For the type-form of conduct--when considered, not as a type of mere
physical performance, but as conduct in the technical sense of a
possible purpose of the self--is, in the sense we have explained, a
symbol for the general possibility of access or dissipation of spiritual
energy--energy which must be set free by the bringing to bear of other
energies upon it, and which furthers or works counter to the enlargement
and development of the self according to the mode of its co-ordination
with other energies which the self has already turned to its
purposes.[155] But actual conduct is concrete always and never typical;
and so likewise, we have sought to show, actual "substance," the
objective thing referred to in the factual judgment, is always concrete
and never an essence. It is not a fixed thing admitting of a
simultaneous variety of conflicting determinations and practical uses,
but absolutely unique and already determined to its unique character by
the whole assemblage of physical conditions which affect it at the time
and which it in turn reacts upon. In the moral as in the physical sphere
the fundamental category would, on our present account, appear to be
that of energy. The particular physical object given in judgment is a
concrete realization, in the form of a particular means or instrument,
of that general possibility of attaining ends which the concept of a
fixed fund of energy, interpreted as a logical postulate or principle of
inference, expresses. The particular moral or economic act is a
particular way in which the energy of the self may be increased or
diminished. In both spheres the reality presented in the finished
judgment is objective as being a stimulus to the setting free of the
energies for which it stands. Once more, then, our answer to the
objection we have been considering must be that the object as the
permanent substrate is merely an abstract symbol standing for the
indeterminate means in general set over against the self. Corresponding
to it we have, on the other side, the concept of the "energetic"
self--the self that is purposive in general, expansive somehow or other.
The function of completed factual judgment in the development of
experience is, we have held, that of warranting to the agent the
completed purpose which his judgment of value expresses. This view calls
for some further comment and illustration in closing the present
division. In the first place the statement implies that the conditions
which factual judgment presents in the "final survey" as sanctioning the
purpose have not _determined_ the purpose, since prior to the
determination of the purpose the conditions were not, and could not be,
so presented. The question, therefore, naturally arises whether our
meaning is that in the formation of our purposes in valuation the
recognition of existing conditions plays no part. Our answer can be
indicated only in the barest outline as follows:
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