resolution. Thus the ultimate fact for sense awareness is an event. This whole event is discriminated by us into partial events. We are aware of an event which is our bodily life, of an event which is the course of nature within this room and of a vaguely perceived aggregate of other partial events. This is the discrimination in sense awareness of fact into parts. I shall use the term part in the arbitrarily limited sense of an event which is part of the whole fact disclosed in awareness. Sense awareness also yields to us other factors in nature which are not events. For example sky blue is seen as situated in a certain event. This relation of situation requires further discussion which is postponed to a later lecture. My present point is that sky blue is found in nature with a definite implication in events but is not an event itself. Accordingly in addition to events there are other factors in nature directly disclosed to us in sense awareness. The conception in thought of all the factors in nature as distinct entities with definite natural relations is what I have in another place CF and query called the diversification of nature. There is one general conclusion to be drawn from the foregoing discussion. It is that the first task of a philosophy of science should be some general classification of the entities disclosed to us in sense perception. Among the examples of entities in addition to events used for the purpose of illustration are the buildings of Bedford College, Homer, and Sky Blue. Evidently these are very different sorts of things and it is likely that statements which are made about one kind of entity will not be true about other kinds. If human thought proceeded with the orderly method which abstract logic would suggest to it we might go further and say that a classification of natural entities should be the first step in science itself. Perhaps you will be inclined to reply that this classification has already been affected and that science is concerned with the adventures of material entities in space and time. The history of the doctrine of matter has yet to be written. It is the history of the influence of Greek philosophy on science. That influence has issued in one long misconception of the metaphysical state of natural entities. The entity has been separated from the factor which is the terminus of sense awareness. It has become the substratum for that factor and the factor has degraded into an attribute of the entity. In this way a distinction has been imported into nature which is in truth no distinction at all. A natural entity is merely a factor of fact considered in itself. Its disconnection from the complex of fact is a mere abstraction. It is not the substratum of the factor but the very factor itself as bared in thought. Thus what is a mere procedure of mind in the translation of sense awareness into discursive knowledge has been transmuted into a fundamental character of nature. In this way matter has emerged as being the metaphysical substratum of its properties and the course of nature is interpreted as the history of matter. Plato and Aristotle found Greek thought preoccupied with the quest for the simple substances in terms of which the course of events could be expressed. We may formulate this state of mind in the question what is nature made of? The answers which their genius gave to the question and more particularly the concepts which underlay the terms in which they framed their answers have determined the unquestioned presuppositions as to time, space and matter which have reigned in science. In Plato the forms of thought are more fluid than in Aristotle and therefore as I venture to think the more valuable. Their importance consists in the evidence they yield to the cultivated thought about nature before it had been forced into a uniform mold by the long tradition of scientific philosophy. For example in the Tamius there is a presupposition somewhat vaguely expressed of a distinction between the general becoming of nature and the measurable time of nature. In a later lecture I have to distinguish between what I call the passage of nature and particular time systems which exhibit certain characteristics of that passage. I will not go so far as to claim Plato in direct support of this doctrine but I do think that the sections of the Tamius which deal with time become clearer if my distinction is admitted. This is however a digression. I am now concerned with the origin of the scientific doctrine of matter in Greek thought. In the Tamius Plato asserts that nature is made of fire and earth with air and water as intermediate between them so that as fire is to air so air is to water and as air is to water so is water to earth. He also suggests a molecular hypothesis for these four elements. In this hypothesis everything depends on the shape of the atoms. For earth it is cubicle and for fire it is pyramidal. Today physicists are again discussing the structure of the atom and its shape is no slight factor in that structure. Plato's guesses read much more fantastically than does Aristotle's systematic analysis but in some ways they are more valuable. The main outline of his ideas is comparable with that of modern science. It embodies concepts which any theory of natural philosophy must retain and in some sense must explain. Aristotle asked the fundamental question what do we mean by substance? Here the reaction between his philosophy and his logic worked very unfortunately. In his logic the fundamental type of affirmative proposition is the attribution of a predicate to a subject. Accordingly amid the many current uses of the term substance which he analyzes he emphasizes its meaning as the ultimate substratum which is no longer predicated of anything else. The unquestioned acceptance of the Aristotelian logic has led to an ingrained tendency to postulate a substratum for whatever is disclosed in sense awareness namely to look below what we are aware of for the substance in the sense of the concrete thing. This is the origin of the modern scientific concept of matter and of ether namely they are the outcome of this insistent habit of postulation. Accordingly ether has been invented by modern science as the substratum of the events which are spread through space and time beyond the reach of ordinary ponderable matter. Personally I think that predication is a muddled notion confusing many different relations under a convenient common form of speech. For example I hold that the relation of green to a blade of grass is entirely different from the relation of green to the event which is the life history of that blade for some short period and is different from the relation of the blade to that event. In a sense I call the event the situation of the green and in another sense it is the situation of the blade. In a sense the blade is a character or property which can be predicated of the situation and in another sense the green is a character or property of the same event which is also its situation. In this way the predication of properties veils radically different relations between entities. Accordingly substance which is a correlative term to predication shares in the ambiguity. If we are to look for substance anywhere I should find it in events which are in some sense the ultimate substance of nature. Matter in its modern scientific sense is a return to the Ionian effort to find in space and time some stuff which composes nature. It has a more refined signification than the early guesses at earth and water by reason of a certain vague association with the Aristotelian idea of substance. Earth water air fire and matter and finally ether are related in direct succession so far as concerns their postulated characters of ultimate substrat of nature. They bear witness to the undying vitality of Greek philosophy in its search for the ultimate entities which are the factors of the fact disclosed in sense awareness. This search is the origin of science. The succession of ideas starting from the crude guesses of the early Ionian thinkers and ending in the 19th century ether reminds us that the specific doctrine of matter is really a hybrid through which philosophy passed on its way to the refined Aristotelian concept of substance and to which science returned as it reacted against philosophic abstractions. Earth, fire and water in the Ionic philosophy and the shaped elements in the Tamius are comparable to the matter and ether of modern scientific doctrine. But substance represents the final philosophic concept of the substratum which underlies any attribute. Matter in the scientific sense is already in space and time. Thus matter represents the refusal to think away from personal and temporal characteristics and to arrive at the bare concept of an individual entity. It is this refusal which has caused the model of importing the mere procedure of thought into the fact of nature. The entity, bared of all characteristics except those of space and time has acquired a physical status as the ultimate texture of nature so that the course of nature is perceived as being merely the fortunes of matter in its adventure through space. Thus the origin of the doctrine of matter is the outcome of uncritical acceptance of space and time as external conditions for natural existence. By this I do not mean that any doubt should be thrown on facts of space and time as ingredients in nature. What I do mean is the unconscious presupposition of space and time as being that within which nature is set. This is exactly the sort of presupposition which tinges thought in any reaction against the subtlety of philosophical criticism. My theory of the formation of the scientific doctrine of matter is that the first philosophy illegitimately transformed the bare entity which is simply an abstraction of thought into the metaphysical substratum of these factors in nature which in various senses are assigned to entities as their attributes and that as a second step scientists including philosophers who were scientists in conscious or unconscious ignorations of philosophy presupposed this substratum qua substratum for attributes as nevertheless in time and space. This is surely a model. The whole being of substance is as a substratum for attributes. Thus time and space should be attributes of the substance. This they palpably are not if the matter be the substance of nature since it is impossible to express spatiotemporal truths without having recourse to relations involving ralata other than bits of matter. I wave this point however and come to another. It is not the substance which is in space but the attributes. What we find in space are the red of the rose and the smell of the jasmine and the noise of cannon. We have all told our dentists where our toothache is. Thus space is not a relation between substances but between attributes. Thus even if you admit that the adherence of substance can be allowed to conceive substance as matter, it is a fraud to slip substances into space on the plea that space expresses relations between substances. On the face of it, space has nothing to do with substances but only with their attributes. What I mean is that if you choose, as I think wrongly, to construe our experience of nature and awareness of the attributes of substances, we are by this theory precluded from finding any analogous direct relations between substances as disclosed in our experience. What we do find are relations between the attributes of substances. Thus if matter is looked on as substance in space the space in which it finds itself has very little to do with the space of our experience. The above argument has been expressed in terms of the relational theory of space but if space be absolute namely if it have a being independent of things in it the course of the argument is hardly changed for things in space must have a certain fundamental relation to space which we will call occupation. Thus the objection that it is the attributes which are observed as related to space still holds. The scientific doctrine of matter is held in conjunction with an absolute theory of time. The same arguments apply to the relations between matter and time as apply to the relations between space and matter. There is however in the current philosophy a difference in the connections of space with matter from those of time with matter which I will proceed to explain. Not merely an ordering of material entities so that any one entity bears certain relations to other material entities the occupation of space impresses a certain character on each material entity in itself. By reason of its occupation of space matter has extension. By reason of its extension each bit of matter is divisible into parts and each part is a numerically distinct entity from every other such part. Accordingly it would seem that every material entity is not really one entity it is an essential multiplicity of entities. There seems to be no stopping this dissociation of matter into multiplicity short of finding each ultimate entity occupying one individual point. This essential multiplicity of material entities is certainly not what is meant by science nor does it correspond to anything disclosed in sense awareness. It is absolutely necessary that at a certain stage in this dissociation of matter a halt should be called and that the material entities thus obtained should be treated as units. The stage of arrest may be arbitrary or it may be set by the characteristics of nature but all reasoning in science ultimately drops its space analysis and poses to itself the question here is one material entity what is happening to it as a unit entity. Yet this material entity is still retaining its extension and as thus extended is a mere multiplicity. Thus there is an essential atomic property in nature which is independent of the dissociation of extension. There is something which in itself is one and which is more than the logical aggregate of entities occupying points within the volume which the unit occupies. Indeed we may well be skeptical as to these ultimate entities at points and doubt whether there are any such entities at all. They have the suspicious character that we are driven to accept them by abstract logic and not by observed fact. Time in the current philosophy does not exert the same disintegrating effect on matter which occupies it. If matter occupies a duration of time the whole matter occupies every part of that duration. Thus the connection between matter and time differs from the connection between matter and space as expressed in current scientific philosophy. There is obviously a greater difficulty in conceiving time as the outcome of relations between different bits of matter than there is in the analogous conception of space. At an instant distinct volumes of space are occupied by distinct bits of matter. Accordingly there is so far no intrinsic difficulty in conceiving that space is merely the resultant of relations between the bits of matter. But in the one-dimensional time the same bit of matter occupies different portions of time. Accordingly time would have to be expressible in terms of the relations of a bit of matter with itself. My own view is a belief in the relational theory both of space and of time and in disbelief of the current form of the relational theory of space which exhibits bits of matter as the relative for spatial relations. The true relata are events. The distinction which I have just pointed out between time and space in their connection with matter makes it evident that any assimilation of time and space cannot proceed along the traditional line of taking matter as a fundamental element in space formation. The philosophy of nature took a wrong turn during its development by Greek thought. This erroneous presupposition is vague and fluid in Plato's Tomias. The general ground work of the thought is still uncommitted and can be construed as merely lacking due explanation and the guarding emphasis. But in Aristotle's exposition the current conceptions are hardened and made definite so as to produce a faulty analysis of the relation between the matter and the form of nature as disclosed in sense awareness. In this phrase the term matter is not used in its scientific sense. I will conclude by guarding myself against a misapprehension. It is evident that the current doctrine of matter enshrines some fundamental law of nature. Any simple illustration will exemplify what I mean. For example, in a museum some specimen is locked securely in a glass case. It stays there for years it loses its color and perhaps falls to pieces. It is the same specimen and the same chemical elements and the same quantities of those elements are present within the case at the end as they were present at the beginning. Again the engineer and the astronomer deal with the motions of real permanences in nature. Any theory of nature which for one moment loses sight of these great basic facts of experience is simply silly. But it is permissible to point out that scientific expression of these facts has become entangled in a maze of doubtful metaphysics and that when we remove the metaphysics and start afresh on an unprejudiced survey of nature a new light is thrown on many fundamental concepts which dominate science and guide the progress of research. End of Chapter 1 Chapter 2 of The Concept of Nature This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by MB The Concept of Nature by Alfred North Whitehead Chapter 2 Theories of the Bifurcation of Nature In my previous lecture I criticized the concept of matter as the substance whose attributes we perceive. This way of thinking of matter is, I think the historical reason for its introduction into science and it's still the vague view of it at the background of our thoughts which makes the current scientific doctrine appear so obvious. Namely we conceive ourselves receiving attributes of things and bits of matter are the things whose attributes we perceive. In the 17th century the sweet simplicity of this aspect of matter received a rude shock. The transmission doctrines of science were then in process of elaboration and by the end of the century were unquestioned though their particular forms have since been modified. The establishment of these transmission theories marks a turning point in the relation between science and philosophy. The doctrines to which I am especially alluding are the theories of light and sound. I have no doubt that the theories had been vaguely floating about before as obvious suggestions of common sense for nothing in thought is ever completely new but at that epoch they were systematized exactly and their complete consequences were ruthlessly deduced. It is the establishment of this procedure of taking the consequences seriously which marks the real discovery of a theory. Systematic doctrines of light and sound as being something proceeding from the emitting bodies were definitely established and in particular the connection of light with color was laid bare by Newton. The results completely destroyed the simplicity of the substance and attribute theory of perception. What we see depends on the light entering the eye. Furthermore we do not even perceive what enters the eye. The things transmitted are waves or as Newton thought minute particles and the things seen are colors. Locke met this difficulty by a theory of primary secondary qualities. Namely, there are some attributes of the matter which we do perceive. These are the primary qualities and there are other things which we perceive such as colors which are not attributes of matter but are perceived by us as if they were such attributes. These are the secondary qualities of matter. Why should we perceive secondary qualities? It seems an extremely unfortunate arrangement that we should perceive a lot of things that are not there. Yet this is what the theory of secondary qualities in fact comes to. There is now reigning in philosophy and science an apathetic acquiescence in the conclusion that no coherent account can be given of nature as it is disclosed to us in sense awareness without dragging in its relations to mind. The modern account of nature is not as it should be merely an account of what the mind knows of nature but it is also confused with an account of what nature does to the mind. The result has been disastrous both the science and to philosophy but chiefly to philosophy. It has transformed the grand question of the relations between nature and mind into the petty form of the interaction between the human body and mind. The polemic against matter was based on this confusion introduced by the transmission theory of light. He advocated, rightly as I think, the abandonment of the doctrine of matter in its present form, he had however nothing to put in its place except a theory of the relation of finite minds to the divine mind. But we are endeavoring in these lectures to limit ourselves to nature itself and not to travel beyond entities closed in sense awareness. Percipients in itself is taken for granted. We consider indeed conditions for percipients but only so far as those conditions are among the disclosures of perception. We leave to metaphysics the synthesis of the knower and the known. Some further explanation and defense of this position is necessary if the line of the argument of these lectures is to be comprehensible. The immediate thesis for discussion is that any metaphysical interpretation is an illegitimate importation into the philosophy of natural science. By a metaphysical interpretation I mean any discussion of the how beyond nature and of the why beyond nature of thought and sense awareness. In the philosophy of science we seek the general notions which apply to nature, namely to what we are aware of in perception. It is the philosophy of the thing perceived and it should not be confused with the metaphysics of reality of which the scope embraces both perceiver and perceived. No perplexity concerning the object of knowledge can be solved by saying that there is a mind knowing it. C.F. Enquiry Preface In other words the ground taken is this. Sense awareness is an awareness of something. What then is the general character of that something of which we are aware? We do not ask about the recipient or about the process but about the perceived. I emphasize this point because discussions on the philosophy of science are usually extremely metaphysical, in my opinion to the great detriment of the subject. The recourse to metaphysics is like throwing a torch into the powder magazine. It blows up the whole arena. This is exactly what scientific philosophers do when they are driven into a corner and convicted of incoherence. They at once drag in the mind and talk of entities in the mind or out of the mind as the case may be. For natural philosophy everything perceived is in nature. We may not pick and choose. For us the red glow of the sunset should be as much part of nature as are the molecules and electric waves by which men of science would explain the phenomenon. It is for natural philosophy to analyze how these various elements of nature are connected. In making this demand I conceive myself as adopting our immediate instinctive attitude towards perceptual knowledge which is only abandoned under the influence of theory. We are instinctively willing to believe that by due attention more can be found in nature than that which is observed at first sight. But we will not be content with less. What we ask from the philosophy of science is some account of the coherence of things perceptively known. This means a refusal to countenance any theory of psychic additions to the object known in perception. For example, what is given in perception is the green grass. This is an object which we know as an ingredient in nature. The theory of psychic additions would treat the greenness as a psychic addition furnished by the perceiving mind and would leave to nature merely the molecules and the radiant energy which influenced the mind towards that perception. My argument is that this dragging in of the mind as making decisions of its own to the thing posited for knowledge by sense awareness is merely a way of shirking the problem of natural philosophy. The problem is to discuss the relations intersay of things known, abstracted from the bare fact that they are known. Natural philosophy should never ask what is in the mind and what is in nature. To do so is a confession that it has failed to express between things perceptively known, namely to express those natural relations whose expression is natural philosophy. It may be that the task is too hard for us that the relations are too complex and too various for our apprehension, or are too trivial to be worth the trouble of exposition. It is indeed true that we have gone but a very small way in the adequate formulation of such relations. But at least do not let us endeavor to conceal failure under a theory of the bi-play of the perceiving mind. What I am essentially protesting against is the bifurcation of nature into two systems of reality, which insofar as they are real are real in different senses. One reality would be the entities such as electrons which are the study of speculative physics. This would be the reality which is there for knowledge, although on this theory it is never known. For what is known is the other sort of reality which is the bi-play of the mind. Thus there would be two natures, one is the conjecture and the other is the dream. Another way of phrasing this theory which I am arguing against is to bifurcate nature into two divisions, namely into the nature apprehended in awareness and the nature which is the cause of awareness. The nature which is in fact apprehended in awareness holds within it the greenness of the trees, the song of the birds, the warmth of the sun, the hardness of the chairs and the feel of the velvet. The nature which is the cause of awareness is the conjectured system of molecules and electrons which so affects the mind as to produce the awareness of apparent nature. The meeting point of these two natures is the mind the causal nature being influent and the apparent nature being effluent. There are four questions which at once suggest themselves for discussion in connection with this bifurcation theory of nature. They concern one causality two time three space and four delusions. These questions are not really separable. They merely constitute four distinct starting points from which to enter upon the discussion of the theory. Causal nature is the influence on the mind which is the cause of the effluence of apparent nature from the mind. This conception of causal nature is not to be confused with the distinct conception of one part of nature as being the cause of another part. For example the burning of the fire and the passage of heat from it through intervening space is the cause of the body its nerves and its brain functioning in certain ways. But this is not an action of nature on the mind. It is an interaction within nature. The causation involved in this interaction is causation in a different sense from the influence of this system of bodily interactions within nature on the alien upon perceives redness and warmth. The bifurcation theory is an attempt to exhibit natural science as an investigation of the cause of the fact of knowledge. Namely it is an attempt to exhibit apparent nature as an effluent from the mind because of causal nature. The whole notion is partly based on the implicit assumption that the mind can only know that which it has itself produced and retains in some sense within itself. Though it requires an exterior reason both as originating and as determining the character of its activity. But in considering knowledge we should wipe out all these spatial metaphors such as within the mind and without the mind. Knowledge is ultimate. There can be no explanation of the why of knowledge. We can only describe the what of knowledge. Namely we can analyze the content and its internal relations but we cannot explain why there is knowledge. Thus causal nature is a metaphysical chimera. Though there is need of a metaphysics whose scope transcends the limitation to nature. The object of such a metaphysical science is not to explain knowledge but exhibit in its utmost completeness our concept of reality. However we must admit that the causality theory of nature has its strong suit. The reason why the bifurcation of nature is always creeping back into scientific philosophy is the extreme difficulty of exhibiting the perceived redness and warmth of the fire in one system of relations with the agitated molecules of carbon and oxygen. With the radiant energy from them and with the various functionings of the material body. Unless we produce the all embracing relations we are faced with a bifurcated nature namely warmth and redness on one side and molecules, electrons and ether on the other side. Then the two factors are explained as being respectively the cause and the mind's reaction to the cause. Time and space would appear to provide these all embracing relations which the advocates of the philosophy of the unity of nature require. The perceived redness of the fire and the warmth are definitely related in time and in space to the molecules of the fire and the molecules of the body. It is hardly more than a pardonable exaggeration to say that the determination of the meaning of nature reduces itself principally to the discussion of the character of time and the character of space. In succeeding lectures I shall explain my own view of time and space. I shall endeavor to show that they are abstractions from more concrete elements of nature, namely from events. The discussion of the details of the process of abstraction will exhibit time and space as interconnected and will finally lead us to the sort of connections between their measurements which occur in the modern theory of electromagnetic relativity. But this is anticipating our subsequent line of development. At present I wish to consider how the ordinary views of time and space help or fail to help in unifying our conception of nature. First, consider the absolute theories of time and space. We are to consider each, namely both time and space to be a separate and independent system of entities. Each system known to us in itself and for itself concurrently with our knowledge of the events of nature. Time is the ordered succession of durationless instance and these instance are known to us merely as the relative in the serial relation which is the time ordering relation and the time ordering relation is merely known to us as relating the instance. Namely the relation and the instance are jointly known to us in our attention of time each implying the other. This is the absolute theory of time. Frankly, I confess that it seems to me to be very unplausible. I cannot in my own knowledge find anything corresponding to the bare time of the absolute theory. Time is known to me as an abstraction from the passage of events. The fundamental fact which renders this abstraction possible is the passing of nature, its development, its creative advance and combined with this fact is another characteristic of nature, namely the extensive relation between events. These two facts, namely the passage of events and the extension of events over each other are in my opinion the qualities from which time and space originate as abstractions but this is anticipating my own later speculations. Meanwhile, returning to the absolute theory we are to suppose that time is known to us independently of any events in time. What happens in time occupies time. This relation of events to the time occupied, namely this relation of occupation is a fundamental relation of nature to time. Thus the theory requires that we are aware of two fundamental relations the time ordering between instance and the time occupation relation between instance of time and states of nature which happen at those instance. There are two considerations which lend powerful support to the reigning theory of absolute time. In the first place time extends beyond nature. Our thoughts are in time. Accordingly it seems impossible to derive time merely from relations between elements of nature for in that case temporal relations could not relate thoughts. Thus to use a metaphor, time would apparently have deeper roots in reality than has nature for we can imagine thoughts related in time without any perception of nature. For example we can imagine one of Milton's angels with thoughts succeeding each other in time which does not happen to have noticed that the Almighty has created space and set therein a material universe. As a matter of fact I think that Milton set space on the same absolute level as time. But that not need disturb the illustration. In the second place it is difficult to derive the true serial character of time from the relative theory. Each instant is irrevocable. It can never recur by the very character of time. But if on the relative theory an instant of time is simply the state of nature at that time and the time ordering relation is simply the relation between such states then the irrevocableness of time would seem to mean that an actual state of all nature can never return. I admit it seems unlikely that there should ever be such a recurrence down to the smallest particular. But extreme unlikeliness is not the point. Our ignorance is so abysmal that our judgments of likeliness and unlikeliness of future events hardly count. The real point is that the exact recurrence of a state of nature seems merely unlikely while the recurrence of an instant of time violates our whole concept of time order. The instance of time which have passed are passed and can never be again. Any alternative theory of time must reckon with these two considerations which are buttresses of the absolute theory. But I will not now continue their discussion. The absolute theory of space is analogous to the corresponding theory of time. But the reasons for its maintenance are weaker. Space on this theory is a system of extension less points which are the relata in space ordering relations which can technically be combined into one relation. This relation does not arrange the points in one linear series analogously to the simple method of the time ordering relation for instance. The essential logical characteristics of this relation from which all the properties of space spring are expressed by mathematicians in the axioms of geometry. From these axioms as framed by modern mathematicians the whole science of geometry can be deduced by the strictest logical reasoning. The details of these axioms do not now concern us. The points and the relations are jointly known to us in our apprehension of space each implying the other. What happens in space occupies space. This relation of occupation is not usually stated for events but for objects. For example Pompey's statue would be said to occupy space but not the event which was the assassination of Julius Caesar. In this I think that ordinary usage is unfortunate and I hold that the relations of events to space and time are in all respects analogous. But here I am intruding my own opinions which are to be discussed in subsequent lectures. Thus the theory of absolute space requires that we are aware of two fundamental relations the space ordering relation which holds between points and the space occupation relation between points of space and material objects. This theory lacks the two main supports of the corresponding theory of absolute time. In the first place space does not extend beyond nature in the sense that time seems to do. Our thoughts do not seem to occupy space in quite the same intimate way in which they occupy time. For example I have been thinking in a room and to that extent my thoughts are in space but it seems nonsense to ask how much volume of the room they occupied whether it was a cubic foot or a cubic inch whereas the same thoughts occupy a determinant duration of time say from 11 to 12 on a certain date. Thus whereas the relations of a relative theory of time are required to relate thoughts it does not seem so obvious that the relations of a relative theory of space are required to relate them. The connection of thought with space seems to have a certain character of indirectness which appears to be lacking in the connection of thought with time. Again the irrevocableness of time does not seem to have any parallel for space. Space on the relative theory is the outcome of certain relations between objects commonly said to be in space and whenever there are the objects so related there is the space. No difficulty seems to arise out of the inconvenient instance of time which might conceivably turn up again when we thought that we had done with them. The absolute theory of space is not now generally popular. The knowledge of bare space as a system of entities known to us in itself and for itself independently of our knowledge of the events in nature does not seem to correspond to anything in our experience. Space like time would appear to be an abstraction from events. According to my own theory it only differentiates itself from time at a somewhat developed stage of the abstractive process. The more usual way of expressing the rational theory of space would be to consider space as an abstraction from the relations between material objects. Suppose now we assume absolute time and absolute space. What bearing has this assumption on the concept of nature as bifurcated into causal nature and apparent nature? Undoubtedly the separation between the two natures is now greatly mitigated. We can provide them with two systems of relations in common for both natures can be presumed to occupy the same space and the same time. The theory now is this Causal events occupy certain periods of the absolute time and occupy certain positions of the absolute space. These events influence a mind which thereupon perceives certain apparent events which occupy certain periods in the absolute time and occupy certain positions of the absolute space. And the periods and positions occupied by the apparent events bear a determinant relation to the periods and positions occupied by the causal events. Furthermore, definite causal events produce for the mind definite apparent events. Delusions are apparent events which appear in temporal periods and spatial positions without the intervention of these causal events which are proper for influencing of the mind to their perception. The whole theory is perfectly logical. In these discussions we cannot hope to drive an unsound theory to a logical contradiction. A reasoner, apart from mere slips, only involves himself in a contradiction when he is shying at a reductio ad absurdum. The substantial reason for rejecting a philosophical theory is the absurdum to which it reduces us. In the case of the philosophy of natural science the absurdum can only be that our perceptual knowledge has not the character assigned to it by the theory. If our opponent affirms that his knowledge has that character we can only, after making doubly sure that we understand each other agree to differ. Accordingly the first duty of an expositor in stating a theory in which he disbelieves is to exhibit it as logical. It is not there where his trouble lies. Let me summarize the previously stated objections to this theory of nature. In the first place it seeks for the cause of the knowledge of the thing known instead of seeking for the character of the thing known. Secondly it assumes a knowledge of time in itself apart from events related in time. Thirdly it assumes a knowledge of space in itself apart from events related in space. There are in addition to these objections other flaws in the theory. Some light is thrown on the artificial status of the causal nature in this theory by asking why causal nature is presumed to occupy time and space. This really raises the fundamental question as to what characteristics causal nature should have in common with apparent nature. Why on this theory should the cause which influences the mind to perception have any characteristics in common with the effluent apparent nature? In particular why should it be in space? Why should it be in time? And more generally what do we know about mind which would allow us to infer any particular characteristics of a cause which should influence mind to particular effects? The transcendence of time beyond nature gives some slight reason for presuming that causal nature should occupy time. For if the mind occupies periods of time there would seem to be some vague reason for assuming that influencing causes occupy the same periods of time or at least occupy periods which are strictly related to the mental periods. But if the mind does not occupy volumes of space there seems to be no reason why causal nature should occupy any volumes of space. Thus space would seem to be merely apparent in the same sense as apparent nature is merely apparent. Accordingly if science is really investigating causes which operate on the mind it would seem to be entirely on the wrong tack and presuming that the causes which it is seeking for have spatial relations. Furthermore there is nothing else in our knowledge analogous to these causes which influence the mind to perception. Accordingly beyond the rashly presumed fact that they occupy time there is really no ground by which we can determine any point of their character they must remain forever unknown. Now I assume as an axiom that science is not a fairy tale it is not engaged in decking out unknowable entities with arbitrary and fantastic properties. What then is it that science is doing granting that it is affecting something of importance? My answer is that it is determining the character of things known namely the character of apparent nature but we may drop the term apparent for there is but one nature namely the nature which is before us in perceptual knowledge the characters which science discerns in nature are subtle characters not obvious at first sight they are relations of relations and characters of characters but for all their subtlety they are stamped with a certain simplicity which makes their consideration essential in unravelling the complex relations between characters of more perceptive insistence the fact that the bifurcation of nature into causal and apparent components does not express what we mean by our knowledge is brought before us when we realize our thoughts in any discussion of the causes of our perceptions for example the fire is burning red coal this is explained in science by radiant energy from the coal entering our eyes but in seeking for such an explanation we are not asking what are the sort of occurrences which are fitted to cause a mind to see red the chain of causation is entirely different the mind is cut out altogether the real question is when red is found in nature what else is found there also namely we are asking for an analysis of the accompaniments in nature of the discovery of red in nature in a subsequent lecture I shall expand this line of thought I simply draw attention to adhere in order to point out that the wave theory of light has not been adopted because waves are just the sort of things which ought to make a mind perceive colors there is no part of the evidence which has ever been adduced for the wave theory yet on the causal theory of perception it is really the only relevant part in other words science is not discussing the causes of knowledge but the coherence of knowledge the understanding which is sought by science is an understanding of relations within nature so far I have discussed the bifurcation of nature in connection with the theories of absolute time and of absolute space my reason has been that the introduction of the relational theories only weakens the case for bifurcation and I wished to discuss this case on its strongest grounds for instance suppose we adopt the relational theory of space then the space in which apparent nature is set is the expression of certain relations between the apparent objects it is a set of apparent relations between apparent Rolata apparent nature is the dream and the apparent relations of space are dream relations and the space is the dream space similarly the space in which causal nature is set is the expression of certain relations between the causal objects is the expression of certain facts about the causal activity which is going on behind the scenes accordingly causal space belongs to a different order of reality to apparent space hence there is no point wise connection between the two and it is meaningless to say that the molecules of the grass are in any place which has a determinant spatial relation to the place occupied by the grass the conclusion is very paradoxical and makes nonsense of all scientific phraseology the case is even worse if we admit the relativity of time for the same arguments apply and break up time into the dream time and causal time which belong to different orders of reality I have however been discussing an extreme form of the bifurcation theory it is as I think the most defensible form but its very definiteness makes it the more evidently obnoxious to criticism the intermediate form allows that the nature we are discussing is always the nature directly known and so far it rejects the bifurcation theory but it holds that there are psychic additions to nature as thus known and that these additions are in no proper sense part of nature for example if we perceive the red billiard ball at its proper time in its proper place with its proper motion with its proper hardness and with its proper inertia but its redness and its warmth and the sound of the click as a canon is made off it are psychic additions namely secondary qualities which are only the mind's way of perceiving nature this is not only the vaguely prevalent theory but is I believe the historical form of the bifurcation theory in so far as it is derived from philosophy I shall call it the theory of psychic additions this theory of psychic additions is a sound commonsense theory which lays immense stress on the obvious reality of time space solidity and inertia but distrusts the minor artistic additions of color warmth and sound theory is the outcome of commonsense in retreat it arose in an epoch when the transmission theories of science were being elaborated for example color is the result of a transmission from the material object to the perceiver's eye and what is thus transmitted is not color thus color is not part of the reality of the material object similarly for the same reason sounds evaporate from nature also warmth is due to the transfer of something which is not temperature thus we are left with spatiotemporal positions and what I may term the pushiness of the body this lands us to 18th and 19th century materialism namely the belief that what is real in nature is matter in time and space and with inertia distinction in quality has been presupposed separating off some perceptions due to touch from other perceptions these touch perceptions are perceptions of the real inertia whereas the other perceptions are psychic additions which must be explained on the causal theory this distinction is the product of an epoch in which physical science has got ahead of medical pathology and of physiology perceptions of push are just as much the outcome of transmission as are perceptions of color when color is perceived the nerves of the body are excited in one way and transmit their message towards the brain and when push is perceived other nerves of the body are excited in another way and transmit their message towards the brain the message of the one set is not the conveyance of color and the message of the other set is not the conveyance of push but in one case color is perceived and in the other case the push due to the object if you snip certain nerves there is an end to the perception of color and if you snip certain other nerves there is an end to the perception of push it would appear therefore that any reasons which should remove color from the reality of nature should also operate to remove inertia thus the attempted bifurcation of apparent nature into two parts of which one part is both causal for its own appearance and for the appearance of the other part which is purely apparent fails owing to the failure to establish any fundamental distinction between our ways of knowing about the two parts of nature as thus partitioned I am not denying that the feeling of muscular effort historically led to the formulation of the concept of force but this historical fact does not warrant us in assigning a superior reality in nature to material inertia over color or sound so far as reality is concerned all our sense perceptions are in the same boat and must be treated on the same principle the evenness of treatment is exactly what this compromise theory fails to achieve the bifurcation theory however dies hard the reason is that there really is a difficulty to be faced in relating within the same system of entities the redness of the fire with the agitation of the molecules in another lecture I will give my own explanation of the origin of the difficulty and of its solution another favorite solution the most attenuated form which the bifurcation theory assumes is to maintain that the molecules and ether of science are purely conceptual thus there is but one nature namely apparent nature and atoms and ether are merely names for logical terms in conceptual formulae of calculation but what is a formula of calculation it is presumably a statement that something or other is true for natural occurrences take the simplest of all formulae two and two make four this so far as it applies to nature asserts that if you take two natural entities and then again two other natural entities the combined class contains four natural entities such formulae which are true for any entities cannot result in the production of the concepts of atoms then again there are formulae which assert that there are entities in nature with such and such special properties say for example with the properties of the atoms of hydrogen now if there are no such entities I fail to see how any statements about them can apply to nature for example the assertion that there is green cheese in the moon cannot be a premise in any deduction of scientific importance unless indeed the presence of green cheese in the moon has been verified by the experiment the current answer to these objections is that though atoms are merely conceptual yet they are an interesting and picturesque way of saying something else which is true of nature but surely if it is something else that you mean for heaven's sake say it do away with this elaborate machinery of a conceptual nature which consists of assertions about things which don't exist in order to convey truths about things which do exist I am maintaining the obvious position that scientific laws if they are true are statements about entities which we obtain knowledge of as being in nature and that if the entities to which the statements refer are not to be found in nature the statements about them have no relevance to any purely natural occurrence thus the molecules and electrons of scientific theory are so far as science has correctly formulated in its laws each of them factors to be found in nature the electrons are only hypothetical insofar as we are not quite certain that the electron theory is true but their hypothetical character does not arise from the essential nature of the theory in itself after its truth has been granted thus at the end of this somewhat complex discussion we return to the position which was affirmed at its beginning the primary task of a philosophy of natural science is to elucidate the concept of nature considered as one complex fact for knowledge to exhibit the fundamental entities and the fundamental relations between entities in terms of which all laws of nature have to be stated and to secure that the entities and relations thus exhibited are adequate for the expression of all the relations between entities which occur in nature the third requisite namely that of adequacy is the one over which all the difficulty occurs the ultimate data of science are commonly assumed to be time space, material qualities of material and relations between material objects but data as they occur in the scientific laws do not relate all the entities that present themselves in our own perception of nature for example the wave theory of light is an excellent well established theory but unfortunately it leaves out color as perceived thus the perceived redness or other color has to be cut out of nature and made into the reaction of the mind under the impulse of the actual events of nature in other words this concept of the fundamental relations within nature is inadequate thus we have to bend our energies in the annunciation of adequate concepts but in so doing are we not in fact endeavoring to solve a metaphysical problem I do not think so we are merely endeavoring to exhibit the type of relations which hold between the entities which we in fact perceive as in nature we are not called on to make any pronouncement as to the psychological relation of subjects to objects or as to their status of either in the realm of reality it is true that the issue of our endeavor may provide material which is relevant evidence for discussion on that question it can hardly fail to do so but it is our only evidence and is not itself the metaphysical discussion in order to make clear the character of this further discussion 10. I will set before you two quotations one is from Shelling and I extract the quotation from the work of the Russian philosopher Lossky which has recently been so excellently translated into English footnote the intuitive basis of knowledge by Enno Lossky translated by Mrs. Duttington, McMillan & Co 1919 end footnote in the philosophy of nature I considered the subject-object called nature in its activity of self-constructing in order to understand it we must rise to an intellectual intuition of nature the empiricist does not rise there too and for this reason in all his explanations it is always he himself that proves to be constructing nature it is no wonder then that his construction and that which was to be constructed so seldom coincide a natural philosoph raises nature to independence and makes it construct itself and he never feels therefore the necessity of opposing nature as constructed i.e. as experience to real nature or of correcting the one by means of the other end quote the other quotation is from a paper by Dr. St. Paul's before the Aristotelian Society in May of 1919 Dr. Inge's paper is entitled Platonism and Human Immortality and didn't there occurs the following statement quote to sum up the platonic doctrine of immortality rests on the independence of the spiritual world the spiritual world of unrealized ideals over against a real world of unspiritual fact it is on the contrary the real world of which we have a true though very incomplete knowledge over against a world of common experience which as a complete whole is not real since it is compacted out of miscellaneous data not all on the same level by the help of the imagination there is no world corresponding to the world of our common experience nature makes abstractions for us deciding what range of vibrations we are to see and hear what things we are to notice and remember end quote I have cited these statements because both of them deal with topics which though they lie outside the range of our discussion are always being confused with it the reason is that they lie proximate to our field of thought and are topics which are of burning interest to the metaphysically minded it is difficult for a philosopher to realize that anyone really is confining his discussion within the limits that I have set before you the boundary is set up just where he is beginning to get excited but I submit to you that among the necessary prolegomena for philosophy and for natural science is a thorough understanding of the types of entities and types of relations among those entities which are disclosed to us in our perceptions of nature end of chapter 2