Science and the modern worldWhitehead, Alfred North
Religion
Science and the modern world
Whitehead, Alfred North
Science
Accordingly the relationships (as in possibility) do not involve the
individual essences of the eternal objects; they involve _any_ eternal
objects as relata, subject to the proviso that these relata have the
requisite relational essences. [It is this proviso which, automatically
and by the nature of the case, limits the ‘any’ of the phrase ‘any
eternal objects.’] This principle is the principle of the _Isolation of
Eternal Objects_ in the realm of possibility. The eternal objects are
isolated, because their relationships as possibilities are expressible
without reference to their respective individual essences. In contrast
to the realm of possibility, the inclusion of eternal objects within an
actual occasion means that in respect to some of their possible
relationships there is a togetherness of their individual essences. This
realised togetherness is the achievement of an emergent value
defined—or, shaped—by the definite eternal relatedness in respect to
which the real togetherness is achieved. Thus the eternal relatedness is
the form—the εἶδος—; the emergent actual occasion is the _superject_ of
informed value; value, as abstracted from any particular superject, is
the abstract matter—the ὕλη—which is common to all actual occasions; and
the synthetic activity which prehends valueless possibility into
superjicient informed value is the substantial activity. This
substantial activity is that which is omitted in any analysis of the
static factors in the metaphysical situation. The analysed elements of
the situation are the attributes of the substantial activity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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