Religion in the making: Lowell lectures 1926 9780823216468, 9780823216451

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
INTRODUCTION (page ix)
PREFACE (page lxix)
I. RELIGION IN HISTORY (page 13)
I. Religion Defined (page 13)
II. The Emergence of Religion (page 18)
III. Ritual and Emotion (page 20)
IV. Belief (page 23)
V. Rationalism (page 28)
VI. The Ascent of Man (page 38)
VII. The Final Contrast (page 42)
II. RELIGION AND DOGMA (page 47)
I. The Religious Consciousness in History (page 47)
II. The Description of Religious Experience (page 58)
III. God (page 67)
IV. The Quest of God (page 74)
III. BODY AND SPIRIT (page 83)
I. Religion and Metaphysics (page 83)
II. The Contribution of Religion to Metaphysics (page 86)
III. A Metaphysical Description (page 88)
IV. God and the Moral Order (page 94)
V. Value and the Purpose of God (page 100)
VI. Body and Mind (page 105)
VII. The Creative Process (page 111)
IV. TRUTH AND CRITICISM (page 123)
I. The Development of Dogma (page 123)
II. Experience and Expression (page 131)
III. The Three Traditions (page 139)
IV. The Nature of God (page 149)
V. Conclusion (page 158)

Citation preview

RELIGION IN THE MAKING LOWELL LECTURES, 1926

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RELIGION

IN THE MAKING Lowey Lectures, 1926 By

ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD Introduction by Judith A. Jones Glossary by Randall E. Auxier

FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS New York

Copyright © 1926 The Macmillan Company Introduction, Glossary, and Index © 1996 Fordham University Press Reprinted by arrangement with Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster All rights reserved. LC — 96-30783

ISBN 0-8232-1645—4 (hardbound) ISBN 0-8232-—1646—2 (paperback)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Auxier. .

Whitehead, Alfred North, 1861-1947. Religion in the making : Lowell lectures 1926 / by Alfred North Whitehead ; introduction by Judith A. Jones ; glossary by Randall E.

p. cm.

Originally published: New York : Macmillan, 1926. Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8232-—1645—4 (hardcover). — ISBN 0-8232-—1646-2 (pbk.)

1. Religion. 2. Religion—Philosophy. I. Title. BL48.W35 1996

200—dc20 96-30783 CIP

Sixth Printing 2009

To

E. W.

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Contents PAGE

INTRODUCTION . «© 6 © «© «© «© « -« 1X

PREFACE . . - «© «© © «© «© « « « IJXix CHAPTER

1, Revicion rin History. . . . . . . 143

1. ReligionDefined . . . ... JS 1. The Emergenceof Religion . . . 18 wi. Ritualand Emotion . .. . . 2 Iv. Belief. . . . . 2. 6 © © e) OS

v. Rationalism . . ..... 28

vi. The AscentofMan. .... . 38

vil. The Final Contrast ~ ee © le) 4D

um. RELIGION AND Docma. .... . . 47 1. The Religious Consciousness in History 47 11. The Description of Religious Experi-

ence . .. . .« «e« «© « « 98

wi.God . . .. . el eleteté«ST Iv. TheQuestofGod . .... . 74

wi. Bopy AND SPIRIT ....... .~= 8&3 1. Religionand Metaphysics. . . . 83 11. The Contribution of Religion to Meta-

physics . . ..... . 86 11. AMetaphysical Description . . . 88 1v. Godandthe MoralOrder . . . . 94

v. Value andthe PurposeofGod . . 100

vi. BodyandMind .... . . 105

vir. The Creative Process . ... . Ill

CONTENTS

Iv. TRUTH AND CRITICISM. . . . . . . 123 1. The Developmentof Dogma . . . 123

1, Experienceand Expression . . . 131 wi. The Three Traditions . . . . . 139

Iv. The NatureofGod. . . . . . 149

v. Conclusion . . ..... . 158

INTRODUCTION There is a quality of life which lies always beyond the mere fact of life; and when we include the quality in the fact, there is still omitted the quality of the quality. (RM 80)

Religion in the Making (RM) is a book about value. The intriguing passage quoted above suggests several important aspects of Whitehead’s

philosophical thinking about the reality and metaphysical significance of value (here termed ‘quality’) and reveals one of the central objectives of the present text. First, the sentence mani-

fests Whitehead’s typical appeal to intuitive experience, especially the qualitative and emotionally clothed dimensions of our immediate contact with reality. As a corollary to this, Whitehead is implicitly asserting (against much of the critical tradition in philosophy) that we do in fact [ix]

INTRODUCTION

have such immediate contact and that it can serve as a Starting point, if not a justification, for the kinds of claims made by metaphysicians. Second, the passage hints that the concreteness of experience is at once both immediate fact and tran-

scendent revelation of the ground of value (the world at large), and philosophy cannot sacrifice either of these in its attempt to systematically rationalize existence and its conditions. This is a notion central to many naturalistic accounts of reality, especially those typical of the American tradition with which Whitehead identified himself. Any experiential ‘‘fact’’ bears in itself the marks of the same reality as that of which all other objects and events—the things a metaphySicilian wants to account for—partake. Third, the

passage neatly lays out Whitehead’s manner of approaching the metaphysical description of the conditions of existence as we encounter it. The question of what is included in or left out of an account is central to Whitehead, who is less an ideological thinker than a radically hypothetical

entertainer of the consequences certain ideas have if we rationalize them systematically. This [x]

INTRODUCTION

is not to say that his metaphysics does not repre-

sent what he thinks is the best guess at what really is the case about our universe, but simply

to point out the quality of inquiry, rather than dogmatic statement, which hangs on even his most straightforward statements of what he takes to be the facts. The contingent process whereby

selective inclusion and omission of detail take place in philosophy is itself of primary philosophic interest, and the first job of metaphysics is to critique our manner of abstractive selection.

The ‘quality of his philosophy’s quality,’ if I may borrow Whitehead’s language —the sense of open-ended inquiry into ideas—is integral to the

examination of religion offered in the present book. Religion in the Making is very much a book about the challenges that face dogmatic statement in both religion and metaphysics; it is also a beok which itself challenges the construc-

tion of either religion or metaphysics around highly suspect networks of assumptions which act as truths but fail to accurately represent the world as experienced. It does not seem to occur to Whitehead that the failures of religion and [xi]

INTRODUCTION

metaphysics to authoritatively resolve important

questions about the nature of existence might point to the infeasibility of either theology or metaphysics, and possibly to the deconstruction of religion and philosophy, as has been concluded in much philosophical work in the twentieth century. Instead, the problems of authoritative statement lead him to explore the possibilities of statement of metaphysical ‘‘fact’’? when the pretense to authority has been removed, and in its place experience in all its ordinary and extraordinary contingent forms is asked to speak for itself as much as language and intelligent expression will

allow.' The commitment to rationalization 1 The dual realization that metaphysical expression is limited by the forms of speech and language (‘‘mothers can ponder many things in

their hearts which their lips cannot express’’ [RM 67)), and yet that expression is the crucial dimension of existence for human beings (‘‘Expression is the one fundamental sacrament’’ [RM 131)), is one of the ironies of intelligent inquiry which never completely recedes from

Whitehead’s view. He demonstrates an interest in what was at the time of his composition of RM the new field of ‘‘philosophy of expression’’ (RM 129). Philosophies of expression, including the Eaton text which Whitehead footnotes, but more especially the work of figures

such as Ernst Cassirer and, more recently, the semiotics which take their cue from Charles S. Pierce, undertake the issues of language and its interface with other modes of inquiry in quite a different manner from the ‘‘philosophy of language’’ which has formed the dominant

[xi]

INTRODUCTION

emerges as Whitehead ’s loyalty to the values and importances revealed in our experience, religious and otherwise, of the cosmos. Returning to the quotation about ‘‘facts’’ and ‘‘qualities,’’ we can flesh out the dimensions of metaphysics hinted at in the elements of the passage, in order to understand Whitehead’s conception of just what speculation ought to try to elucidate. The occurrence of the ‘‘fact of life’’ can be

approached in a number of ways. If it is treated as ‘‘mere fact,’’ we may capture some sense of the irreducible immediacy of that which exists, but we are likely to exclude the valuative, quali-

tative dimensions of experience which afford richness and interest in human existence. Here Whitehead announces a quite different emphasis from the positivistic science and philosophy prevalent in the early part of the twentieth century. Science and the Modern World (SMW), the text immediately preceding Religion in the Making in branch of scholarship in this century. While Whitehead’s relation to both these schools is a subject of interesting reflection, it is to the philosophies of expression, especially their interest in ‘‘symbols’’ and ‘‘meanings’’ as opposed to simply ‘‘words,’’ that the most natural connections are to be made.

[xiii]

INTRODUCTION

Whitehead’s development, was a sustained critique of scientific and philosophical tendencies to exclude evaluation and quality from the descrip-

tion of reality.’ If, on the other hand, we ‘include the quality in the fact,’’ we will perhaps have respected some of the complexly textured immediacies of living, the inevitable emotional tone and dense value implications of any given factual event, but we may yet not appreciate the dimension of ideality which attaches to such emotionality and evaluation. Whitehead’s philosophy

is, like many metaphysical projects, an attempt to elaborate what sorts of ideality, the ‘‘quality of the quality,’’ are necessary elements in a universe of immediate facts. Religion in the Making uses the peculiar insights of religious experience to unpack the metaphysical implications of experience in general, the questions that involve the

presence of the ideal in the real, in particular. This presence of the ideal in the real is the general

framework within which the emergence of con? Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York: Macmillan, 1926; repr. New York: Free Press, 1967).

[xiv]

INTRODUCTION

crete values in contingent matters of fact is to be understood. Whitehead’s announced intention in this book

is to use religion as the primary sphere of evidence from which to construct a general vision of reality. He had undertaken a similar objective in Science and the Modern World, where his metaphysics took its cues from certain successful and

suggestive aspects of scientific advance (e.g., relativity theory and quantum mechanics) and its warnings from other less successful and unduly limiting aspects of science’s presuppositions (e.g.,

mechanistic materialism). Together the two books ‘‘elucidate each other by showing the same

way of thought in different applications’’ (RM Ixix). It is testimony to the power of Whitehead’s broad philosophical views that he rather persuasively presents a metaphysics which finds crucial

overlap between the kinds of generalization about reality which are afforded by science and

those which are afforded by religion. In both ‘‘applications,’’ the need for and implications of a view in which all realities in some significantly totalistic way reflect or involve all other realities [xv]

INTRODUCTION

are advanced, with appeals to the variety of domains of evidence to which metaphysics must turn in its construction of a world hypothesis. This supplants the need for metaphysics to be, as it has been criticized for being by the post-modernist movement, an authoritative assumption that of course all spheres of experience MUST yleld certain kinds of results as dictated by the demands of some kind of extra-experiential logic (these kinds of logic have been most notoriously imposed by both science and religion in the his-

tory of civilization; in the later Adventures of Ideas [AI] Whitehead seems to understand, in a manner suggestive of post-modern reflections on power, that such logics have been imposed by politics as well).? In SMW Whitehead’s concerns about the nature of ‘‘extension’’ in the cosmos, as manifest in his early work on the philosophy of nature, yield a theory of events as enjoying in3 Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: Macmillan, 1933; repr. New York: Free Press, 1967). For an interesting discussion of Whitehead’s contribution to political philosophy, see Randall C. Morris, Process Philosophy and Political Ideology: The Soctal and Political Thought of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991).

[xvi]

INTRODUCTION

ternal relations which are the ultimate background of existential solidarity against which extensive relations emerge. This abstract, mathe-

matical, physicalist notion of holistic cosmic order is echoed in Religion in the Making’s evoc-

ative phenomenological observations about the penetrating insights of human beings engaged in

a spiritual and religious search for meaning.‘ Whitehead’s metaphysics is designed to interpret the profoundly suggestive commonality of insight between science and religion, rather than to impose a commonality on them which threatens the integrity of either. In the balance of this introduction, I would like to explore some aspects of Whitehead’s ‘‘way of thought,’’ with particular emphasis on the function of the ideal in the real. With this central issue as a focus, it will be possible to bring into view some aspects of Whitehead’s novel metaphysical * To be sure, phenomenological sensitivity is not absent from SMW, given Whitehead’s famous appeal to British Romantic poetry to convey a sense of ‘‘permanences’’ haunting nature at every turn (SMW

75—94). But the inclusion of Romantic poetry in SMW occurs in a context of quite abstract reflection on the background assumptions in science, a manner of reflection which is decidedly and self-consciously mathematical rather than poetical.

[xvii]

INTRODUCTION

vision which are crucial for the beginning reader’s understanding. Religion in the Making is an excellent introductory text in process philosophy, and thus some attention to the conceptual needs of newcomers to Whitehead must be paid in introductory comments. For the advanced reader, I would hope that a look at some central themes might allow the opportunity to pause and reconsider what has become familiar. In what follows I will first examine some of the metaphysical aspects of RM, and then turn to some considerations I think important to understanding Whitehead’s analysis of religion. The reader has been provided with an excellent glossary and index, compiled by Randall Auxier, for the purposes of

individual selection of relevant detail which might be used as alternative focal points to those that have been chosen here. METAPHYSICS

Let us return to the passage with which this introduction began. Whitehead’s metaphysics is in-

terested in elaborating a theory which explains [xviii]

INTRODUCTION

how it is that reality possesses and displays the qualitative features that express the ‘‘qualities,’’ or what he elsewhere calls the ‘‘characters,’’ of that which exists. A quick glance at the glossary

below will affirm the frequency with which Whitehead uses the concept of ‘‘character,’’ as well as the variety of contexts in which he uses it to capture what it is important to say about realities in general. This is an important point of difference between Whitehead’s ‘‘way of thought’’ and much of the metaphysical tradition. Whereas philosophy has tended to ask about any given

thing ‘‘What is its nature?’’ Whitehead asks, ‘“What is its character?’’ The difference between ‘‘nature’’ and ‘‘character’’ is one specific way of marking the difference between essentialist ontologies and Whitehead’s processive, cosmological metaphysics.

The question of a thing’s ‘‘nature’’ has been bound up with the conception of ‘‘substance’’ as it has typified metaphysics since the time of Aristotle. Whitehead’s problem with the concept of ‘‘substance’’ is its tendency to introduce ontological distinctions between existent things, distinc[xix]

INTRODUCTION

tions that are defined by the connected, ‘‘interdependent’’ universe in which we live and to which we react intimately (RM 87). (Indeed, it is the interpenetration of all aspects of the universe which religious experience is particularly suited to con-

vey to the human mind, Whitehead repeatedly points out in RM.) The standard definition of substance as that which ‘‘requires nothing but itself in order to exist’’ 1s rejected as being inapplicable to any entity, including God (RM 106). Whitehead claims to be supplanting this definition with a ‘‘more Platonic’’ description of realities, one that begins metaphysics with the insight

that things share certain common features or ‘‘characters’’ rather than with the assumption that ‘‘things’’ possess their ‘‘natures’’ uniquely. This is not only a revision of the way we think about what is most central to any given existent, but also, and more significantly, a revision of the very concept of zndividual existence. Whitehead points out to the reader that ‘‘According to the doctrine of this lecture, every entity is in its essence social and requires the society in order to exist. In fact, the society for each entity, actual [xx]

INTRODUCTION

or ideal, is the all inclusive universe, including its ideal forms’’ (RM 108). Individual realities, or ‘factual entities,’’ are fundamentally composite in their character. They derive many of their fea-

tures from the features of other actualities, as well as from the realm of ‘‘ideal forms’’ or ‘‘possibilities of . . . value’’ (RM 153). The ‘‘character’’ of any entity arises according to the relation-

ships that entity sustains with all other entities, and the manner in which the entity in question embodies aspects of the realm of forms which are not exemplified by the actualities in the immediate environment from which that entity takes its spatio-temporal origin.

In Process and Reality (PR) Whitehead calls the achievement of a determinate character by an entity ‘‘becoming,’’ though this term is not really used technically in RM.° In RM Whitehead notes the essentially changing character of the universe through the terminology of ‘‘process,’’ ‘‘creativity,’’ ‘‘occasion,’’ and ‘‘concretion,’’ terms that > Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: Macmillan, 1929); corrected edition, ed. Donald W. Sherburne and David Ray Griffin (New York, Free Press, 1978).

[xxi]

INTRODUCTION

are carried over into PR as well. ‘*Becoming’’ is usually the philosophical correlate of ‘‘being,’’ and as such operates at a somewhat abstract level

analytically. Perhaps because RM has a decidedly phenomenological cast, inasmuch as it is a self-conscious unpacking of religious experience as indicative of certain metaphysical generalities,

the deployment of dense technical vocabulary typical of PR or even SMW to a lesser extent seemed out of place to Whitehead in writing the present text.° But the idea of an actuality as an active construction of an existential unity of a diversity of elements is consistent among all three texts.’ ° Lewis Ford comments extensively on terminological and conceptual continuities and discontinuities among Whitehead’s texts, espe-

cially the sequence of SMW, RM, and PR, in The Emergence of Whitehead’s Metaphysics, 1925-1929 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984). Some such continuities are more briefly suggested in the glossary and index below. "I do not wish to overemphasize conceptual continuity here, however, for, as Ford has noted, the descriptions of individual becoming in RM and PR do mark a significant departure from the fairly monistic view of process put forth in SMW. The later texts are more decidedly ‘‘pluralistic’’ in their conception of process as having its gover-

nance in the individual realities involved, rather than in the underlying ‘‘substantial activity’’ asserted in SMW. It is my view that in RM the agency of process is leaning toward a purer pluralism, [xx11]

INTRODUCTION

In RM we see Whitehead very much focused on the construction of metaphysical individuality within a processive cosmos. He describes the

coming into being of such individuality as a ‘‘grasping of the elements of the universe into the unity of one fact’’ (RM 150). To return to the language of character via which this discussion has

been organized, we can say that to be a distinct individual existent is to be a “‘unity’’ of character. Two questions immediately arise: (2) Whence comes the unity imposed on the diversity of ele-

ments brought together in a composite entity? and (6) Just what is unified? Whitehead points out that ‘‘An epochal occasion is a concretion. It

is a mode in which diverse elements come together into a real unity. .. . Thus an actual entity is the outcome of a creative synthesis, individual and passing’’ (RM 92-93). What is most needed

in such a metaphysical vision is an account of how such synthesis proceeds, the manner in but still has significant elements of a more monistic conception about it. Jorge Nobo has brilliantly questioned whether or not Whitehead

ever completely moves to strict pluralism about process in Whitehead’s Metaphysics of Extension and Solidarity (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986).

[xxiii]

INTRODUCTION

which there is creative passage into determinate unity which yields the ‘‘emergent’’ (RM 93) char-

acter of a single actuality. Whereas SMW appealed to an underlying substantial activity to supply the agency of process, RM advances the aesthetic model of individual becoming typical (though not a complete rendition) of Whitehead’s mature system. This aesthetic model involves the combined operation of ‘‘other creatures and the

ideal forms and God’’ in the concretion of any given entity (RM 93). Let us look more closely at the aesthetic synthesis constitutive of actuality, as this will deepen our appreciation of the origi-

nality of Whitehead’s metaphysics of concrete value. Let me state at once that what is striking about the discussion in RM is that the source or agency of unity or synthesis seems to stem from the entity’s aesthetic dimension itself. In other words, aesthetic unification is both agency and outcome simultaneously; there is no underlying or super-

vening source of aesthetic synthesis. This is of fundamental importance in understanding Whitehead’s universe as a universe not of mere [xxiv]

INTRODUCTION

existence, but of value-existence. ‘‘ Value is inher-

ent in actuality itself. To be an actual entity is to have a self-interest. This self-interest is a feeling

of self-valuation; it is an emotional tone’’ (RM 100). To say that “‘being’’ an entity is a ‘*self-interest,’’ and that such interest ‘‘is a feel-

ing’’ or “‘is an emotional tone,’’ is to say that ‘‘being’’ zs ‘‘feeling’’ without interposing the question of ‘what’ is doing the feeling, because the ‘what’ is the feeling itself, ultimately the whole complex of feeling resulting in the emerging subject of concrescence. Whitehead is straining here to develop a view of processive agency which does not require the positing of some existent that underlies the process of concrescence, for this would undermine the radically creativity-

centered view he is trying to espouse. Thus, agency emerges along with, or as, the subject, completely individual only when a wholeness of feeling has been achieved.

No doubt, the expression of character as the embodiment of value is part of what Whitehead means in describing his metaphysics as ‘‘Platonic.’’ Value is not a superaddition to facts but [xxv]

INTRODUCTION

the very core of fact itself: ‘‘the actuality is the enjoyment, and this enjoyment its the experiencing of value’’ (RM 100). Thus, every entity is an occasion of experience whose existence is funda-

mentally a self-valuation, or, better, the emergence of self out of a scene of valuational feeling.

Whitehead’s emphasis on the immediate value dimension of existence remains in place throughout PR and AI, and takes the form of an analysis of ‘‘importance’’ as the central description of experience in Modes of Thought.® This is a deep and imminentistic Platonism: the existences sharing character are constituted by the sharing as well as by the characters involved. Thus, the ideal forms which contribute the characters to be shared are to be conceived as possibilities for value resident

in actuality itself, rather than as separate from yet somehow relevant to actuality.

The ‘‘self-value of the creative act’’ 1s both creativity and creature, agency and outcome

of process as described in the present work ® Alfred North Whitehead, Modes of Thought (New York: Free Press, 1968).

[xxv]

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(RM 102).? The key to understanding how this conception in any way meets the need for an explanation of the agency of creative synthesis is Whitehead’s claim that ‘‘There is no such thing as bare value’’ (RM 103). It is hard to see how

‘‘bare value’’ would mark any advance over ‘*bare fact’’ or ‘‘mere fact’’ in explaining the ac-

tivity of synthetic unity which yields character for any actuality. The ‘‘specific mode of concretion of the diverse elements’’ (RM 103) constituting any actual entity is a function of the specific

diversity involved. In other words, value is essentially comparative; the different ‘‘value-feelings’’ that constitute the relations an entity has to the different elements of its universe ‘‘are comparable amid their differences’? (RM 103). Value is in fact defined as the “‘ground for this compara-

bility’? (RM 103). Value expresses the mutual » The relative status of entities as self-creating (process) in the pres-

ent and as emergent creatures enjoying future adventures in the becoming of other creatures (products) is a deep problem in PR. Whitehead in no uncertain terms wants his entities to be both process and product, or what is termed in PR ‘“‘subject and superject.’’ But the ontological issues about temporal atomicity raised by this conception are serious and remain important to the understanding and revision of Whitehead’s metaphysical scheme.

[xxvii]

INTRODUCTION

comparability of the diverse entities and forms in the universe, and is thus the fundamental notion in a description of an interpenetrating, relational cosmos.

The operations of aesthetic comparison in an entity ‘‘grade’’ the elements in the entity’s universe in terms of the ‘‘relevance of the various fother] entities [or ideal forms], so far as concerns

their contribution to the one actual fact’’ (RM 150-51). Any given actuality or ideal form (the elements or things that are related in concretion) makes a contribution, which is in principle com-

parable and in fact compared (in the synthetic process of concretion) to all other contributions from other quarters, and a single, composite actuality is the result. What I am claiming here, by way of advancing something of a thesis regarding how to conceive of what Whitehead describes as the subjective agency of individual actualities, is that such agency is constituted by the actuality’s participation in a universe in which all value is essentially comparative. Its decisions as to effective comparison for the sake of its own self-valuation are an indication of the character [xxviii]

INTRODUCTION

of valuation haunting the cosmos at large (to be explained in more detail in the discussion of God below).

The remaining question regards just what is sought in the concretion of any given entity, what is the purpose of grading the value-contributions of diverse elements of the world, and what expla-

nation can be given as to why the universe includes or indeed is constituted by aesthetic comparison. In RM the answer to the first part of this question is ‘‘depth of actuality’? (RM 103, 153). ‘‘Occasions differ in importance of actuality’’ (RM 103), both with respect to their experience of themselves, and with respect to their individual contribution in the eventual concretion of other actualities. For the metaphysics of RM, this denotes an important continuance of the monism of SMW, for it is the universe itself which seems to demand depth in its creatures. The universe ‘‘is a process of attaining instances of definite experience out of its own elements. Each such instance embraces the whole, omitting nothing, whether it be ideal form or actual fact’’ (RM 112). Holism and value-experience go hand in hand [xxix]

INTRODUCTION

as the ultimate ‘‘reason’’ for this or that aesthetic

synthesis. It is for this reason that religion is so invaluable for Whitehead’s metaphysical project,

since it suggests that, responding to the second question asked above, we call the cosmic demand

for aesthetic comparison and depth of achievement ‘God.’ This expresses the primordiality of the quest for harmonization among the universe’s

elements: God is an ‘“‘aboriginal actuality’’ (RM 152) whose purpose is “‘the attainment of value in the temporal world’’ (RM 100). In a universe comprising composite entities in constant process of coming to be and passing away, and yet sharing determinate character, some factor

must be present which explains the fact (and hence the possibility) of ordered connection among actualities. Actual ordered connection must be explained by an appeal to that in the universe which expresses that universe’s demand for

and tolerance of order. What this means is that for Whitehead the functions of potentiality are tied to the decision resident in actuality itself; an original actual decisiveness explains the primordial availability of possibility in all other actuali[xxx]

INTRODUCTION

ties. In other words, value-comparability among the various ideal forms is explained via an appeal

to the divine nature. The characters shared by things are sharable and comparable because the universe is at all times affected by the reality of a divine being whose own ‘‘character’’ is to be just that background of permanent value-possibility against which value-realization in discrete entities takes place.

This role of God is yet another dimension of the notion of ‘‘character’’ as it functions in RM to supplant the usual appeal to the divine ‘‘nature’’ as the source of the ‘‘natures’’ of contingent things. Note that God is not invoked to introduce a normative order which is different from

the course of actuality and yet somehow its source, but is instead the name given to that aspect of the actual universe whereby there is a de-

terminate order productive of diverse values comparable enough to explain the obvious solidarity of the universe as we are familiar with it. Whitehead’s philosophical interests from the beginning were driven by a concern to explain the

existence and conceivability of the order that [xxxi]

INTRODUCTION

seems to be resident in the course of affairs we know as our universe. In this sense, religion amplifies some of the same themes as science, and thus must conspire with the insights of science in

a full expression of the characters of things, as noted above. Religious experience, particularly adept at grasping the solidarity of the diverse occasions which constitute the actual universe, suggests the existence of a God whose primary function as an actuality is to introduce the possibility and the demand for the harmonious adjustment of the individual values realized by the discrete occasions. The possibility of such adjustment is explained by Whitehead via God’s dual characterization as being affected by all limited modes of concretion

in the world, and as the conditioning factor in the universe whereby the realm of forms, or ideal possibilities, is relevant to every self-creative occasion. ‘‘There is, therefore, in God’s nature the aspect of the realm of forms as qualified by the world, and the aspect of the world as qualified by

the forms’’ (RM 98). The reader undoubtedly will note that Whitehead uses the term ‘‘nature’’ [xxxii]

INTRODUCTION

to refer to God here, suggesting that his difference from traditional metaphysical schemes is not

so great as was suggested above. But we must note further that this ‘‘nature’’ of God is subject to ‘‘qualification by’’ the other ‘‘formative elements’’ in the universe, namely, the ideal forms and actuality in process. Even though Whitehead had yet to work out the details of his character-

ization of God as possessed of a ‘‘primordial nature’’ (the graded relating of all forms of possi-

bility to one another) which is unchanging, and a ‘‘consequent nature’’ (God’s prehension of all actualities into the fullness of God’s own actuality) which is subject to change (the view offered later in PR), the present description of God’s nature is indeed far from a notion of divine immutable essence and eternal normative will. God’s aspect of permanence is simply the ‘‘consistency of

character’’ in the cosmos requisite for the relevant relationship of one entity to another in processes of realization. The universe, in other words, is characterized by an original limitation, an orig-

inal determinate organization (i.e., God) of the possible combinations of value-character among [xxxill]

INTRODUCTION

the ideal forms (in SMW and PR, the ‘‘eternal objects’’) of which actuality is composed. The boundless wealth of possibility in the realm of abstract form would leave each creative phase

still indeterminate, unable to synthesize under determinate conditions the creatures from which it springs. The definite determination which imposes ordered balance on the world requires an actual entity imposing its own unchanged consistency of character on every phase [RM 94].

Change requires a basic scheme of possible relations which is itself unchanging, or else change would be mere anarchic disarray instead of relevant novelty possessed of meaningful continuity with that in comparison with which change has

taken place. The departure from metaphysical tradition is in this notion’s omission of a divine ‘‘will’’ by whose sheer volition such limitation or

determination is imposed on the world. Whitehead’s conception here is much closer to Spinoza’s vision of divine necessity, at least formally. God is the name given to a crucial character of the natural universe, and is not conceived as an external source organizing that universe by de[xxxiv]

INTRODUCTION

cree but enjoying substantial independence from

it. What Whitehead is trying to emphasize is that the directedness of self-creating occasions, their directedness toward an aesthetic harmony whereby ‘‘prehensions’’ of other actualities and

forms are brought together as a determinate outcome, must be explained in virtue of some character immanent in creative process itself (RM 92-93), a character whose being in part comprises the definite relatedness of all forms of possibility. The crucial difference from Spinoza stems from the fact that the immanent principle of God in Whitehead is not a self-enclosed totality

of substance complete in and of itself as it is under the Spinozistic conception of necessity. The function of God as an immanent source of ideals from which concrescence takes its cues for

how its prehensions are to be unified is much more fully the project of Process and Reality, wherein the doctrine of ‘‘subjective aim’’ at intensity of feeling is introduced to describe an enti-

ty’s aspiration toward some maximal valueachievement. This ideal of aspiration is, roughly,

the maximal unity of aesthetic contrasts (felt [xxxv]

INTRODUCTION

comparisons, as opposed to abstract forms of comparability) possible given the ‘‘data’’ from which an entity proceeds, and the world to which

it will make some future contribution. In RM God’s role in this aesthetic procurement is described thus: ‘‘Depth of value is only possible if

the antecedent facts [other actualities, forms] conspire in unison. Thus a measure of harmony [God] in the ground [point of departure for con-

cresence] is the requisite for perpetuation of depth into the future. But harmony is limitation.

Thus rightness of limitation is essential for growth of reality’’ (RM 152). God, then, represents a consistent eternal character in the processive cosmos, as well as a character whose experi-

ence of what happens in the world becomes in some manner the explanation of how the aesthetic achievements of one entity are, qua values, relevant to other entities. God’s creative role, then, is not via authority of will or agency but via the fact that the universe as enjoying harmonious construction (and, with it, aesthetic destruction as well) conditions what agency is manifest in each individual self-creative [xxxvi]

| INTRODUCTION act. God is referred to the needs of the creatures,

rather than the creatures being referred to the desires of God. Whitehead’s antagonism to a divine-volition account of creation is a straightfor-

ward invocation of the theodicy issue: if God alone is metaphysically determinative of the natures of things, it is only by arbitrary manipulation of our metaphysical principles that God can escape blame for the obvious and real evil in the world (RM 95). Whitehead defines evil as aesthetic destruction, the mutually obstructive conflict of the harmonies realized by diverse entities. Aesthetic destruction is the failure to positively

harmonize or contrast those competing valuepossibilities which really present themselves for consideration in the becoming of any actuality. Such failure precipitates in a community of occa-

sions a certain degree of mutual blindness and genuine annihilation; things in a sense become wmpossibilitzes for one another. Such destruction is most evident in nature’s more grotesque sacri-

fices (the possibilities harmonized in the lion’s need to eat involves the destruction of the harmonies involved in the zebra’s enjoyment of a [xxxvil]

INTRODUCTION

cool drink at the water hole), and in human beings’ direct and indirect failures to value themselves or to respect the value really resident in other human beings (my decision to value-up those elements of my experience which serve my

own economic advancement may preclude my valuing-up those features which might move the

economic system to serve the needs of others whose resources I am using). One has the sense that it is simply inconceivable to Whitehead that we lay such evils (even those which are for all intents and purposes unavoidable, such as the lion’s need for nutrition) and other deeper cruelties (genocide seems to be this century’s most compelling example) at God’s feet by virtue of our metaphysics of creation—that if we could, then Job is indeed entitled to an answer for his miseries.

While he does seem moved in part by this moral intuition about what is unacceptable in a God-concept, it appears that Whitehead is less clearly interested in exonerating God for what goes on in the world than he is in avoiding the metaphysical determinism he sees as implied by [Xxxvlil]

INTRODUCTION

citing divine volition as the explanation for exactly what natures things have (e.g, RM 95).!° His denial of determinism rests on two intuitions:

that evil is real, and that it is a function of precisely the contingency and creative independence that events must enjoy in their processes of valuerealization for that evil to be real. This denial is

carried on in the context of explaining why the reality of evil excludes it from being an aspect of the divine nature. Evils are those things which destroy the aesthetic contexts from which they emerge, by rejecting or destroying the values actually present in those contexts which are depen-

dent for their continued meaning on their incorporation by other actualities. Though evils may flame with vicious brilliance in their own de-

structive present of value-elimination, in the sheer enjoyment of the constriction of reality’s depth of actuality or value, such destructive actu© Clearly, the charge of determinism more readily may be leveled against the divine-substance ontology of Spinoza than against, for example, the creation ontologies of Scholastic metaphysics. But Whitehead seems to think the latter escape the charge only by the decision to allow different metaphysical principles to apply to God and to the world, an option Whitehead rejects as an ultimate failure of rationalization.

[xxxix]

INTRODUCTION

alities tend to be quite limited in their ability to impose their own particularly narrow forms of

valuation on the creatures that survive them: ‘‘The fact of the instability of evil is the moral order in the world’’ (RM 95). Whitehead does not

underestimate the real destructions wrought by evil; species die, and the environment dies a little with them (e.g., RM 96). Lions that kill off their

food sources too efficiently will eventually die too, as will lions whose food supply is killed off by other species in the system, like humans. But Whitehead’s general sense, gleaned from observation of the course nature has taken, is that aesthetic destruction destroys its own conditions, like the inefficient parasites that destroy their hosts before the parasites can successfully colonize another. Entities which are less adept at inclusive consideration of other entities in their en-

vironment are themselves largely (though not completely) weeded out of the world-process. The world, to Whitehead’s empirical sensibilities, seems not to be careening toward destruction (RM 97), and evolution appears to manifest a tendency toward increased complexity rather than a [xl]

INTRODUCTION

narrowing of forms of organization which would

be the expected result if aesthetic destruction formed anywhere near the bulk of what goes on in evolutionary processes.'!' Whitehead deems it necessary that the source of aesthetic destruction be excluded from the divine nature, since that nature is conceived to explain, and, more important for his discussion of religion, z¢ 1s experienced as,

the prevalent character of creative individual emergence in the evolving universe of value-pos-

sibilities. The appeal here is empirical, rather than to a pre-metaphysical logic of divine goodness. God’s role is, perhaps, no less ultimate than in traditional creationist ontologies, but it 1s significantly less coercive than the God of avowed (or implicit) determinism, and less open to the charge of incoherence which Whitehead levels at philosophies that create diverse sets of ontological categories to deal with God and the world.

Let us conclude these general remarks on metaphysics by returning to the motif of ‘‘charac1! This is central to Whitehead’s argument against reductionistic science in The Function of Reason (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1929; repr. Boston: Beacon, 1958). [xli]

INTRODUCTION

ter’’ in Whitehead’s text. We have explored this notion as it conveys the sense of determinateness via the embodiment of ideal forms. The character of any entity is the quality of the fact of its existence, to return to our opening quote. According to the remainder of the quote, character also applies to the quality of the quality —the ideal forms have their own definiteness not dependent on the realized character of any actuality. The character

of actuality is a sign of other more permanent characters that provide the basis for any realized harmony. God’s ‘‘consistency of character’’ is one of the permanent characters involved in the realization of determinate qualitative harmony on the part of any entity. In this sense an aboriginal determinacy forms the necessary basis of limitation whereby temporal, transitory realization of determinate character on the part of discrete entities can occur. In these three dimensions, then, the concept of ‘‘character’’ covers concrete determinacy (emergent actualities) and its conditions: form (eternal

objects), and that which arranges the forms as relevant or comparable to one another (God). In [xlin]

INTRODUCTION

two important senses concrete actualities are themselves ‘‘conditions’’ as well: they constitute some of the ‘‘conditions’’ to which other actualities must conform, and they are the ‘‘conditions’’

whereby what is empirically experienced in human life can be explained. Anything that stands as a condition for something else in a processive ontology has the status of being a contributing ‘‘character’’ for those other things. ‘‘Char-

acter’’ is, therefore, a useful abstraction to employ in regard to the general exploration of what exists, capturing different dimensions of the

conditions of existence without imposing from the outset some uncriticized categoreal distinctions in their functions as characters. ‘‘Character’’ is a notion whereby what is most metaphysically relevant to say about things is captured via

reference to its status as what Dewey called a ‘*generic trait’’ of nature. The search for character in the universe is a search for the conditions whereby what happens happens, rather than the

natures which might name the bare ‘‘what’’ of what happens. The appeal to the characters of things thwarts [xliii]

INTRODUCTION

the classificatory tendencies in philosophy which

Whitehead outlined in SMW as having limited metaphysics in its quest to elaborate on nature (SMW 28). Classification and naming, two common aspects of substance-ontologies, indicate a failure to engage in abstraction sufficient to capture the concreteness of things. Whitehead’s Platonic appeal to the characters expressed by things is designed to ward off our mistaking some classification useful to intelligence (a mid-level abstraction, such as ‘‘that is a cat’’) for the concrete sub-

ject of inquiry which can only be indicated, ironically, by a more general scheme of abstractions which can capture the conditions of becoming without being distracted by some dominant

aspect of what has become. The concept of ‘‘character’’ lends itself to enumerations expres-

sive both of the complexity of any individual thing and of its essential ontological relatedness to other things with which it shares significant characters. Thus, in the place of ‘‘cat nature,’’ such a metaphysics would advance theories as to the patterns resident in the aesthetic make-up of

various aspects of the ‘‘cat,’’ as well as in the [xliv]

INTRODUCTION

overall unity, such as it is, which is commonly designated ‘‘cat.’’ The fact that the aesthetic patterns intrinsic to the cat’s genome are common to

other animals’ genetic code, the fact that the color of the cat’s blood is common to other animals’ blood, the fact that the cat’s enjoyment of the warmth of a sunbeam is common to other animals’ taking pleasure in non-utilitarian activities, etc., are all “‘characters’’ definitive of the being of the cat. Thus, we can look at the simple term ‘‘character’’ as the type of notion which functions methodologically to keep the metaphysician committed to the infinity of details (the infinity of

forms of possibility and types of reference to other actualities) involved in the existence of any concrete thing in nature.

There is perhaps no entity about which our tendency to engage in insufficiently abstract anal-

yses leads to mis-identification more routinely than ‘‘God.’’ Having gone through some of the details of the metaphysical scheme inclusive of Whitehead’s particular concept of divinity, we can better appreciate Whitehead’s claim that the ‘‘character of permanent rightness’’ inherent in [xlv]

INTRODUCTION

the aesthetic measure provided by God’s nature for the world is not apprehended in the mode of theological dogma, or as an inspectio of the mind discerning the essence of something, but ‘‘appre-

hended as we apprehend the characters of our friends’’ (RM 61). While Whitehead goes on to deny that such apprehension directly involves the intuition of personality in God, the way he de-

scribes the grasp of this centrally important ‘‘character’’ in things is significantly moral/aesthetic rather than propositional or factual. This suggests that the metaphysical mindset, taking its cue from religion, is about aesthetically

holistic apprehension in regard to ‘‘reality’’ rather than being from the outset a concern for clear technical vocabulary expressing the true natures of things. The religious intuition of the role of God in a creative universe ‘‘is not the discernment of a form of words, but of a type of charac-

ter’? (RM 67). Metaphysics looks for patterns yielding the total impression of character and the many subordinate dimensions of quality involved in being a complex thing. In this sense it is perhaps better measured by its ability to help us rec[xlvi]

INTRODUCTION

ognize and interact with the real, as we do with our friends, than by its doctrinal stability or its

ability to provide intellectual identifications (definitions of the natures) of those things in reality, including persons, we are trying to ‘‘know.”’

This suggestion is much in keeping with Whitehead’s recommendations about what religion ought to do for us. He describes religion as ‘‘world-loyalty,’’ the recognition of the individu-

al’s value-attainment in the context of the broader world beyond him- or herself (RM 60). Insofar as metaphysics emerges from religious sensibilities, it should be productive of the same loyalties, loyalties indicative that the function of rationalization is ultimately our engagement with

the universe, rather than our satisfaction with our “‘system.’’ The key point to keep in mind, however, is that this emphasis does not excuse the failure to attempt rational disclosure of the characters of things. One cannot invoke the gods of engagement as an excuse for not undertaking the demands of serious inquiry; for ultimately it is by such inquiry into the workability of the notions whereby we are inspired to be engaged that [xlvii]

INTRODUCTION

we can be saved from the evils which stem from

the mis-employment of such notions or ideals (PR 337-341). RELIGION

Whitehead’s contribution to philosophy of religion and theology has been, perhaps, more well documented than his contributions to philosophical discourse. Certainly, his provocative introduction of a God who is subject to change, altered by the actualities which come to be in the universe, incapable in principle of altering the

course of such becoming by sheer will, was bound to bring his work under diligent theological scrutiny. Much fine scholarship, by such eminent figures as Charles Hartshorne, John Cobb, Marjorie Suchocki, and others, has been gener-

ated on the topic of a process divinity and its broad theological implications, and these should

be explored if a detailed treatment of Whitehead’s legacy in philosophy of religion is sought. I would like to focus here on one particular aspect

of Whitehead’s treatment of religion, one in [xl viii]

INTRODUCTION

keeping with the general theme of ‘‘character’’ as I have been sketching it. This introduction will be brought to a close with some brief reflections on the status of human personality in the framing and use of religious conceptions, the intrusion of human character on the elaboration of the characters of things revealed in religious (or other) experience. That Whitehead was interested in the role personality and general ‘mentality’ (what we might loosely call ‘psychology’ in the broadest sense of

the word) play in intellectual system-building seems clear. SMW abounds with references to the general characters of thought required for this or

that doctrinal advance in science, metaphysics, or theology (e.g., the ‘‘imaginative muddled suspense’’ required in the mind of those seeking ‘successful inductive generalization’’ [SMW 7)). In PR Whitehead begins his statement of a final religious interpretation of experience with the following: ‘‘The chief danger to philosophy is nar-

rowness in the selection of evidence. This nar-

rowness arises from the idiosyncracies and timidities of particular authors, of particular so[xlix]

INTRODUCTION

cial groups, of particular schools of thought, of particular epochs in the history of civilization’’ (PR 337). Those with a psychologistic or historicist bent would find such a comment to be conge-

neal evidence of Whitehead’s awareness of the impossibility of ‘‘objective’’ statement of truth. But this would capture only half the sense of the statement, for to identify the psychological or historical dimensions of knowing is for Whitehead not the ground to deny objectivity, but the reason

to redouble our efforts to construct a scheme of ideas whose allegiance to certain psychological or historical circumstances is less pronounced. It is

an interesting subject, though, to ask ourselves about the particular dangers posed by the having of religious concepts by minds that are captive to their own narrowness of selection. Importantly,

this captivity would include all ‘‘minds,’’ because mentality for Whitehead is defined by the task of making narrow selections among possibilities so as to suggest something larger via the narrow but symbolic selection. At the beginning of RM Whitehead presents (1)

INTRODUCTION

his reasons for claiming that for all its social dimensions, religion is primarily a function of human ‘“‘solitariness’’ (RM 16). The individual

human being is, in language reminiscent of Kierkegaard, ‘‘the awful ultimate fact . . . consciously alone with itself, for its own sake.’’ Just as Whitehead describes the apprehension of the divine character of things in a manner reminiscent of the grasp of the characters of friends, reli-

gion is introduced as the experience and devel-

opment of one’s own personal ‘‘character’’ (RM 15). “In the long run your character and your conduct of life depend upon your intimate convictions. Life is an internal fact for its own sake, before it is an external fact relating itself to others’’ (RM 15-16). While the description of human moral character as being a function of religious conviction, the ‘‘force of belief cleansing the inward parts’’ of the individual self (RM 15),

is nothing new, I think there is an aspect of Whitehead’s emphasis on solitary experience of character (the inward experience of our own self-

value, our ‘‘individual worth of character’’ (hij

INTRODUCTION

[RM 17]) which bears looking at.'? I am interested, in particular, in the relationship between the experience of our own character which is so fundamental to religious experience (for better or

worse: “‘Religion is by no means necessarily good’’ [RM 17]) and the concepts we develop to describe religion or, more generally, the metaphysical situation. Whitehead points out that: ‘‘A religion, on its doctrinal side, can thus be defined as a system of general truths which have the effect of transforming character when they are sincerely held and vividly apprehended’’ (RM 15). He is concerned, in other words, with the manner in which elabo-

rated truths shape character. In an interesting passage in SMW, he seems also to be concerned

about the manner in which the experience of 2 For an interesting treatment of the theme of ‘‘solitariness’’ in RM, see Donald A. Crosby’s ‘‘Religion and Solitariness,’’ in Explora-

tions in Whitehead’s Philosophy , ed. Lewis S. Ford and George L. Kline (New York: Fordham University Press, 1983), pp. 149-169. Crosby acknowledges several flaws in Whitehead’s historical treatment of religion as progressing from ‘‘primitive’’ tribal practice to full ‘‘rationalization’’ in contemporary culture, but this does not, in his estimation, undermine the general project of RM to elaborate on the role of solitariness in revealing the unity of value resident in the universe. [1a]

INTRODUCTION

character or personality shapes the kinds of con-

cepts we tend to embrace. For example, faulty metaphysical notions about individual existence entrenched themselves in the thought subsequent to Descartes because the Cartesian consciousness

put ‘‘the individual and. . . its experiences into the foreground of thought’? (SMW 194). Whitehead sees the conscious experience of individual-

ity (which pre-dated Descartes, of course, but which found consummate expression in the dualism consequent upon the cogito) as the phenomenological basis for our general definition of indi-

vidual existence. ‘‘The emergent individual value of each entity is transformed into the inde-

pendent substantial existence of each entity, which is a very different notion’’ (SMW 194-95).

The privacy of mental life was mistaken for its substantial independence as an existent fact. In turn, bodies were conceived as likewise substantially independent entities, a valueless mechanism of bits of material hurtling through empty pointless space. In addition to the bad science here, Whitehead is concerned with the faultiness of the notion of ‘‘substantial independence’’ as a [lin]

INTRODUCTION

description of individual existence (as was pointed out at the beginning of this Introduction).

The point I am trying to highlight is Whitehead’s awareness of the manner in which the human experience of personality interfaces with

the elaboration of abstract ideas designed to characterize existence in general. Personality is shaped by doctrine, and doctrine by personality. It will be from within the confines of individual character that the character of the ultimate face of things will be discerned, and from within these same confines will emerge the conceptual vocabulary which will reinforce (by erosion or creative augmentation) the private character of the individual. Whitehead does not take such a situation as evidence for a full-blown turn toward historicism, but rather as a kind of moral imperative to be wary about just how personality and doctrine interface. A healthy skepticism about the having of metaphysical or religious conceptions seems to be what is recommended, given the complexities

of personality and its tendency to confuse itself with what it is studying. Whitehead, who is usually fairly generous in fliv]

INTRODUCTION

his characterization of even those with whom he deeply disagrees, has some rather scornful things to say about those who fail to recognize the manner in which human personality imposes itself on religious belief, in this instance the identification of moral goodness with one’s own selective character: Good people of narrow sympathies are apt to be unfeeling and unprogressive, enjoying their egotistical goodness. Their case, on a higher level, is analogous to that of the man completely de-

graded to a hog. They have reached a state of stable goodness, so far as their own interior life is concerned. This type of moral correctitude is, on a larger view, so like evil that the distinction is trivial [RM 98].

Self-consciousness of moral correctitude is a misidentification of a selective and narrow aesthetic

adjustment of things with a ‘‘moral ideal’’ toward which humans must strive. Personality projects itself outward, and a partial achievement is mistaken for the goal; the result is only trivially distinguishable from the aesthetic de-

structiveness characteristic of true evil. The [Iv]

INTRODUCTION

debasement of personality to the subhuman which is consequent on the psychological debasement of theologico-religious ideals evokes White-

head’s ire in the context of a discussion of what should be the ‘‘instability’’ of evil, undermined in this case by its stabilization in thought. This suggests an interesting connection which might be made between Whitehead and another more rambunctious skeptic, David Hume. Hume famously repudiated our tendency to project ourselves into the cosmos in the form of anthropomorphic natural theology. His works set forth serious arguments challenging the very possibility of religious knowledge, much as his skeptical method cast suspicion on the possibility of objective knowledge in the realms of science or morals. My comments here do not hinge on how powerful one takes the arguments, severally or conjointly,

of The Dialogues on Natural Religion to be. Whitehead apparently found the arguments to present a serious (‘‘unanswerable’’) challenge to the intellectual framing of religious conceptions, especially the characterization of God (PR 343).

Noting, however, that all argumentation on [lvi]

INTRODUCTION

points of theology depend ultimately on our man-

ner of rendering the ‘‘facts’’ of the world to be explained, Whitehead describes his foray into God-conception in PR as ‘‘an attempt to add another speaker to that masterpiece,’’ Hume’s Dza-

logues. His objective in adding a voice to the Dialogues is to underscore the fact that religious

explanation proceeds from the experience of human personality: “‘Any cogency of argument entirely depends upon elucidation of somewhat exceptional elements in our conscious experi-

ence—those elements which may roughly be classed together as religious and moral intuitions’’ (PR 343).'% Religious and moral intuitions

are no less intuitions than those we have regarding ordinary sensory experience. In fact, RM tries to present an analysis of the genuine empirical presence of experienced ideality in the sensory '3 T happen to think this voice may already be present in part in the

Dialogues. In a number of places, the fact that thinking proceeds within a naturalistic framework is advanced, particularly by Demea. The naturalism of Hume’s epistemological theory is never far out of

focus, and his logical arguments pale in comparison to the limits placed on conception by its physical basis. It is not merely a noetic problem we have in conceiving of God, but may be a psychobiological one as well.

fivii]

INTRODUCTION

immediacies of religious consciousness. Though here he is giving empirical consciousness a reli-

gious twist, Whitehead is indeed echoing and deepening the empirical origins of human cognition, including logical argumentation in theology

and metaphysics, asserted in Hume’s thought. This makes the having of religious concepts in a non-dangerous manner not simply a moral problem of avoiding self-righteousness, but a cognitive one, the problem of overcoming the limita-

tions imposed by _ sense-experience on our cognition and understanding of the world. Thus, Whitehead’s concerns about the moral implications of various religious conceptions as entertained by humans are an exact reflection of his concerns in the arena of the empirical sciences, concerns that dominate his thought from the beginning of his turn to philosophy from mathematics.'4 Just as metaphysics is introduced to over‘4 Whitehead’s early philosophy is largely concerned with the problem of sense-experience as it sets the framework for scientific observa-

tion of nature. See The Concept of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1920; repr. 1971), and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1924; repr. New York: Dover, 1982). [ivini]

INTRODUCTION

come problems encountered in the sensory origins

of our claims about the world, ‘‘rational religion’’ is introduced by Whitehead to stave off the aesthetically/morally destructive bigotries of insufficiently broad dogmas and ethical self-evaluations. Hume thought human bigotry and intellectual constraints to be somewhat insurmountable, of course, but Whitehead again takes the importance of the sphere of religious experience as an

incentive to more humanely rationalize this sphere, rather than to surrender it to the currents of emotion and uncritical faith. In SMW Whitehead identifies the need for a more rationalized religion sensitive to claims of

modern science as primarily a_ psychological issue:

Religion is the reaction of human nature to its search for God. The presentation of God under the aspect of power awakens every modern in_stinct of critical reaction. This is fatal; for religion collapses unless its main positions command immediacy of assent. In this respect the old phra-

seology is at variance with the psychology of modern civilization. This change in psychology (lix]

INTRODUCTION

is largely due to science, and is one of the chief ways in which the advance of science has weakened the hold of the old religious forms of expression [SMW 191].

The point is not that the propositions of science in its statements of the facts are found to be inconsistent with religious doctrine, although this

certainly can be the case, but that a particular state of mind governing the immediacies of reaction out of which we constitute our sensibilities, and by which we might experience our world-loyalties, will determine the efficacy and entertain-

ability of certain doctrinal notions. The quote from RM earlier regarding the moral correctitude

attended by narrow sympathies indicates that such states of mind also govern our employment of those notions we do find efficacious and believable. Whitehead’s religious thought, then, might be mined for its contribution of a natural epistemology which alone can safely be the basis of natural theology. What are the conditions or characters of sensibility which underwrite our religious beliefs? Such a theory would be a kind of aesthetics [Ix]

INTRODUCTION

of religious belief, a direction Hume might have

gone in if his anti-rationalistic bias had not driven him away from theology altogether, toward the alleged safety of common life. If Whitehead’s suspicion is correct, common life is

no safe-haven for religious conception: ‘‘most psychology is herd-psychology’’ (RM 16). The comforts of ‘‘collective emotion’’ to which Hume

ultimately turns and against which Whitehead

warns us can be critiqued only by a method which seeks the enlargment of our aesthetic sensibilities whereby our determinate beliefs find their

entertainment and use. The sensibilities and the beliefs will ultimately shape each other in the cognitive framework comprising empirical encounter with the world and intellectualization via abstraction from the encounter. We recall that the ‘‘awful fact’’ of the individual’s solitariness is the self’s experience of its own

capacity for evaluation of both itself and its sur-

roundings. Interestingly, Whitehead seems to offer his theory about the ultimate ‘‘solitariness’’ of religion as a way, precisely, of overcoming the harmful pre-cognitive psychology of the having [1xi]

INTRODUCTION

of beliefs. The ‘‘awful fact’’ of the individual’s solitariness is noted just one sentence after the claim that ‘‘most psychology is herd-psychology.’’ We also hear the decidedly social cast of Whitehead’s assessment of psychology in his comment on science and religion from SMW. Religious solitariness seems to represent for Whitehead a mode of overcoming the impulses created

by the facts of human (social) psychology. It is relief not only from the external influences of the world, but also from the internal facts of our own habitual existence. It is relief, because it is a form of commitment to the novel depth of value possible for human consciousness when it devotes it-

self to individual ‘‘worth of character’’ experienced as something for its own sake. Thus, we might say that psychology tells us about the motives which form the conditions of selective abstractness In our sensory experience of the world,

' and religious experience tells us about how to challenge our own selective abstractness, by an appeal to the haunting presence of the ideal in those sensory experiences of the real from which we always begin. ‘‘The moment of religious con[1xa1]

INTRODUCTION

sciousness starts from self-valuation, but it broadens into the concept of the world as a realm of adjusted values, mutually intensifying or mutually destructive’’ (RM 59).

This brings us back to our original focus, Whitehead’s metaphysical concern to elaborate a theory of how ideality infects actuality in all its phases. He equates the individual solitariness of the religious person with the ‘‘universality’’ requisite for acknowledgment of the realm of possibility offered in the ever-present divine character of value-envisagement (RM 47). In this way his philosophical description of the religious spirit is

an echo of, or actually a constitutive bit of evidence for, his general metaphysics of individual existents in a matrix of solidarity with one another: The spirit at once surrenders itself to this univer-

sal claim [that value must be realized] and appropriates it for itself. So far as it is dominated by religious experience, life is conditioned by this formative principle, equally individual and gen-

eral, equally actual and beyond completed act, equally compelling recognition and permissive of disregard [RM 60]. [hxi1i]

INTRODUCTION

Whitehead at once points out that this description of the ‘‘spirit’’ is really about the ‘‘intuition of immediate occasions as failing or succeeding in reference to the ideal relevant to them’’ (the subjective aim at depth of actuality). Any given

single fact (including the religious person) is a revelation of the entire realm of potentiality, in light of the comparability of those values realized with those that were decided against. Evil is our willingness to embrace less complete values, values less incorporative of the full sweep of value possible for us on a given occasion (RM 62). The

choice of a hoggish existence, delighting in its own limitation, over a broadly sensitive existence

productive of ‘‘world-loyalty’’ or ‘‘world-consciousness’’ (RM 40) is its own condemnation, as well as a deplorable destruction of elements in the social environment.

In a sense, then, one might argue that Whitehead’s decidedly ‘‘individualistic’’ metaphysics (atomism) and his individualistic religious theory (solitariness) are designed to privilege that which

undermines the habits and inflexibilities that emerge on the level of social experience, human (Ixiv]

INTRODUCTION

and otherwise. The psychology of the herd is overcome in much the same manner as the determinism of matter; that is, by the decision on the part of that which experiences self-valuation (the individual) to realize something new, something enriching, which will enhance that individual’s harmonic placement in the full scope of a reality

surrounded on all sides by alternative ideal forms. The impulses of psyche and the forces of materiality give way to the creative demand resident in actuality itself. The cost of failing this demand is an eventual death, and an implosion in reality where values might have been realized, but never will be. We take each other, and our religious impulses, down with us in the excessive narrowing of sympathy. In light of the rancorous antagonism increasingly characteristic of moral relations in these closing years of the twentieth century, there is perhaps no more important contribution Whitehead might make than to point to the presence of a divinity which is distinctively unlike the power-

driven and naturally limited personalities we manifest with one another. While Whitehead is [Ixv]

INTRODUCTION

hopeful in his assertion that ‘‘The modern world has lost God and is seeking him’’ (RM 74), none-

theless at times it seems the search has been called off. But insofar as one thinks the search important, Whitehead offers one method of undertaking it with seriousness: not by the invocation of a few simple notions which will sweep away the complexities of detail which seem to set

us at odds with each other, but by the patient and disciplined exploration of ‘‘ways of thought”’ more likely to explain the detail as a function of a

broader reality seeking realization via the only route available—the individual occasion in its awful aloneness.

Fordham University JupitH A. JONES

[Ixvi]

Preface This book consists of four lectures on religion delivered in King’s Chapel, Boston, during February, 1926.

The train of thought which was applied to science in my Lowell Lectures of the previous year, since published under the title, Science and the Modern World, is here applied to religion. The two books are independent, but it is inevitable that to some extent they

elucidate each other by showing the same way of thought in different applications. The aim of the lectures was to give a concise analysis

of the various factors in human nature which go to form a religion, to exhibit the inevitable transformation of religion with the transformation of knowledge, and more especially to direct attention to the foundation of religion on our apprehension of those permanent elements by reason of which there is a stable order in the

world, permanent elements apart from which there could be no changing world. Harvarp UNIVERSITY

March 13, 1926

A. N. W.

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RELIGION IN THE MAKING CHAPTER I RELIGION IN HISTORY I, RELIGION DEFINED

It is my purpose in the four lectures of this course to consider the type of justification which is available for belief in doctrines

of religion. This is a question which in some

new form challenges each generation. It is the peculiarity of religion that humanity 1s always shifting its attitude towards it. The contrast between religion and _ the elementary truths of arithmetic makes my meaning clear. Ages ago the simple arithmetical doctrines dawned on the human mind, and

throughout history the unquestioned dogma that two and three make five reigned whenever

it has been relevant. We all know what this doctrine means, and its history is of no importance for its elucidation. [13]

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But we have the gravest doubt as to what religion means so far as doctrine is concerned.

There is no agreement as to the definition of religion in its most general sense, including true and false religion; nor is there any agreement as to the valid religious beliefs, nor even as to what we mean by the truth of religion. It is for this reason that some consideration of religion as an unquestioned factor throughout the long stretch of human history is necessary to secure the relevance of any discussion of its general principles.

There is yet another contrast. What is generally disputed is doubtful, and what is doubtful

is relatively unimportant—other things being

equal. I am speaking of general truths. We avoid guiding our actions by general principles which are entirely unsettled. If we do not know

what number is the product of 69 and 67, we defer any action pre-supposing the answer, till

we have found out. This little arithmetical puzzle can be put aside till it is settled, and it is

capable of definite settlement with adequate trouble. [14]

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But as between religion and arithmetic, other things are not equal. You use arithmetic,

but you are religious. Arithmetic of course enters into your nature, so far as that nature involves a multiplicity of things. But it is there as a necessary condition, and not as a transforming agency. No one is invariably “justified” by his faith in the multiplication table. But in some sense or other, justifi-

cation is the basis of all religion. Your character is developed according to your faith. This is the primary religious truth from which no one can escape. Religion is force of belief cleansing the inward parts. For this reason the

primary religious virtue is sincerity, a penetrating sincerity. A religion, on its doctrinal side, can thus be defined as a system of general truths which

have the effect of transforming character when they are sincerely held and vividly apprehended.

In the long run your character and your conduct of life depend upon your intimate convictions. Life is an internal fact for its [15]

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own sake, before it is an external fact relating

itself to others. The conduct of external life is conditioned by environment, but it receives its final quality, on which its worth depends, from the internal life which is the self-realization of existence. Religion is the art and the theory of the internal life of man, so far as it depends on the man himself and on what is permanent in the nature of things. This doctrine is the direct negation of the theory that religion is primarily a social fact. Social facts are of great importance to religion,

because there is no such thing as absolutely independent existence. You cannot abstract society from man; most psychology is herdpsychology. But all collective emotions leave untouched the awful ultimate fact, which is

the human being, consciously alone with itself, for its own sake.

Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness. It runs through three stages, if it evolves to its final satisfaction. It is the transition from God the void to God [16]

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the enemy, and from God the enemy to God the companion.

Thus religion is solitariness; and if you are never solitary, you are never religious. Col-

lective enthusiasms, revivals, institutions, churches, rituals, bibles, codes of behaviour, are the trappings of religion, its passing forms. They may be useful, or harmful; they may be authoritatively ordained, or merely temporary

expedients. But the end of religion is beyond all this. Accordingly, what should emerge from re-

ligion is individual worth of character. But worth is positive or negative, good or bad. Religion is by no means necessarily good. It

may be very evil. The fact of evil, interwoven with the texture of the world, shows

that in the nature of things there remains effectiveness for degradation. In your religious experience the God with whom you have made terms may be the God of destruction, the God who leaves in his wake the loss of the greater

reality. | [17]

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In considering religion, we should not be obsessed by the idea of its necessary goodness.

This is a dangerous delusion. The point to notice is its transcendent importance; and the

fact of this importance is abundantly made evident by the appeal to history. Il. THE EMERGENCE OF RELIGION

Religion, so far as it receives external expression in human history, exhibits four fac-

tors or sides of itself. These factors are

ritual, emotion, belief, rationalization. ‘There

is definite organized procedure; which is ritual: there are definite types of emotional expression: there are definitely expressed be-

liefs: and there is the adjustment of these beliefs into a system, internally coherent and coherent with other beliefs. But all these four factors are not of equal influence throughout all historical epochs. The religious idea emerged gradually into human

life, at first barely disengaged from other human interests. The order of the emergence [18]

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of these factors was in the inverse order of the depth of their religious importance: first ritual, then emotion, then belief, then rationalization.

The dawn of these religious stages is grad-

ual. It consists in an increase of emphasis. Perhaps it is untrue to affirm that the later factors are ever wholly absent. But certainly,

when we go far enough back, belief and rationalization are completely negligible, and

emotion is merely a secondary result of ritual. Then emotion takes the lead, and the ritual is for the emotion which it generates. Belief then makes its appearance as explanatory of the complex of ritual and emotion, and

in this appearance of belief we may discern the germ of rationalization.

It is not until belief and rationalization are well established that solitariness is discernible as constituting the heart of religious importance. The great religious conceptions which haunt the imaginations of civilized mankind are scenes of solitariness: Prometheus chained [19]

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to his rock, Mahomet brooding in the desert,

the meditations of the Buddha, the solitary Man on the Cross. It belongs to the depth of the religious spirit to have felt forsaken, even by God. III. RITUAL AND EMOTION

Ritual goes back beyond the dawn of his-

tory. It can be discerned in the animals, in their individual habits and still more in their collective evolutions. Ritual may be defined as the habitual performance of definite actions which have no direct relevance to the preservation of the physical organisms of the actors.

Flocks of birds perform their ritual evolutions in the sky. In Europe rooks and starlings are notable examples of this fact. Ritual is the primitive outcome of superfluous energy

and leisure. It exemplifies the tendency of living bodies to repeat their own actions. Thus the actions necessary in hunting for food, or in other useful pursuits, are repeated [20]

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for their own sakes; and their repetition also repeats the joy of exercise and the emotion of success.

In this way emotion waits upon ritual; and then ritual is repeated and elaborated for the

sake of its attendant emotions. Mankind became artists in ritual. It was a tremendous discovery—how to excite emotions for their own sake, apart from some imperious biologi-

cal necessity. But emotions sensitize the organism. Thus the unintended effect was produced of sensitizing the human organism in

a variety of ways diverse from what would have been produced by the necessary work of life.

_ Mankind was started upon its adventures of curiosity and of feeling. It is evident that, according to this account,

religion and play have the same origin in ritual. This is because ritual is the stimulus to emotion, and an habitual ritual may diverge

into religion or into play, according to the

quality of the emotion excited. Even in [21]

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comparatively modern times, among the Greeks of the fifth century before Christ, the Olympic Games were tinged with religion, and

the Dionysiac festival in Attica ended with a

comic drama. Also in the modern world, a holy day and a holiday are kindred notions.

Ritual is not the only way of artificially stimulating emotion. Drugs are equally effec-

tive. Luckily the range of drugs at the command of primitive races was limited. But there is ample evidence of the religious use of drugs in conjunction with the religious use of

ritual. For example Atheneus tells us that among the Persians it was the religious duty

of the King, once a year, at some stated festival in honour of Mithras, to appear in the

temple intoxicated! A relic of the religious awe at intoxication is the use of wine in the Communion service. It is an example of the upward trend of ritual by which a widespread association of thought is elevated into a great symbolism, divested of its primitive grossness.

uh ee irene of deen Beck. Van nbd omy [22]

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In this primitive phase of religion, dominated by ritual and emotion, we are dealing with essentially social phenomena. Ritual is more impressive, and emotion more active, when a whole society is concerned in the same

ritual and the same emotion. Accordingly, a collective ritual and a collective emotion take their places as one of the binding forces of savage tribes. They represent the first faint

glimmerings of the life of the spirit raised beyond concentration upon the task of supply-

ing animal necessities. Conversely, religion in its decay sinks back into sociability. IV. BELIEF

Mere ritual and emotion cannot maintain themselves untouched by intellectuality. Also the abstract idea of maintaining the ritual for the sake of the emotion, though it may express the truth about the subconscious psychology of

primitive races, is far too abstract to enter into their conscious thoughts. A myth satisfies the demands of incipient rationality. Men (23)

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found themselves practising various rituals, and found the rituals generating emotions. The myth explains the purpose both of the ritual and of the emotion. It is the product of the vivid fancy of primitive men in an unfathomed world.

To primitive man, and to ourselves on our primitive side, the universe is not so much unfathomable as unfathomed—by this I mean

undiscriminated, unanalyzed. It is not a complex of definite unexplained happenings, but a dim background shot across by isolated vivid effects charged with emotional excite-

ments. The very presuppositions of a coherent rationalism are absent. Such a rationalism presupposes a complex of definite facts whose interconnections are sought. But the prior stage is a background of indefiniteness relieved by vivid acts of definition, inherently

isolated. One exception must be made in favour of the routine of tribal necessities which

are taken for granted. But what lies beyond the routine cf life 1s in general void of definition; and when it is vivid, it is disconnected. [24]

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The myth which meets the ritual is some exceptional vivid fancy, or recollection of some actual vivid fact—probably distorted in remembrance—which appears not only as explanatory both of ritual and emotion, but also as generative of emotion when conjoined with

the ritual. Thus the myth not only explains but reinforces the hidden purpose of the ritual, which is emotion.

Then rituals and emotions and myths reciprocally interact; and the myths have various grades of relationship to actual fact, and have various grades of symbolic truth as being representative of large ideas only to be apprehended in some parable. Also in some cases the myth precedes the ritual. But there

is the general fact that ritualism precedes mythology. For we can observe ritualism even among animals, and presumably they are destitute of a mythology.

A myth will involve special attention to some persons or to some things, real or imagi-

nary. ‘Thus in a sense, the ritual, as per[25]

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formed in conjunction with the explanatory purpose of the myth, is the primitive worship

of the hero-person or the hero-thing. But there can be very little disinterested worship among primitive folk—even less than now, if possible. Accordingly, the belief in the. myth will involve the belief that something is to be

got out of him or it, or that something is to be averted in respect to the evil to be feared from him or it. Thus incantation, prayer,

praise, and ritual absorption of the hero deity emerge.

If the hero be a person, we call the ritual,

with its myth, “religion”; if the hero be a thing, we cal) it “‘magic.” In religion we in-

duce, in magic we compel. The important difference between magic and religion is that magic is unprogressive and religion sometimes is progressive; except in so far as science can be

traced back to the progress of magic. Religion, in this stage of belief, marks a new

formative agent in the ascent of man. For just as ritual encouraged emotion beyond the [26]

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mere response to practical necessities, so re-

ligion in this further stage begets thoughts divorced from the mere battling with the pressure of circumstances. Imagination secured in it a machinery for its development; thought has been thereby led beyond the immediate objects in sight. Its concepts may in these early stages be crude and horrible;

but they have the supreme virtue of being concepts of objects beyond immediate sense and perception.

This is the stage of uncoordinated beliefs.

So far as this is the dominant phase there can be a curious tolerance, in that one cult does not war upon another cult. Since there is a minimum of coordination, there is room

for all. But religion is still a thoroughly social phenomenon. The cult includes the tribe, or at least it includes some well-defined body of persons within the social organism.

You may not desert your own cults, but there need be no clash between cults. In the

higher stages of such a religion there are [27]

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tribal gods, or many gods within a tribe, with the loosest coordination of cults and myths. Though religion can be a source of progress, it need not be so, especially when its dominant

feature is this stage of uncriticized belief. It is easy for a tribe to stabilize its ritual and its myths, and there need be no external spur

to progress. In fact, this is the stage of religious evolution in which the masses of semi-civilized humanity have halted—the stage

of satisfactory ritual and of satisfied belief without impulse towards higher things. Such religion satisfies the pragmatic test: It works,

and thereby claims that it be awarded the prize for truth. V. RATIONALISM

The age of martyrs dawns with the coming

of rationalism. The antecedent phases of religion had been essentially sociable. Many were called, and all were chosen. The final

phase introduces the note of solitariness: “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way,... [28]

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and few there be that find it.” When a modern religion forgets this saying, it is suffer-

ing from an atavistic relapse into primitive barbarism. It is appealing to the psychology of the herd, away from the intuitions of the few.

The religious epoch which we are now con-

sidering is very modern. Its past duration is of the order of six thousand years. Of course exact dates do not count; you can extend the epoch further back into the past in order to include some faint anticipatory movement, or you can contract its duration so as to exclude flourishing survivals of the earlier phase. The movement has extended over all the civilized races of Asia and Europe. In the past Asia has proved the most fertile in ideas, but within the last two thousand years Europe has given the movement a new aspect. It is to be noted that the two most perfect examples of rationalistic religions have flourished chiefly in countries foreign to the races among which they had their origin. The Bible is by far the most complete ac[29]

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count of the coming of rationalism into religion, based on the earliest documents available. Viewed as such an account, it is only relevant to the region between the Tigris

and the Nile. It exhibits the note of progressive solitariness in the religious idea: first, types of thought generally prevalent; then protesting prophets, isolated figures of denunciation and exhortation stirring the Jew-

ish nation; then one man, with twelve disciples, who met with almost complete national

rejection; then the adaptation for popular survival of this latter doctrine by another man

who, very significantly, had no first-hand contact with the original teaching. In his hands, something was added and something was

lost; but fortunately the Gospels also survive. It is evident that I have drawn attention to

the span of six thousand years because, in addition to being reasonable when we have regard to all the evidence, it corresponds to the chronology of the Bible. We—in Europe and America—are the heirs of the religious (30)

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movements depicted in that collection of books. Discussion on the methods of religion

and their justification must, in order to be relevant, base itself upon the Bible for illustration. We must remember, however, that Buddhism and Mahometanism, among others, must also be included in the scope of general statements, even if they are not explicitly referred to.

Rational religion is religion whose beliefs and rituals have been reorganized with the aim of making it the central element in a coherent ordering of life—an ordering which shall be coherent both in respect to the eluci-

dation of thought, and in respect to the direction of conduct towards a unified purpose commanding ethical approval.

The peculiar position of religion is that it stands between abstract metaphysics and the particular principles applying to only some among the experiences of life. The relevance of its concepts can only be distinctly discerned in moments of insight, and then, for many of us, only after suggestion from without. Hence [31]

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religion bases itself primarily upon a smal] selection from the common experiences of the

race. On this side, religion ranges itself as one among other specialized interests of mankind whose truths are of limited validity. But on its other side, religion claims that its concepts, though derived primarily from special experiences, are yet of universal validity, to be

applied by faith to the ordering of all experience.

Rational religion appeals to the direct intuition of special occasions, and to the elucidatory power of its concepts for all occasions.

It arises from that which is special, but it extends to what is general. The doctrines of rational religion aim at being that metaphysics

which can be derived from the supernormal

experience of mankind in its moments of finest insight. Theoretically, rational religion could have arisen in complete independence of

the antecedent social religions of ritual and mythical belief. Before the historical sense had established itself, that was the way in [32]

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which the apologetic theologians tended to exhibit the origins of their respective religions. But the general history of religion, and in par-

ticular that portion of its history contained in

the Bible, decisively negatives that view. Rational religion emerged as a gradual transformation of the preéxisting religious forms. Finally, the old forms could no longer contain

the ncw ideas, and the modern religions of civilization are traceable to definite crises in this process of development. But the development was not then ended; it had only acquired more suitable forms for self-expression.

The emergence of rational religion was strictly conditioned by the general progress of the races in which it arose. It had to wait for the development in human consciousness of the relevant general ideas and of the relevant ethical intuitions. It required that such ideas should not merely be casually entertained by isolated individuals, but that they should be stabilized in recognizable forms of expression, so as to be recalled and communi[33]

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cated. You can only speak of mercy among a

people who, in some respects, are already merciful.

A language is not a universal mode of expressing all ideas whatsoever. It is a limited

mode of expressing such ideas as have been frequently entertained, and urgently needed, by the group of human beings who developed

that mode of speech. It is only during a comparatively short period of human history that there has existed any language with an adequate stock of general terms. Such general terms require a permanent literature to define them by their mode of employment.

The result is that the free handling of general ideas is a late acquirement. J am not maintaining that the brains of men were in-

adequate for the task. The point is that it took ages for them to develop first the appliances and then the habits which made general-

ity of thought possible and prevalent. For ages, existing languages must have been ready

for development. If men had been in contact [34]

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with a superior race, either personally or by a

survival of their literature, a process which requires scores or even hundreds of generations

might have been antedated, so as to have been effected almost at once. Such, in fact, was the later history of the development of the races of Northern Europe. Again, a social system which encourages developments of thought can procure the advent. This is the way in which the result was first obtained. Society and language grew together.

The influence of the antecedent type of religion, ceremonial, mythical, and sociable,

has been great; and the estimates as to its value diverse. During the thousand years preceding the Christian era, there was a pecul-

iarly intense struggle on the part of rational-

ism to transform the more primitive type. The issue was a new synthesis which, in the forms of the various great religions, has lasted

to the present day. A rational generality was introduced into the religious ideas; and the myth, when retained, was reorganized with [35]

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the intention of making it an account of verifiable historical circumstances which exem-

plified the general ideas with adequate perfection.

Thus rational criticism was admitted in principle. The appeal was from the tribal custom to the direct individual intuition, ethical, metaphysical, or logical: “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings,”

are words which Hosea ascribes to Jehovah; and he thereby employs the principles of individual criticism of tribal custom, and bases it. upon direct ethical intuition. In this way the religions evolved towards more individualistic forn.s, shedding their exclusively communal aspect. The individual became the religious unit in the place of the community; the tribal dance lost its importance compared to the individual prayer; and, for the few, the individual prayer merged into justification through individual insight. So to-day it is not France which goes to [36]

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heaven, but individual Frenchmen; and it is not China which attains nirvana, but Chinamen.

During this epoch of struggle—as in most religious struggles—the judgments passed by the innovators on the less-developed religious forms were very severe. The condemnation of

idolatry pervades the Bible; and there are traces of a recoil which go further: “I hate, I despise your feast days,” writes Amos, speaking in the name of Jehovah.

Such criticism is wanted. Indeed history, down to the present day, is a melancholy

record of the horrors which can attend

religion: human sacrifice, and in particular the slaughter of children, cannibalism, sensual orgies, abject superstition, hatred as between races, the maintenance of degrading customs, hysteria, bigotry, can all be laid at its charge. Religion ts the last refuge of human savagery.

The uncritical association of religion with goodness is directly negatived by plain facts.

Religion can be, and has been, the main [37]

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instrument for progress. But if we survey the whole race, we must pronounce that generally

it has not been so: ‘“‘Many are called, but few are chosen.” VI. THE ASCENT OF MAN

At different epochs in history new factors emerge and successively assume decisive importance in their influence on the ascent, or the descent, of races of mankind. Within the millennium preceding the birth of Christ, the communal religions were ceasing to be engines

of progress. On the whole, they had served humanity well. By their agency, the sense of social unity and of social responsibility had been quickened. The common cult gave expression to the emotion of being a hundred per cent tribal. The explicit emotions of a life finding its interest in activities not directed to its own preservation were fostered by

them. Also they produced concrete beliefs which embodied, however waveringly, the justification for these emotions.

But at a certain stage in history, though [38]

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still elements in the preservation of the social structure, they ceased to be engines of progress. ‘Their work was done. They were salving the old virtues which had

made the race the great society that: it had been, and were not straining forward towards the new virtues to make the common life the

City of God that it should be. They were religions of the average, and the average is at war with the ideal.

Human thought had broken through the limited horizon of the one social structure. The

world as a whole entered into the explicit consciousness. The facility for individual wandering in comparative safety produced this enlargement of thought. A tribe which is wandering as a unit amid dangers may pick up new ideas, but it will strengthen its sense of tribal unity in the face of a hostile environment.

But an individual who travels meets strangers on terms of kindliness. He returns home,

and in his person and by his example pro[39]

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motes the habit of thinking dispassionately

beyond the tribe. The history of rational religion is full of tales of disengagement from

the immediate social routine. If we keep to the Bible: Abraham wandered, the Jews were carried off to Babylon and after two genera-

tions were allowed to return peacefully, St. Paul’s conversion was on a journey, and his theology was elaborated amid travels. This millennium was an age of travel; among the Greeks, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Xeno-

phon, Aristotle, exemplify their times. The great empires and trading facilities made travel-

ling easy; everyone travelled and found the world fresh and new. A _ world-consciousness was produced.

In India and China the growth of a worldconsciousness was different in its details, but in its essence depended on the same factors. Individuals were disengaged from their immediate social setting in ways which promoted thought. Now, so far as concerns religion, the distinc[40}

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tion of a world-consciousness as contrasted _ with a social consciousness is the change of

emphasis in the concept of rightness. A social consciousness concerns people whom you

know and love individually. Hence, rightness is mixed up with the notion of preservation. Conduct is right which will lead some god to

protect you; and it is wrong if it stirs some irascible being to compass your destruction. Such religion is a branch of diplomacy. But a world-consciousness is more disengaged. It rises to the conception of an essential rightness

of things. The individuals are indifferent, because unknown. The new, and almost profane, concept of the goodness of God replaces the older emphasis on the will of God.

In a communal religion you study the will of God in order that He may preserve you; in a purified religion, rationalized under the influence of the world-concept, you study his good-

ness in order to be like him. It is the

difference between the enemy you conciliate and the companion whom you imitate. (41]

RELIGION IN THE MAKING VII. THE FINAL CONTRAST

A survey of religious history has disclosed

that the coming of rational religion is the consequence of the growth of a world-consciousness. ‘The later phases of the antecedent

communal type of religion are dominated by the conscious reaction of human nature to the

social organization in which it finds itself. Such reaction is partly emotion clothing itself in belief and ritual, and partly reason justifying practice by the test of social preservation. Rational religion is the wider conscious reaction of men to the universe in which they find themselves.

Communal religion broadened itself to the

verge of rationalism. In its last stages in the Western World we find the religion of the Roman Empire, in which the widest possible

view of the social structure is adopted. The cult of the Empire was the sort of religion which might be constructed to-day by the Law School of a University, laudably impressed by [42]

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the notion that mere penal repression is not the way to avert a crime wave. Indeed, if we study the mentality of the Emperor Augustus and of the men who surrounded him, this is not far off from the true description of its final step in evolution.

Another type of modified communal religion was reached by the Jews. Their religion embodied general ideas as to the nature of things which were entirely expressed in terms of their relevance to the Jewish race. This compromise was very effective, but very unstable. It is a type of religious settlement to which communities are always reverting. In the modern world it is the religion of emotional statesmen, captains of industry, and social reformers. In the case of the Jews the

crises to which it led were the birth of

Christianity, and the forcible dispersion of the

Jews by the military might of Rome. The same type of religion in our generation was one of the factors which led to the great war. It leads to the morbid exaggeration of national [43]

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self-consciousness. It lacks the element of quietism. Generality is the salt of religion. When Christianity had established itself throughout the Roman Empire and its neigh-

bourhood, there were before the world two main rational religions, Buddhism and Christianity. There were, of course, many rivals to both of them in their respective regions; but if we have regard to clarity of idea, generality

of thought, moral respectability, survival power, and width of extension over the world, then for their combination of all these quali-

ties these religions stood out beyond their competitors. Later their position was chal. lenged by the Mahometans. But even to-day, the two Catholic religions of civilization are Christianity and Buddhism, and—if we are to judge by the comparison of their position now with what it has been—both of them are

in decay. They have lost their ancient hold upon the world.

[44J

Ij RELIGION AND DOGMA

Il RELIGION AND DOGMA I. THE RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS IN HISTORY

The great rational religions are the outcome of the emergence of a religious consciousness which is universal, as distinguished from tri-

bal, or even social. Because it is universal, it introduces the note of solitariness. Religion is what the individual does with his solitariness.

The reason of this connection between universality and solitariness is that universality is a disconnection from immediate sur-

roundings. It is an endeavour to find something permanent and intelligible by which to interpret the confusion of immediate detail.

This element of detachment in religion 1s more particularly exhibited in the great re[47]

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flective books of the Old Testament. In this group of books we find a conscious search

after general principles. In other books, current ideas are assumed and are applied to the troubles of what was then the immediate present. Such books exemplify the state of thought of their times as in controversy, but they do not exhibit a process of reflective formation.

In the reflective books the effort is not to reform society, or even to express religious emotion. ‘There is a self-conscious endeavour to apprehend some general principles. In the book of Job we find the picture of a man suffering from an almost fantastic array

of the evils characteristic of his times. He is tearing to pieces the sophism that all is for the best in the best of possible worlds, and that the justice of God is beautifully evident in everything that happens. The essence of the book of Job is the contrast of a general principle, or dogma, and the particular circum-

stances to which it should apply. There is also throughout the book the undercurrent of [48]

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fear lest an old-fashioned tribal god might take offense at this rational criticism. No religion which faces facts can minimize

the evil in the world, not merely the moral

evil, but the pain and the suffering. The book of Job is the revolt against the facile solution, so esteemed by fortunate people, that the sufferer is the evil person. Both the great religions, Christianity and Buddhism, have their separate set of dogmas

which deal with this great question. It is in respect to the problem of evil that one great divergence between them exists. Buddhism finds evil essential in the very nature of the world of physical and emotional experience. The wisdom which it inculcates is, therefore,

so to conduct life as to gain a release from the individual personality which is the vehicle for such experience. The Gospel which

it preaches is the method by which this release can be obtained.

One metaphysical fact about the nature of things which it presupposes is that this re[49]

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lease is not to be obtained by mere physica] death. Buddhism is the most colossal example in history of applied metaphysics.

Christianity took the opposite road. It has always been a religion seeking a metaphysic,

in contrast to Buddhism which is a metaphysic generating a religion. The defect of a metaphysical system is the very fact that it

is a neat little system of thought, which thereby over-simplifies its expression of the

world. Christianity has, in its_ historical development, struggled with another difhculty, namely, the fact that it has no clear-cut separation from the crude fancies of the older tribal religions.

But Christianity has one advantage. It is difficult to develop Buddhism, because Buddhism starts with a clear metaphysical notion

and with the doctrines which flow from it. Christianity has retained the easy power of development. It starts with a tremendous notion about the world. But this notion is not derived from a metaphysical doctrine, but

from our comprehension of the sayings and (50)

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actions of certain supreme lives. It is the genius of the religion to point at the facts and

ask for their systematic interpretation. In the Sermon on the Mount, in the Parables, and in their accounts of Christ, the Gospels exhibit a tremendous fact. The doctrine may, or may not, lie on the surface. But what is

primary is the religious fact. The Buddha left a tremendous doctrine. The _ historical facts about him are subsidiary to the doctrine.

In respect to its treatment of evil, Christianity is, therefore, less clear in its metaphysical ideas, but more inclusive of the facts.

In the first place, it admits the evil as inherent throughout the world. But it holds that such evil is not the necessary outcome of the very fact of individual personality. It derives the evil from the contingent fact of the actual course of events; it thus allows of an ideal as conceivable in terms of what is actual.

Christianity, like Buddhism, preaches a doctrine of escape. It proclaims a doctrine whereby, through the treatment of evil, life is (51]

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placed on a finer level. It overcomes evil with good. Buddhism makes itself probable by referring to its metaphysical theory. Christianity makes itself probable by referring to supreme religious moments in history.

Thus in respect to this crucial question of evil, Buddhism and Christianity are in entirely

different attitudes in respect to doctrine. Buddhism starts with the elucidatory dogmas; Christianity starts with the elucidatory facts. The problem of evil is only one among the

interests of ational religious thought. Another is the search after wisdom. In the Book of Proverbs, in Ecclesiastes, and, among the books of the Apocrypha, in the Wisdom of

Solomon, and in Ecclesiasticus, we find the

record of reflection upon general principles embodied in proverbs, reflective, witty, and homely.

The search after wisdom has its origin in generalizations from experience;

Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die: [52]

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Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me:

Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain!

(Proverbs xxx. 7, 8, 9.)

The habit of reading the more exciting denunciations of the prophets is apt to conceal from us the amount of detached, middle-class common sense which also contributed to the

religious tradition of the Jews. There is a keen appreciation of actual fact, even when

the moral is not over-clear. For example: I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

(Ecclesiastes ix. 11.) [53]

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These two quotations express incontestable general truths, verified by the cynical wisdom

of ages; and yet they are religion at a very low temperature. The point, thus illustrated, is that a rational religion must not confine itself to moments of emotional excitement. It must find its verification at all tempera-

tures. It must admit the wisdom of the golden mean, in its season and for those whom

it can claim by right of possession; and it must admit “‘that time and chance happeneth to them all.” The collection of Psalms is not properly a

reflective book. It is an expressive book. It expresses the emotions natural to states of mind hovering between a universal and a tribal religious conception. There is joy in the creative energy of a supreme ruler who is

also a tribal champion. There is the glorification of power, magnificent and barbaric: The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. [54]

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Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. (Psalms xxiv.)

Magnificent literature! But there is no solution here of the difficulties which haunted Job.

This worship of glory arising from power is not only dangerous: it arises from a barbaric conception of God. J suppose that even the world itself could not contain the bones of those

slaughtered because of men intoxicated by its

attraction. This view of the universe, in the guise of an Eastern empire ruled by a glorious

tyrant, may have served its purpose. In its historical setting, it marks a religious ascent. The psalm quoted gives us its noblest expression. The other side comes out in the psalms expressing hate, psalms now generally withdrawn from public worship. The glorification of power has broken more hearts than it has healed.

Buddhism and Christianity find their origins respectively in two inspired moments of (55]

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history: the life of the Buddha, and the life of Christ. The Buddha gave his doctrine to enlighten the world: Christ gave his life. It is for Christians to discern the doctrine. Perhaps in the end the most valuable part of the doctrine of the Buddha is its interpretation of his life.

We do not possess a systematic detailed record of the life of Christ; but we do possess a peculiarly vivid record of the first response to it in the minds of the first group of his disciples after the lapse of some years, with their recollections, interpretations, and incipient formularizations.

What we find depicted is a thoroughgoing rationalization of the Jewish religion carried through with a boundless naiveté, and mo-

tived by a first-hand intuition into the nature of things.

The reported sayings of Christ are not formularized thought. They are descriptions of direct insight. The ideas are in his mind as {56]

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immediate pictures, and not as analyzed in terms of abstract concepts. He _ sees intuitively the relations between good men and bad men; his expressions are not cast into the form of an analysis of the goodness and badness of man. His sayings are actions and not adjustments of concepts. He speaks

in the lowest abstractions that language is capable of, if it is to be language at all and not. the fact itself.

In the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Parables, there is no reasoning about the facts. They are seen with immeasurable innocence. Christ represents rationalism derived from direct intuition and divorced from dialectics.

The life of Christ is not an exhibition of over-ruling power. Its glory is for those who

can discern it, and not for the world. Its power lies in its absence of force. It has the decisiveness of a supreme ideal, and that

is why the history of the world divides at this point of time. (57)

RELIGION IN THE MAKING II. THE DESCRIPTION OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

The dogmas of religion are the attempts to

formulate in precise terms the truths disclosed in the religious experience of mankind.

In exactly the same way the dogmas of physical science are the attempts to formulate in precise terms the truths disclosed in the sense-perception of mankind.

In the previous section we have been considering religious experience in the concrete; we have now to define its general character. Some general descriptions of religion were

given in the former lecture. It was stated that “Religion is force of belief cleansing the inward parts”; and again, that “Religion

is the art and theory of the internal life of man, so far as it depends on the man himself, and on what is permanent in the nature of things’: and again, “Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness.”’ This point of the origin of rational religion in solitariness is fundamental. Religion 18 [58]

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founded on the concurrence of three allied concepts in one moment of self-consciousness, concepts whose separate relationships to fact

and whose mutual relations to each other are

only to be settled jointly by some direct intuition into the ultimate character of the universe.

These concepts are:

1. That of the value of an individual for itself.

2. That of the value of the diverse individuals of the world for each other. 3. That of the value of the objective world which is a community derivative from the interrelations of its component individuals, and also necessary for the existence of each of these individuals. The moment of religious consciousness starts

from self-valuation, but it broadens into the concept of the world as a realm of adjusted values, mutually intensifying or mu-

tually destructive. The intuition into the actual world gives a particular definite con[59]

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tent to the bare notion of a principle determining the grading of values. It also exhibits emotions, purposes, and physical conditions,

as subservient factors in the emergence of value.

In its solitariness the spirit asks, What, in the way of value, is the attainment of lifep And it can find no such value till it has merged its individual claim with that of the objective universe. Religion is worldloyalty.

The spirit at once surrenders itself to this universal claim and appropriates it for itself.

So far as it is dominated by religious experience, life is conditioned by this formative principle, equally individual and general,

equally actual and beyond completed act, equally compelling recognition and _ permissive of disregard.

This principle is not a dogmatic formulation, but the intuition of immediate occasions as failing or succeeding in reference to the ideal relevant to them. ‘There is a rightness [60]

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attained or missed, with more or less completeness of attainment or omission.

This is a revelation of character, apprehended as we apprehend the characters of our friends. But in this case it is an apprehension of character permanently inherent in the nature of things. There is a large concurrence in the nega-

tive doctrine that this religious experience does not include any direct intuition of a definite person, or individual. It is a character of permanent rightness, whose inherence

in the nature of things modifies both efficient and final cause, so that the one conforms to harmonious conditions, and _ the other contrasts itself with an harmonious

ideal. The harmony in the actual world is conformity with the character.

It is not true that every individual item of the universe conforms to this character in every detail. There will be some measure of conformity and some measure of diversity. The whole intuition of conformity and di[61]

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versity forms the contrast which that item yields for the religious experience. So far as the conformity is incomplete, there is evil in the world. The evidence for the assertion of general,

though not universal, concurrence in the doctrine of no direct vision of a personal God, can only be found by a consideration

of the religious thought in the civilized world. Here the sources of the evidence can only be indicated. Throughout India and China _ religious thought, so far as it has been interpreted in precise form, disclaims the intuition of any ultimate personality substantial to the universe. This is true for Confucian philosophy, Buddhist philosophy, and Hindoo philosophy. There may be personal embodiments, but the substratum is impersonal.

Christian theology has also, in the main, adopted the position that there is no direct intuition of such an ultimate personal sub-

stratum for the world. It maintains the [62]

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doctrine of the existence of a personal God as a truth, but holds that our belief in it 1s based upon inference. Most theologians hold that this inference is sufficiently obvious to be made by all men upon the basis of their individual personal experience. But, be this as it may, it is an inference and not a direct

intuition. This is the general doctrine of those traditionalist churches which more especially claim the title of Catholic; and contrary doctrines have, I believe, been offh-

cially condemned by the Roman Catholic Church: for example, the religious philosophy of Rosmini. Greek thought, when it began to scrutinize

the traditional cults, took the same line. In some form or other all attempts to formulate the doctrines of a rational religion in ancient Greece took their stand upon the Pythagorean notion of a direct intuition of a righteousness

in the nature of things, functioning as a condition, a critic, and an ideal. Divine personality was in the nature of an inference [63]

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from the directly apprehended law of nature,

so far as it was inferred. Of course, there were many cults of divine persons within the nature of things. The question in discussion

concerns a divine person, substrate to the nature of things.

This question of the ultimate nature of direct religious experience is very funda-

mental to the religious situation of the modern world. In the first place, if you make religious experience to be the direct intuition of a personal being substrate to the universe, there is no widespread basis of agreement to appeal to. The main streams of religious thought start with direct contra-

dictions to each other. For those who proceed in this way, and it is a usual form of

modern appeal, there is only one hope—to supersede reason by emotion. Then you can prove anything, except to reasonable people. But reason is the safeguard of the objectivity of religion: it secures for it the general coherence denied to hysteria.

Another objection against this appeal to [64]

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such an intuition, merely experienced in exceptional moments, is that the intuition is thereby a function of these moments. Anything which explains the origin of such moments, in respect to their emotional accompaniments, can then fairly be taken to be an explanation of the intuition. Thus the intuition becomes a private psychological habit, and is without general evidential force. This is the psychological interpretation which

is fatal to evidence unable to maintain itself at all emotional temperatures amid great variety of environment.

Here a distinction must be drawn. In-

tuitions may first emerge as distinguished in

consciousness under exceptional circumstances. But when some distinct idea has been once experienced, or suggested, it should

then have its own independence of irrele-

vancies. Thus we may not know some arithmetical truth, and require some excep-

tional help to detect it. But when known, arithmetic is a permanent possession. The psychological interpretation, assigning a merely [65]

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personal significance, holds when objective validity is claimed for an intuition which is only experienced in a set of discrete circumstances of definite specific character. The intuition may be clearer under such circumstances, but it should not be confined to them. The wisdom of the main stream of Christian theology in refusing to countenance the notion

of a direct vision of a personal God is mani-

fest. For there is no consensus. The subordinate gods of the unrationalized religions— the religions of the heathen, as they are called

—are not to the point; and when the great rationalized religions are examined, the major-

ity lies the other way. As soon, however, as it comes to a question of rational interpretation, numbers rapidly sink in importance. Reason mocks at majorities.

But there is a large consensus, on the part of those who have rationalized their outlook, in favour of the concept of a rightness in things, partially conformed to and

partially disregarded. So far as there is [66]

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conscious determination of actions, the attainment of this conformity is an ultimate premise by reference to which our choice of immediate ends is criticised and swayed, The rational satisfaction or dissatisfaction in respect to any particular happening depends upon an intuition which is capable of being universalized. This universalization of what is discerned in a particular instance is the appeal to a general character inherent in the nature of things.

This intuition is not the discernment of a form of words, but of a type of character.

It is characteristic of the learned mind to exalt words. Yet mothers can ponder many things in their hearts which their lips cannot express. ‘These many things, which are thus known, constitute the ultimate religious evidence, beyond which there is no appeal. III. GOD

To-day there is but one religious dogma in

debate: What do you mean by ‘“God’? [67]

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And in this respect, to-day is like all its yesterdays. This is the fundamental relligious dogma, and all other dogmas are subsidiary to it. There are three main simple renderings of ' this concept before the world: 1. The Eastern Asiatic concept of an

impersonal order to which the world conforms. ‘This order is the self-ordering of the world; it is not the world obeying an imposed rule. The concept expresses the extreme doctrine of immanence.

2. The Semitic concept of a definite personal individual entity, whose existence is the one ultimate metaphysical fact, absolute and underivative, and who

decreed and ordered the derivative existence which we call the actual world. This Semitic concept is the rationaliza-

tion of the tribal gods of the earlier communal religions. It expresses the extreme doctrine of transcendence. 3. The Pantheistic concept of an entity [68]

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to be described in the terms of the Semitic concept, except that the actual world is a phase within the complete

fact which is this ultimate individual entity. The actual world, conceived

apart from God, is unreal. Its only reality is God’s reality. The actual world has the reality of being a partial description of what God is. But in itself it is merely a certain mutuality of “appearance,” which is a phase of the being of God. This is the extreme doctrine of monism.

It will be noticed that the Eastern Asiatic concept and the Pantheistic concept invert each other. According to the former concept, when we speak of God we are saying something about the world; and according to the latter concept, when we speak of the world we are saying something about God.

The Semitic concept and the Eastern Asi-

atic concept are directly opposed to each other, and any mediation between them must [69]

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lead to complexity of thought. It is evident that the Semitic concept can very easily pass over into the Pantheistic concept. In fact, the history of philosophical theology in various Mahometan countries—Persia, for instance—

shows that this passage has often been effected.

The main difficulties which the Semitic

concept has to struggle with are two in number. One of them is that it leaves God completely outside metaphysical rationaliza-

tion. We know, according to it, that He is such a being as to design and create this universe, and there our knowledge stops. If we mean by his goodness that He is the one

self-existent, complete entity, then He is good. But such goodness must not be confused with the ordinary goodness of daily life. He is undeniably useful, because anything baffling can be ascribed to his direct decree.

The second difficulty of the concept is to get itself proved. The only possible proof [70]

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would appear to be the “ontological proof” devised by Anselm, and revived by Descartes.

According to this proof, the mere concept of such an entity allows us to infer its existence. Most philosophers and theologians reject this proof: for example, it 1s explicitly rejected by Cardinal Mercier in his Manual of Scholastic Philosophy.

Any proof which commences with the consideration of the character of the actual world cannot rise above the actuality of this world. It can only discover all the factors disclosed in the world as experienced. In other words, it may discover an immanent God, but not a God wholly transcendent.

The difficulty can be put in this way: by considering the world we can find all the factors required by the total metaphysical situation; but we cannot discover anything not included in this totality of actual fact, and yet explanatory of it. Christianity has not adopted any one of these clear alternatives. It has been true to [71]

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its genius for keeping its metaphysics subordinate to the religious facts to which it appeals.

In the first place, it inherited the simple Semitic concept. All its founders naturally expressed themselves in those terms, and were

addressing themselves to an audience who couid only understand religion thus expressed. But even here important qualifications have

to be made. Christ himself introduces them.

How far they were then new, or how far he is utilizing antecedent thoughts, is immaterial. The point is the decisive emphasis

the notions receive in his teaching. The first point is the association of God with the Kingdom of Heaven, coupled with the expla-

nation that “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” The second point is the concept of God under the metaphor of a Father.

The implications of this latter notion are expanded with moving insistence in the two

Epistles by St. John, the author of the [72]

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Gospel. To him we owe the phrase, “God is love.”

Finally, in the Gospel of St. John, by the introduction of the doctrine of the Logos, a clear move is made towards the modification

of the notion of the unequivocal personal unity of the Semitic God. Indeed, for most Christian Churches, the simple Semitic doctrine is now a heresy, both by reason of the modification of personal unity and also by the insistence on immanence. The notion of immanence must be discrimi-

nated from that of omniscience. The Semitic

God is omniscient; but, in addition to that,

the Christian God is a factor in the universe. A few years ago a papyrus was found in an Egyptian tomb which proved to

be an early Christian compilation called “The Sayings of Christ.” Its exact authenticity and its exact authority do not concern

us. I am quoting it as evidence of the mentality of many Christians in Egypt during

the first few Christian centuries. At that [73]

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date Egypt supplied the theological leaders of

Christian thought. We find in these Logia of Christ the saying, “Cleave the wood, and I am there.” This is merely one example of an emphatic assertion of immanence, and shows a serious divergence from the Semitic concept.

Immanence is a well-known modern doc-

trine. The points to be noticed are that it is implicit in various parts of the New Testament, and was explicit in the first theological

epoch of Christianity. Christian theology was then Platonic; it followed John rather than Paul. IV. THE QUEST OF GOD

The modern world has lost God and is

seeking him. The reason for the loss stretches far back in the history of Christianity. In respect to its doctrine of God the Church gradually returned to the Semitic concept, with the addition of the threefold personality. It is a concept which is clear, [74]

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terrifying, and unprovable. It was supported

by an unquestioned religious tradition. It was also supported by the conservative instinct of society, and by a history and a metaphysic both constructed expressly for that purpose. Moreover, to dissent was death.

On the whole, the Gospel of love was turned into a Gospel of fear. The Christian world was composed of terrified populations.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,” says the Proverb (1.7). Yet this is

an odd saying, if it be true that ‘“‘God is love.”

“In flaming fire taking vengeance on

them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel ef our Lord Jesus Christ’; says Paul. “Who shall be punished with everlasting

destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.” (II Thessalonians 1. 8, 9.) [75]

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The populations did well to be terrified at such ambiguous good tidings, which lost no emphasis in their promulgation.

If the modern world is to find God, it must find him through love and not through fear, with the help of John and not of Paul, Such a conclusion is true and represents a commonplace of modern thought. But it is only a very superficial rendering of the facts.

As a rebound from dogmatic intolerance, the simplicity of religious truth has been a favorite axiom of liberalizing theologians. It is difficult to understand upon what evidence this notion is based. In the physical world as science advances, we discern a complexity

of interrelations. There is a certain simplicity of dominant ideas, but modern physics does not disclose a simple world. To reduce religion to a few simple notions

seems an arbitrary solution of the problem

before us. It may be common sense; but is it true? In view of the horrors produced by bigotry, it is natural for sensitive thinkers

to minimize religious dogmas. But such

[76] .

pragmatic reasons are dangerous guides.

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This procedure ends by basing religion on those few ideas which in the circumstances of

the time are most effective in producing pleasing emotions and agreeable conduct. If our trust is in the ultimate power of reason as a discipline for the discernment of truth,

we have no right to impose such a priori conditions. All simplifications of religious dogma are shipwrecked upon the rock of the problem of evil. As a particular application, we may believe

that the various doctrines about God have not suffered chiefly from their complexity. They have represented extremes of simplicity,

so far as they have been formulated for the great rationalistic religions. The three extremes of simple notions should not represent in our eyes mutually exclusive concepts, from among which we are to choose one and reject the others.

It cannot be true that contradictory no-

tions can apply to the same fact. Thus reconcilement of these cantrary concepts must [77]

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be sought in a more searching analysis of the

meaning of the terms in which they are phrased.

The man who refused to admit that two and two make four, until he knew what use was to be

made of this premise, had some justification.

At a certain abstract level of thought, such statements are absolutely true. But once you desert that level, you admit fundamental transformations of meaning. Language cloaks

the most. profound ideas under its simplest words. For example, in “two and two make four,” the words ‘“‘and” and “‘make”’ entirely depend for their meaning upon the application

which you are giving to the statement. Analogously, in expressing our conception of

God, words such as “personal”? and “impersonal,” “entity,” ‘“‘individuality,”’ ‘“‘actual,” require the closest careful watching, lest in dif-

ferent connections we should use them in different senses, not to speak of the danger of failing to use them in any determinate sense. But it is impossible to fix the sense of fundamental terms except by reference to some (78)

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definite metaphysical way of conceiving the most penetrating description of the universe.

Thus rational religion must have recourse to metaphysics for a scrutiny of its terms. At the same time it contributes its own 1independent evidence, which metaphysics must take account of in framing its description. This mutual dependence is illustrated in all topics. For example, I have mentioned above that in modern Europe history and metaphysics have been constructed with the purpose of

supporting the Semitic concept of God. To some extent this is justifiable, because both history and metaphysics must presuppose some canons by which to guide themselves.

The result is that you cannot confine any important reorganization to one sphere of thought above. You cannot shelter theology from science, or science from theology; nor can you shelter either of them from metaphysics, or metaphysics from either of them. There is no short cut to truth. Religion, therefore, while in the framing of dogmas it must admit modifications from the

[79] |

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complete circle of our knov ‘edge, still brings its own contribution of immediate experience.

That contribution is in the first place the recognition that our existence is more than a succession of bare facts. We live in a common

world of mutual adjustment, of intelligible relations, of valuations, of zest after purposes,

of joy and grief, of interest concentrated on self, of interest directed beyond self, of shorttime and long-time failures or successes, of different layers of feeling, of life-weariness and of life-zest.

There is a quality of life which lies always beyond the mere fact of life; and when we include the quality in the fact, there is still

omitted the quality of the quality. It is not true that the finer quality is the direct associate of obvious happiness or obvious pleasure.

Religion is the direct apprehension that, beyond such happiness and such pleasure, there remains the function of what is actual and passing, that it contributes its quality as an immortal fact to the order which informs the world. [80]

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BODY AND SPIRIT

Ill BODY AND SPIRIT I. RELIGION AND METAPHYSICS

Religion requires a metaphysical backing; for its authority is endangered by the intensity

of the emotions which it generates. Such emotions are evidence of some vivid experience; but they are a very poor guarantee for its correct interpretation. Thus dispassionate criticism of religious belief is beyond all things necessary. The foundations of dogma must be laid in a rational metaphysics which criticises meanings, and endeavours to express the most general concepts adequate for the all-inclusive universe,

This position has never been seriously doubted, though in practice it is often evaded.

One of the most serious periods of neglect [83]

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occurred in the middle of the nineteenth century, through the dominance of the historical interest.

It is a curious delusion that the rock upon which our beliefs can be founded is an histori-

cal investigation. You can only interpret the past in terms of the present. The present is all that you have; and unless in this present you can find general principles which interpret

the present as including a representation of the whole community of existents, you cannot

move a step beyond your little patch of immediacy.

Thus history presupposes a metaphysic. It can be objected that we believe in the past and talk about it without settling our metaphysical principles. That is certainly the case. But you can only deduce metaphysical dogmas

from your interpretation of the past on the basis of a prior metaphysical interpretation of the present.! ‘By “metaphysics” I mean the science which seeks to discover the general ideas which are indispensably relevant to the analysis of everything that happens.

[84]

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In so far as your metaphysical beliefs are implicit, you vaguely interpret the past on the

lines of the present. But when it comes to the primary metaphysical data, the world of which you are immediately conscious is the whole datum. This criticism applies equally to a science or to a religion which hopes to justify itself without

any appeal to metaphysics. The difference is that religion is the longing of the spirit that the facts of existence should find their justification

in the nature of existence. “My soul thirsteth for God,” writes the Psalmist.

But science can leave its metaphysics implicit and retire behind our belief in the prag-

matic value of its general descriptions. If religion does that, it admits that its dogmas are merely pleasing ideas for the purpose of

stimulating its emotions. Science (at least as a temporary methodological device) can rest upon a naive faith; religion is the longing for justification. When religion ceases to seek for penetration, for clarity, tt 1m sinking back [85}

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into its lower forms. The ages of faith are the ages of rationalism. II. THE CONTRIBUTION OF RELIGION TO METAPHYSICS

In the previous lectures religious experience

was considered as a fact. It consists of a certain widespread, direct apprehension of a character exemplified in the actual universe. Such

a character includes in itself certain metaphysical presuppositions. In so far as we trust the objectivity of the religious intuitions,

to that extent we must also hold that the metaphysical doctrines are well founded.

It is for this reason that in the previous lecture the broadest view of religious experi-

ence was insisted on. If, at this stage of thought, we include points of radical divergence between the main streams, the whole evidential force is indefinitely weakened. Thus religious experience cannot be taken as contrib-

uting to metaphysics any direct evidence for [96]

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a personal God in any sense transcendent or creative.

The universe, thus disclosed, is through and

through interdependent. The body pollutes the mind, the mind pollutes the body. Physical energy sublimates itself into zeal; conversely, zeal stimulates the body. The biological ends pass into ideals of standards, and the formation of standards affects the biologi-

cal facts. The individual is formative of the society, the society is formative of the indi-

vidual. Particular evils infect the whole world, particular goods point the way of escape.

The world is at once a passing shadow and

a final fact. The shadow is passing into the fact, so as to be constitutive of it; and yet the fact is prior to the shadow. There is a kingdom of heaven prior to the actual passage of actual things, and there is the same kingdom finding its completion through the accomplishment of this passage.

But just as the kingdom of heaven trans[87]

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cends the natural world, so does this world transcend the kingdom of heaven. For the world is evil, and the kingdom is good. The kingdom is in the world, and yet not of the world.

The actual world, the world of experiencing,

and of thinking, and of physical activity, is a

community of many diverse entities; and these entities contribute to, or derogate from,

the common value of the total community. At the same time, these actual entities are, for themselves, their own value, individual and

separable. They add to the common stock and yet they suffer alone. The world is a scene of solitariness in community.

The individuality of entities is just as important as their community. The topic of religion is individuality in community. III. A METAPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

A metaphysics is a description. Its discussion so as to elucidate its accuracy is necessary, but it is foreign to the description. The [88]

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tests of accuracy are logical coherence, adequacy,

and exemplification. A metaphysical descrip-

tion takes its origin from one select field of interest. It receives its confirmation by establishing itself as adequate and as exemplified in other fields of interest. The following description is set out for immediate comparison with the deliverances of religious experience.

There are many ways of analyzing the universe, conceived as that which is compre-

hensive of all that there is. In a description it is thus necessary to correlate these different routes of analysis. First, consider the analysis

into (1) the actual world, passing in time; and (2) those elements which go to its formation.

Such formative elements are not themselves

actual and passing; they are the factors which are either non-actual or non-temporal, disclosed in the analysis of what is both actual and temporal. They constitute the formative character of 1For the application to science of this description, cf. my Science and the Modern World.

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the actual temporal world. We know nothing beyond this temporal world and the formative elements which jointly constitute its character. The temporal world and its formative elements

constitute for us the all-inclusive universe. These formative elements are:

1. The creativity whereby the actual world has its character of temporal passage to novelty. 2. The realm of ideal entities, or forms,

which are in themselves not actual, but

are such that they are exemplified in everything that is actual, according to some proportion of relevance.

3. The actual but non-temporal entity

whereby the indetermination of mere creativity is transmuted into a determinate freedom. This non-temporal actual entity 1s what men call God—the supreme God of rationalized religion.

A further elucidation of the status of these formative elements is only to be obtained by [90]

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having recourse to another mode of analysis of the actual world. The actual temporal world can be analyzed

into a multiplicity of occasions of actualization. ‘These are the primary actual units of which the temporal world is composed. Call

each such occasion an “epochal occasion.” Then the actual world is a community of epochal occasions. In the physical world each epochal occasion is a definite limited physical event, limited both as to space and time, but with time-duration as well as with its full spatial dimensions.

The epochal occasions are the primary units of the actual community, and the community is composed of the units. But each

unit has in its nature a reference to every other member of the community, so that each unit is a microcosm representing in itself the entire all-inclusive universe. These epochal occasions are the creatures. The reason for the temporal character of the actual world can now be given by reference to [91]

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the creativity and the creatures. For the creativity is not separable from its creatures. Thus the creatures remain with the creativity.

Accordingly, the creativity for a creature becomes the creativity with the creature, and

thereby passes into another phase of itself. It is now the creativity for a new creature.

Thus there is a transition of the creative action, and this transition exhibits itself, in the physical world, in the guise of routes of temporal succession.

This protean character of the creativity forbids us from conceiving it as an actual entity. For its character lacks determinateness. ; It equally prevents us from considering

the temporal world as a definite actual creature. For the temporal world is an essential incompleteness. It has not the character of a definite matter of fact, such as attaches to an event in past history, viewed from a present standpoint.

An epochal occasion is a concretion. It is [92]

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a mode in which diverse elements come to-

gether into a real unity. Apart from that concretion, these elements stand in mutual isolation. ‘Thus an actual entity is the outcome of a creative synthesis, individual and passing.

The various elements which are thus brought into unity are the other creatures and the ideal forms and God. These elements are not a mere unqualified aggregate. In such a case there could only be one creature. In the concretion the creatures are qualified by the ideal forms, and conversely the ideal forms are qualified by the creatures. Thus the epochal occasion, which is thus emergent, has in its

own nature the other creatures under the aspect of these forms, and analogously it includes the forms under the aspect of these creatures. It is thus a definite limited creature, emergent in consequence of the limitations

thus mutually imposed on each other by the elements. [93]

RELIGION IN THE MAKING IV. GOD AND THE MORAL ORDER

The inclusion of God in every creature shows itself in the determination whereby a

definite result is emergent. God is that non-temporal actuality which has to be taken account of in every creative phase. Any such

phase is determinate having regard to its antecedents, and in this determination exhibits conformity to a common order.

The boundless wealth of possibility in the

realm of abstract form would leave each creative phase still indeterminate, unable to synthesize under determinate conditions the creatures from which it springs. The definite determination which imposes ordered balance on the world requires an actual entity imposing its own unchanged consistency of character on every phase. Thus creative indetermination attains its measure of determination. A simpler metaphysic would result if we could stop at this conclusion. A complete determinism would thus mean the complete self-consistency of the [94]

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temporal world. ‘This is the conclusion of all thinkers who are inclined to trust to the adequacy of metaphysical concepts. The difficulty of this conclusion comes when

we confront the theory with the facts of the world. If the theory of complete determinism,

by reason of the necessity of conformation with the nature of God, holds true, then the evil in the world is in conformity with the nature of God. Now evil is exhibited in physical suffering,

mental suffering, and loss of the higher experience in favour of the lower experience.

The common character of all evil is that its realization in fact involves that there is some concurrent realization of a purpose towards

elimination. The purpose is to secure the avoidance of evil. The fact of the instability of evil is the moral order in the world. Evil, triumphant in its enjoyment, is so far good in itself; but beyond itself it is evil in its character of a destructive agent among things greater than itself. In the summation of the [95]

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more complete fact it has secured a descent towards nothingness, in contrast to the creativeness of what can without qualification be termed

good. Evil is positive and destructive; what is good is positive and creative.

This instability of evil does not necessarily

lead to progress. On the contrary, the evil in itself leads to the world losing forms of attainment in which that evil manifests itself. Hither ‘the species ceases to exist, or it sinks back into a stage in which it ranks below the possibility of that form of evil. For example, a species whose members are always in pain will either cease to exist, or lose the delicacy

of perception which results in that pain, or develop a finer and more subtle relationship among its bodily parts. Thus evil promotes its own elimination by destruction, or degradation, or by elevation.

But in its own nature it is unstable. It must

be noted that the state of degradation to which evil leads, when accomplished, is not in

itself evil, except by comparison with what [96]

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might have been. A hog is not an evil beast, but when a man is degraded to the level of a hog, with the accompanying atrophy of finer elements, he is no more evil than a hog. The evil of the final degradation lies in the comparison of what is with what might have been. During the process of degradation the comparison is an evil for the man himself, and at its final stage it remains an evil for others. But in this last point respecting the evil for

others, it becomes plain that, with a suffciently comprehensive view, a stable state of

final degradation is not reached. For the relationships with society and the indirect effects have to be taken into account. Also destruction when accomplished is not an evil for the thing destroyed. For there is no such

thing. Again the evil lies in the loss to the social environment. There is evil when things are at cross purposes. The contrast in the world between evil and

good is the contrast between the turbulence

of evil and the “peace which passeth all (97]

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understanding.” There is a self-preservation inherent in that which is good in itself. Its destruction may come from without but not from within. Good people of narrow sympathies are apt to be unfeeling and unprogressive, enjoying their egotistical goodness. Their case,

on a higher level, is analogous to that of the man completely degraded to a hog. They have

reached a state of stable goodness, so far as

their own interior life is concerned. This type of moral correctitude is, on a larger view, so like evil that the distinction is trivial.

Thus if God be an actual entity which enters into every creative phase and yet is above change, He must be exempt from internal inconsistency which is the note of evil. Since God is actual, He must include in himself a synthesis of the total universe. There is, therefore, in God’s nature the aspect

of the realm of forms as qualified by the world, and the aspect of the world as qualified by the forms. His completion, so that [98]

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He is exempt from transition into something

else, must mean that his nature remains self-consistent in relation to all change.

Thus God is the measure of the aesthetic

consistency of the world. There is some consistency in creative action, because it is conditioned by his immanence.

If we trace the evil in the world to the determinism derived from God, then the inconsistency in the world is derived from the con-

sistency of God. Also the incompletion in the world is derivative from the completion of God.

The temporal world exhibits two sides of

itself. On one side it exhibits an order in matter of fact, and a self-contrast with ideals, which show that its creative passage is subject

to the immanence of an unchanging actual entity. On the other side its incompletion, and its evil, show that the temporal world is to be construed in terms of additional formative elements which are not definable in the terms which are applicable to God. [99]

RELIGION IN THE MAKING V. VALUE AND THE PURPOSE OF GOD

The purpose of God is the attainment of

value in the temporal world. An active purpose is the adjustment of the present for the sake of adjustment of value in the future, immediately or remotely.

Value is inherent in actuality itself. To be

an actual entity is to have a self-interest. This self-interest is a feeling of self-valuation;

it 1s an emotional tone. The value of other things, not one’s self, is the derivative value of being elements contributing to this ultimate

self-interest. This self-interest is the interest of what one’s existence, as in that epochal occasion, comes to. It is the ultimate enjoyment of being actual.

But the actuality is the enjoyment, and this enjoyment is the experiencing of value. For an epochal occasion is a microcosm inclusive of the whole universe. This unification of the universe, whereby its various elements are combined into aspects of each other, is an atomic unit within the real world. [100)

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Such an ultimate concrete fact is of the nature of an act of perceptivity. But, if we are speaking of the non-mental facts, such perceptivity is blind. It is without reflective consciousness; it is the self-value of its own microcosmic apprehension. The self-value is the unit fact which emerges. In calling it a

perceptivity, or an apprehension, we are already analyzing it into the separate ingredients which go to form the one emergent thing.

Each actual entity is an arrangement of the whole universe, actual and ideal, whereby there is constituted that self-value which is the entity itself. Thus the epochal occasion has two sides. On one side it is a mode of creativity bringing

together the universe. This side is the occasion as the cause of itself, its own creative act. We are here conceiving the creation as

the reverse of our analysis. For in our description we are holding the elements apart; whereas in the creation they are put together.

On the other side, the occasion is the [101]

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creature. This creature is that one emergent fact. This fact is the self-value of the creative

act. But there are not two actual entities, the creativity and the creature. There is only one entity which is the self-creating creature.

The description of the variety of aspects, under which the various actual occasions enter

into each other’s natures, is the description of the various relationships within the real physical and spiritual worlds.

The mental occasion is derivative from its physical counterpart. It is also equally of the character of a perceptivity issuing into valuefeeling, but it is a reflective perceptivity. There are two routes of creative passage

from a physical occasion. One is towards another physical occasion, and the other is towards the derivative reflective occasion. The physical route links together physical occasions as successive temporal incidents in

the life of a body. The other route links this bodily life with a correlative mental life. [102]

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A mental occasion is an ultimate fact in the spiritual world, just as a physical occasion of blind perceptivity 1s an ultimate fact in the physical world. ‘There is an essential reference

from one world to the other.

There is no such thing as bare value. There is always a specific value, which is the

created unit of feeling arising out of the specific mode of concretion of the diverse elements. These different specific value-feelings are comparable amid their differences; and the ground for this comparability is what is here termed ‘“‘value.”’

This comparability grades the various oc-

casions in respect to the intensiveness of value. The zero of intensiveness means the collapse of actuality. All intensive quantity is merely the contribution of some one element in the synthesis to this one intensiveness of value.

Various occasions are thus comparable in respect to their relative depths of actuality. Occasions differ in importance of actuality. Thus [103]

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the purpose of God in the attainment of value

is in a sense a creative purpose. Apart from God, the remaining formative elements would

fail in their functions. There would be no creatures, since, apart from harmonious order,

the perceptive fusion would be a confusion neutralizing achieved feeling. Here “feeling” is used as a synonym for “‘actuality.” The adjustment is the reason for the world.

It is not the case that there is an actual world which accidentally happens to exhibit an order of nature. There is an actual world because there is an order in nature. If there were no order, there would be no world. Also since there is a world, we know that there 1s an order. The ordering entity is a necessary element in the metaphysical situation presented by the actual world. This line of thought extends Kant’s argu-

ment. He saw the necessity for God in the moral order. But with his metaphysics he rejected the argument from the cosmos. The metaphysical doctrine, here expounded, finds [104]

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the foundations of the world in the esthetic experience, rather than—as with Kant—in the cognitive and conceptive experience. All

order is therefore esthetic order, and the moral order is merely certain aspects of esthetic order. The actual world is the outcome of the aesthetic order, and the esthetic order is derived from the immanence of God. VI. BODY AND MIND

Descartes grounded his philosophy on an entirely different metaphysical description of the actual world. He started with cogitating minds, and with extended bodies which are the organic and inorganic bits of matter. Now in some sense no one doubts but that there are bodies and minds. The only point at issue is the status of such bodies and minds in the scheme of things. Descartes affirmed that they were individual substances, so that each bit of matter is a substance, and each mind is a substance. He also states what he means by a substance. He says: [105]

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And when we conceive of substance, we

merely conceive an existent thing which

requires nothing but itself in order to exist. To speak truth, nothing but God answers to this description as being that which is absolutely self-sustaining, for we

perceive that there is no other created thing which can exist without being sustained by his power... . Created substances, however, whether corporeal or thinking, may be conceived under this common concept; for they are things which need only the concurrence

of God in order to exist. ... When we perceive any attribute, we therefore con-

clude that some existing thing or substance to which it may be attributed, is necessarily present.®

These sentences are a summary of the pre-

supposition of scientific thought in recent centuries: that the world is composed of bits of stuff with attributes. There are insuperable 8Principles of Philosophy, LI and LII. Translated by Haldane and Ross.

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difficulties in Descartes’ view which have led

to attempts at simplification, keeping his general supposition of stuff with attributes. Note that Descartes presupposes three types

of substance—namely, God, bits of matter, minds. Descartes’ proof of the existence of God is accepted by very few philosophers,

religious or otherwise. Indeed, given his starting point, it is difficult to see how any proof can be found.

The simplifications all concern dropping either one or two of these types of substances.

For example, dropping God, and retaining only matter and mind; or dropping God and

minds, and retaining the matter, as with Hobbes; or dropping matter, and retaining God and minds, as with Berkeley; or dropping

matter and minds, and retaining God alone.

In this latter case, the temporal world becomes an appearance forming an attribute of God. But the main point of all such philosophies

is that they presuppose individual substance, [107]

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either one or many individual substances, “which requires nothing but itself in order to exist.” This presupposition is exactly what is denied in the more Platonic description which

has been given in this lecture. There is no entity, not even God, “‘which requires nothing

but itself in order to exist.” According to the doctrine of this lecture, every entity is in its essence social and requires the society in order to exist. In fact, the society for each entity, actual or ideal, is the all inclusive universe, including its ideal forms.

But Descartes has the great merit that he states facts which any philosophy must fit into its scheme. There are bits of matter, and there are minds. Both matter and mind have to be fitted into the metaphysical scheme.

Now, according to the doctrine of this lecture, the most individual actual entity is a

definite act of perceptivity. So matter and mind, which persist through a route of such occasions, must be relatively abstract; and [108]

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they must gain their specific individualities from their respective routes. The character of a bit of matter must be something common to each occasion of its route; and analogously,

the character of a mind must be something common to each occasion of its route. Each bit of matter, and each mind, is a subordinate

community—in that sense analogous to the : actual world.

But each occasion, in its character of being a finished creature, is a value of some definite

specific sort. Thus a mind must be a route whose various occasions exhibit some community of type of value. Similarly a bit of matter—or an electron—must be a route whose various occasions exhibit some community of type of value. Again in such a route—material or mental— the environment will also partially determine the forms of the occasions. But that which the occasions have in common, so as to form a route of mind or a route of matter, must be derived

by inheritance from the antecedent members [109]

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of the route. The environment may favour this inheritance or may obstruct it. But such influence must be in the background so that there is a real transmission of the common element along the route.

In the case of men and animals, there are obviously routes of mind and routes of matter in the very closest connection, which we will

consider more particularly in a moment. In

the case of a bit of inorganic matter, any associate route of mentality seems to be negligible.

A belief in purely spiritual beings means, on this metaphysical theory, that there are routes

of mentality in respect to which associate material routes are negligible, or entirely absent. At the present moment the orthodox belief is that for all men after death there are

such routes, and that for all animals after death there are no such routes.

Also at present it is generally held that a purely spiritual being is necessarily immortal. The doctrine here developed gives no warrant [110]

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for such a belief. It is entirely neutral on the question of immortality, or on the existence

of purely spiritual beings other than God. There is no reason why such a question should

not be decided on more special evidence, religious or otherwise, provided that it is trustworthy. In this lecture we are merely considering evidence with a certain breadth of

extension throughout mankind. Until that evidence has yielded its systematic theory, special evidence is indefinitely weakened in its effect. VII. THE CREATIVE PROCESS

This account of what is meant by the en-

during existence of matter and of mind explains such endurance as exemplifying the

order immanent in the world. The solid earth survives because there is an order laid upon the creativity in virtue of which second after second, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, century

after century, age after age, the creative F111]

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energy finds in the maintenance of that complex form a centre of experienced perceptivity focusing the universe into one unity. It survives because the universe is a process

of attaining instances of definite experience out of its own elements. Each such instance embraces the whole, omitting nothing, whether

it be ideal form or actual fact. But it brings

them into its own unity of feeling under gradations of relevance and of irrelevance,

and thereby by this litnitation issues into that definite experience which it is. Accordingly, any given instance of experience is only possible so far as the antecedent

facts permit. For they are required in order to constitute it. The maintenance, throughout ages of life history, of a given type of experience, in instance after instance of its separate occasions, requires, therefore, the stable order of the actual world. The creative process is thus to be discerned

in that transition by which one_ occasion, already actual, enters into the birth of another [112]

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instance of experienced value. There is not one simple line of transition from occasion to

occasion, though there may be 2 dominant line. The whole world conspires to produce a new creation. It presents to the creative process its opportunities and its limitations.

The limitations are the opportunities. The essence of depth of actuality—that is of vivid experience—is definiteness. Now to be definite

always means that all the elements of a complex whole contribute to some one effect, to the exclusion of others. The creative process 1s a process of exclusion to the same extent as it is a process of inclusion. In this connection “‘to exclude”? means to relegate to irrelevance in the esthetic unity, and “to include” means to elicit relevance to that unity. The birth of a new instance is the passage

into novelty. Consider how any one actual fact, which I will call the ground, can enter into the creative process. The novelty which enters into the derfvate instance is the information of the actual world with a new [113]

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set of ideal forms. In the most literal sense the lapse of time is the renovation of the world with ideas. A great philosopher*® has

said that time is the mind of space. In respect to one particular new birth of one centre of experience, this novelty of ideal forms will be called the “‘consequent.” Thus

we are now considering the particular rele-

vance of the consequent to the particular ground supplied by one antecedent occasion.

The derivate includes the fusion of the particular ground with the consequent, so far as the consequent is graded by its relevance to that ground. In this fusion of ground with consequent, the creative process brings together something which is actual and something which, at its

entry into that process, is not actual. The process 1s the achievement of actuality by the

ideal consequent, in virtue of its union with the actual ground. In the phrase of Aristotle, the process is the fusion of being with notbeing. *Cf. Alexander, Mind, Space, and Deity, Vol. Il, p. 43, et passim.

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The birth of a new esthetic experience depends on the maintenance of two principles by the creative purpose:

1. The novel consequent must be graded in relevance so as to preserve some identity of character with the ground.

2. The novel consequent must be graded in relevance so as to preserve some contrast with the ground in respect to that same identity of character. These two principles are derived from the

doctrine that an actual fact is a fact of sesthetic experience. All esthetic experience

is feeling arising out of the realization of contrast under identity.

Thus the consequent must agree with the ground in general type so as to preserve defi-

niteness, but it must contrast with it in respect to contrary instances so as to obtain vividness and quality. In the physical world, this principle of contrast under an identity expresses itself in the physical law that vibration entere into the ultimate nature of atomic [115]

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organisms. Vibration is the recurrence of contrast within identity of type. The whole possibility of measurement in the physical world depends on this principle. To measure is to count vibrations. Thus physical quantities are aggregates of physical vibrations, and physical vibrations are the expression among the abstractions of physical science of the fundamental principle of esthetic experience. Another example of this same principle is to be found in the connection between body and

mind. Both mind and body refer to their life-history of separate concrete occasions. So the connection which we seek is to be found

in the creative process relating a physical occasion, in the life of the body, to its corresponding mental occasion in the life of the mind. The physical occasion enters into the mental

occasion, as already actual, and as contributing to its ground. The reversion from its ground, which the consequent of ideal novelty [116]

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must exhibit, is now of the most fundamental

character. The reversion is the undoing of the synthesis exhibited in the ground. Thus the transition from bodily occasion to mental occasion exhibits a new dimension of transition from that exhibited in the transition from

bodily occasion to bodily occasion. In the

latter transition there is the novelty of contrast within the one concept of synthesis.

In the former, the contrast is the contrast of synthesis itself with its opposite, which is analysis.

Thus in the birth of the mental occasion the consequent of ideal novelty enters into reality, and possesses an analytic force over against the synthetic ground. Ideal forms thus synthesized into a mental occasion are termed concepts. Concepts meet blind experi-

ence with an analytic force. Their synthesis with physical occasion, as ground, is the perceptive analysis of the blind physical occasion

in respect to its degree of relevance to the concepts. [117]

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The phrase “‘immediate experience’”’ can have

either of two meanings, according as it refers

to the physical or to the mental occasion. It may mean a complete concretion of physical relationships in the unity of a blind perceptivity. In this sense “immediate experience”

means an ultimate physical fact. But in a secondary, and more usual, sense it means the consciousness of physical experience. Such con-

sciousness is a mental occasion. It has the character of being an analysis of physical experience by synthesis with the concepts involved

in the mentality. Such analysis is incomplete, because it 1s dependent on the limitations of the concepts. This limitation arises from the grading of the relevance of the concepts in the mental occasion. The most complete concrete fact is dipolar, physical and mental. But, for some specific purpose, the proportion of impor-

tance, as shared between the two poles, may vary from negligibility to dominance of either pole.

The value realized in the mental occasion is [118]

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knowledge-value. This knowledge-value is the

issue of the full character of the creativity into the creature world. There is nothing in the creativity which fails to issue into the actual world. Thus the creativity with a purpose issues into the mental creature conscious

of an ideal. Also God, as conditioning the creativity with his harmony of apprehension, issues into the mental creature as moral judgment according to a perfection of ideals.

The order of the world is no accident. There is nothing actual which could be actual without some measure of order. The religious

insight is the grasp of this truth: That the order of the world, the depth of reality of the world, the value of the world in its whole and in its parts, the beauty of the world, the zest of life, the peace of life, and the mastery of evil, are all bound together—not accidentally, but by reason of this truth: that the universe exhibits a creativity with infinite freedom, and

a realm of forms with infinite possibilities; but that this creativity and these forms are [119]

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together impotent to achieve actuality apart from the completed ideal harmony, which is God.

[120]

IV

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CHAPTER IV TRUTH AND CRITICISM 1. THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA

In human nature there is no such separate function as a special religious sense. In mak-

ing this assertion, I am agreeing with the following quotation:

Those who tend to identify religious

experience with the activity of some peculiar organ or element of the mental life have recently made much of the subconscious. Here there seems to be a safe retreat for the hard-pressed advocates of the uniqueness of religious experience.'

Religious truth must be developed from knowledge acquired when our ordinary senses and intellectual operations are at their highest

pitch of discipline. To move one step from this position towards the dark recesses of ICf, Prof. E. S. Ames, The Psychology of Religious Experience, p. 291.

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abnormal psychology is to surrender finally any hope of a solid foundation for religious doctrine.

Religion starts from the generalization of final truths first perceived as exemplified in particular instances. ‘These truths are amplified into a coherent system and applied to the interpretation of life. They stand or fall— like other truths—by their success in this interpretation. The peculiar character of reli-

gious truth is that it explicitly deals with values. It brings into our consciousness that permanent side of the universe which we can care for. It thereby provides a meaning, in terms of value, for our own existence, a mean-

ing which flows from the nature of things.

It is not true, however, that we observe best when we are entirely devoid of emotion. Unless there is a direction of interest, we do

not observe at all. Further, our capacity for observation is limited. Accordingly, when we

are observing some things, we are in a bad position for observing other things. [124]

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Thus there are certain emotional states which are most favourable for a peculiar concentration on topics of religious interest, just

as other states facilitate the apprehension of arithmetical truths. Also, emotional states are related to states of the body. Most people are more likely to make arithmetical slips when

they are tired in the evening. But we still believe that arithmetic holds good from sundown to cockcrow.

Again, it is not true that all people are on a

level in respect to their perceptive powers. Some people appear to realize continuously, and at a higher level, types of emotional and perceptive experience, which we _ recognize as corresponding to those periods of our own lives most worthy of confidence for that sort

of experience. In so far as what they say interprets our own best moments, it 1s reason-

able to trust to the evidential force of their experience.

These considerations are all commonplaces,

but it is necessary to keep them clearly in [125]

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mind when we endeavour to form our philosophy of religious knowledge. A dogma is the precise enunciation of a gen-

eral truth, divested so far as possible from particular exemplification. Such precise expression is in the long run a condition for vivid realization, for effectiveness, for apprehension of width of scope, and for survival.

For example, when the Greeks, such as Pythagoras or Euclid, formulated accurately mathematical dogmas, the general _ truths which the Egyptians had acted upon for more

than thirty generations became thereby of greater importance.

It is not the case, however, that our apprehension of a general truth is dependent upon its accurate verbal expression. For it would follow that we could never be dissatisfied with the verbal expression of something

that we had never apprehended. But this consciousness of failure to express our accurate

meaning must have haunted most of us. For example, the notion of irrational num[126]

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ber had been used in mathematics for over two thousand years before it received accurate

definition in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Also, Newton and Leibnitz introduced the differential calculus, which was the foundation of modern mathematical phys-

ics. But the mathematical notions involved did not receive adequate verbal expression for two hundred and fifty years. Such recondite examples are quite unneces-

sary. We know more of the characters of those who are dear to us than we can express accurately in words. We may recognize the

truth of some statement about them. It will be a new statement about something which we had already apprehended but had never formulated.

This example brings out another fact: that a one-sided formulation may be true, but may

have the effect of a lie by its distortion of emphasis. Such distortion does not stand in its character of a truth, but depends upon those who are affected by it. So far as the [127]

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make-up of an individual mind is concerned, there is a proportion in truth as well as in art. — Thus an ill-balanced zeal for the propaga-

tion of dogma bears witness to a certain coarseness of aesthetic sensitiveness. It shows a strain of indifference—due perhaps to arro-

gance, perhaps to rashness, perhaps to mere ignorance—a strain of indifference to the fact that others may require a proportion of formu-

lation different from that suitable for our-

selves. Perhaps our pet dogmas require correction: they may even be wrong. The fate of a word has to the historian the value of a document. The modern unfavourable implications of the kindred words, dogma,

dogmatic, dogmatist, tell the story of some

failure in habits of thought. The word “‘dogma’”’ originally means an “opinion,” and thence more especially a “philosophic opinion.” Thus, for example, the Greek physician, Galen,

uses the phrase “dogmatic physicians” to mean “physicians who guide themselves by general principles’—surely a praiseworthy [128]

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practice. The nearest Greek dictionary will give this elementary information. But the dictionary—and this is why I have quoted it— gives an ominous addition to the information

about Galen. It says that Galen contrasts “dogmatic physicians” with “empiric physi-

cians.” If you then refer to the word “empiric,” you will find that “empiric physicians” contended that “experience was the one thing needful.”” In this lecture we have to investigate the application to religion of this contrast between “dogmatic”? and “empiric.”

The philosophy of expression is only now receiving its proper attention.? In the framing of dogmas it is only possible to use ideas which have received a distinct, well-recognized signification. Also, no idea is determinate in a

vacuum: It has its being as one of a system of ideas. A dogma is the expression of a fact

as it appears within a certain sphere of thought. You cannot convey a dogma by 8Cf. Symbolism and Truth, by R. M. Eaton, Assistant Professor in Harvard University. Harvard University Press, 1925.

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merely translating the words; you must also understand the system of thought to which

it is relevant. To take a very obvious example, “The Fatherhood of God” is a phrase which would have a significance for a Roman citizen of the early Republic different from that which it has for a modern American— stern for the one, tender for the other.

In estimating the validity of a dogma, it must be projected against the alternatives to it within that sphere of thought. You cannot claim absolute finality for a dogma without

claiming a commensurate finality for the sphere of thought within which it arose. If the dogmas of the Christian Church from the second to the sixth centuries express finally and sufficiently the truths concerning the topics

about which they deal, then the Greek philosophy of that period had developed a system

of ideas of equal finality. You cannot limit the inspiration to a narrow circle of creeds. A dogma-—in the sense of a precise statement——can never be final; it can only be ade[130]

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quate in its adjustment of certain abstract concepts. But the estimate of the status of these concepts remains for determination.

You cannot rise above the adequacy of the terms you employ. A dogma may be true in the sense that it expresses such interrelations of the subject matter as are expressible within

the set of ideas employed. But if the same dogma be used intolerantly so as to check the employment of other modes of analyzing the subject matter, then, for all its truth, it will be doing the work of a falsehood.

Progress in truth—truth of science and truth of religion—is mainly a progress in the framing of concepts, in discarding artificial

abstractions or partial metaphors, and in evolving notions which strike more deeply into

the root of reality. II, EXPERIENCE AND EXPRESSION

Expression is the one fundamental sacrament. It is the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. It follows that, [131]

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in the process of forming a common expression

of direct intuition, there is first a stage of primary expression into some medium of sense-

experience which each individual contributes at first hand. No one can do this for another. It is the contribution of each to the knowledge of all.

This primary expression mainly clothes itself in the media of action and of words, but

also partly of art. Their expressiveness to others arises from the fact that they are inter-

pretable in terms of the intuitions of the recipients. Apart from such interpretation, the modes of expression remain accidental, unrationalized happenings of mere sense-experi-

ence; but with such interpretation, the recipient extends his apprehension of the ordered universe by penetrating into the inward nature of the originator of the expression. There is then a community of intuition by reason of the sacrament of expression proffered by one and received by the other. But the expressive sign is more than inter[132]

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pretable. It is creative. It elicits the intuition which interprets it. It cannot elicit what

is not there. A note on a tuning fork can elicit a response from a piano. But the piano has already in it the string tuned to the same

note. In the same way the expressive sign elicits the existent intuition which would not otherwise emerge into individual distinctiveness. Again in theological language, the sign works ex opere operato, but only within the limitation that the recipient be patient of the creative action.

There is very little really first-hand expres-

sion in the world. By this I mean that most expression is what may be termed responsive expression, namely, expression which expresses intuitions elicited by the expressions of others.

This is as it should be; since in this way what is permanent, important, and widely spread, receives more and more a clear definition. But there is need for something more than this responsive expression. For it is not true

that there is easy apprehension of the great [133]

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formative generalities. They are embedded under the rubbish of irrelevant detail. Men knew a lot about dogs before they thought of backbones and of vertebrates. The great intuitions, which in their respective provinces set all things right, dawn but slowly upon history. With this prevalence of responsive expression, we are used to a learned literature and to

imitative conduct. When we get anything which is neither learned nor imitative, it is often very evil. But sometimes it is genius. The history of culture shows that originality of expression is not a process of continuous development. There are antecedent periods of slow evolution. Finally, as if touched by a spark, a very few persons, one, two, or three, in some particular province of experience, express completely novel intuitions. Such intuitions can be responded to, analyzed in terms of their relationships to other ideas, fused with other forms of experience, but as individual primary intuitions within their own province of experience they are not surpassed. [134]

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The world will not repeat Dante, Shakespeare, Socrates, or the Greek tragedians. These men, in connection with the tiny groups forming their immediate environments of associates and successors and perhaps of equals,

add something once and for all. We develop

in connection with them, but not beyond them, in respect to those definite intuitions which they flashed upon the world. These examples are taken from the circle of literature merely for the sake of easy intelligibility.

There are two points to be noticed about them. In the first place, they are associated with a small stage fitted for their peculiar originality. Standardized size can do almost anything, except foster the growth of genius. That is the privilege of the tiny oasis. Goethe surveyed the world, but it was from Weimar;

Shakespeare is universal, but he lived in Elizabethan England. We cannot think of Socrates outside Athens.

The second characteristic is that their pecu-

liar originality is the very element in their [135]

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expression which remains unformularized. They

deal with what all men know, and they make

it new. They do not bring to the world a new formula nor do they discover new facts, but in expressing their apprehensions of the world, they leave behind them an element of novelty—a new expression forever evoking its proper response.

Some original men do express themselves

in formule: but the formula then expresses something beyond itself. The formula is then secondary to its meaning; it is, in a sense, a literary device. The formula sinks in importance, or even is abandoned; but its meaning remains fructifying in the world, finding new

expression to suit new circumstances. The formula was not wrong, but it was limited to its own sphere of thought. In particular, the view that there are a few fundamental dogmas is arbitrary. Every true dogma which formulates with some adequacy the facts of a complex religious experience is

fundamental for the individual in question [136]

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and he disregards it at his peril. For formulation increases vividness of apprehension, and

the peril is the loss of an aid in the difhcult task of spiritual ascent. But every individual suffers from invincible ignorance; and a dogma which fails to evoke any response in immediate apprehension stifles the religious life. There is no mechanical rule and no escape from the necessity of complete sincerity either way.

Thus religion is primarily individual, and the dogmas of religion are clarifying modes of external expression. ‘The intolerant use of religious dogmas has practically destroyed their utility for a great, if not the greater part, of the civilized world. Expression, and in particular expression by

dogma, is the return from solitariness to society. There is no such thing as absolute solitariness. Each entity requires its environment. Thus man cannot seclude himself from society.

Even for individual intuitions outward ex[137]

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pression is necessary, as a sacrament in which

the minister and recipient are one. But further, what is known in secret must be enjoyed in common, and must be verified in common. The immediate conviction of the moment in this way justifies itself as a rational principle enlightening the objective world. The great instantaneous conviction in this

way becomes the Gospel, the good news. It insists on its universality, because it is either that or a passing fancy. The conversion of the Gentiles is both the effect of truth and the test of truth. Thus the simplicity of inspiration has passed from its first expression into responsive experience. It then disengages itself from particular experience by formulation in precise dogmas, and so faces the transformations of history.

In this passage a religion coalesces with other factors in human life. Jt is expanded, explained, modified, adapted. If it was origi-

nally founded upon truth, it maintains its identity by its recurrence to the inspired sim[138]

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plicity of its origin. ‘The dogmas are statements of how the complex world is to be expressed in the light of the intuitions fundamental to the religion. They are not neces-

sarily simple in character or limited in number. III. THE THREE TRADITIONS

The divergence in the expression of dogmas is most clearly shown in the two traditions of

Buddhism and Christianity. This divergence is important because it reaches down to the most fundamental religious concepts, namely, the nature of God, and the aim of life. There are close analogies between the two religions. In both there is, in some sense, a saviour—Christ in the one, and the Buddha

in the other. But their functions differ, according to the theologies of the two religions,

In both, the souls of the blessed return to God. Again, this analogy cloaks a wide divergence; for the respective concepts of God, and the respective concepts of the meaning of the [139]

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return of the soul, differ in both cases. The moral codes have striking analogies. But again there are divergencies which flow naturally from the theological differences. To put it briefly, Buddhism, on the whole, dis-

courages the sense of active personality, whereas Christianity encourages it. For example, modern European philosophy, which had its origin in Plato and Aristotle, after sixteen hundred years of Christianity reformulated its problems with increased attention to

the importance of the individual subject of experience, conceived as an abiding entity with a transition of experiences. If Europe, after the Greek period, had been subject to the Buddhist religion, the change of philosoph-

ical climate would have been in the other direction.

This reformation of philosophy has emphasized the divergence. For the.abiding individ-

ual substance, mind or matter, is now conceived as the subject supporting the transition of experiences. Thus, according to preva[140]

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lent Western notions, the moral aims of Buddhism are directed to altering the first principles of metaphysics.

The absolute idealism, so influential in Europe and America during the last third of

the nineteenth century, and still powerful notwithstanding the reaction from it, was undoubtedly a reaction towards Buddhistic metaphysics on the part of the Western mentality. The multiplicity of finite enduring individuals

were relegated to a world of appearances, and the ultimate reality was centred in an Absolute.

But meanwhile science had appeared as a third organized system of thought which in many respects played the part of a theology,

by reason of the answers which it gave to current theological questions. Science suggested a cosmology; and whatever suggests a cosmology, suggests a religion.

From its very beginning in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, science emphasized ideas which modified the religious picture of [141]

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the world. As the medieval picture dissolved, religion and philosophy equally received shock

after shock, with a final culmination in the middle of the nineteenth century. Philosophy, by its nature, was less wedded to its aboriginal picture of the world than was religion. Accordingly it divided itself into two streams of thought. One stream subordinated itself entirely to science, and has asserted its mission to be the discussion of the proper co-

ordination of notions employed in current scientific practice. The other stream, which is that of absolute idealism, side-tracked science by proclaiming that science dealt with finite truths respecting a world of appearances; and that these appearances were not very real,

and that these truths were not very true. It reserved for philosophy the determination of

all that was to be known concerning the ultimate reality, and concerning our own partic-

ipation in that final absolute fact. The importance of rational religion in the history of modern culture is that it stands or [142]

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falls with its fundamental position, that we know more than can be formulated in one finite systematized scheme of abstractions, however important that scheme may be in the

elucidation of some aspect of the order of things.

The final principle of religion is that there is a wisdom in the nature of things, from which

flow our direction of practice, and our possibility of the theoretical analysis of fact. It grounds this principle upon two sources of evidence, first upon our success in various special theoretical sciences, physical and otherwise; and secondly, upon our knowledge of a discernment of ordered relationships, especially

in gsthetic valuations, which stretches far beyond anything which has been expressed systematically in words.

According to religion, this discernment. of relationships forms in itself the very substance

of existence. The formulations are the froth upon the surface. Religion insists that the world is a mutually adjusted disposition of [143]

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things, issuing in value for its own sake. This

is the very point that science is always forgetting.

Religions commit suicide when they find their inspirations in their dogmas. The inspiration of religion lies in the history of religion.

By this I mean that it is to be found in the primary expressions of the intuitions of the finest types of religious lives. ‘The sources of religious belief are always growing, though some

supreme expressions may lie in the past. Rec-

ords of these sources are not formule. They elicit in us intuitive response which pierces beyond dogma.

But dogmatic expression is necessary. For whatever has objective validity is capable of

partial expression in terms of abstract concepts, so that a coherent doctrine arises which elucidates the world beyond the locus of the origin of the dogmas in question.

Also exact statements are the media by which identical intuitions into the world can be identified amid a wide variety of circumstances. [144]

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But the dogmas, however true, are only bits of the truth, expressed in terms which in

some ways are over-assertive and in other ways lose the essence of truth. When exactly understood in relation to an exact system of philosophic thought, they may—or may not— be exactly true. But in respect to this exact truth, they are very abstract—much more abstract than the representations of them in popular thought. Also in fact, there never has been any exact, complete system of philosophic thought, and there never has been any exact understanding of dogmas, an understanding which has been

properly confined to strict interpretation in terms of a philosophic system, complete or incomplete.

Accordingly, though dogmas have their measure of truth, which is unalterable, in their precise forms they are narrow, limitative,

and alterable: in effect untrue, when carried over beyond the proper scope of their utility. A system of dogmas may be the ark within [145]

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which the Church floats safely down the flood-tide of history. But the Church will perish unless it opens its window and lets out the dove to search for an olive branch. Some-

times even it will do well to disembark on Mount Ararat and build a new altar to the

divine Spirit—an altar neither in Mount Gerizim nor yet at Jerusalem. The decay of Christianity and Buddhism, as determinative influences in modern thought,

is partly due to the fact that each religion has

unduly sheltered itself from the other. The self-sufficient pedantry of learning and the confidence of ignorant zealots have combined

to shut up each religion in its own forms of thought. Instead of looking to each other for deeper meanings, they have remained selfsatisfied and unfertilized.

Both have suffered from the rise of the third tradition, which is science, because neither of them had retained the requisite flexibility of adaptation. Thus the real, prac-

tical problems of religion have never been [146]

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adequately studied in the only way in which such problems can be studied, namely, in the school of experience.

One most obvious problem is how to save the intermediate imaginative representations of spiritual truths from loss of effectiveness, if the possibility of modifications of dogma are

admitted. The religious spirit is not identical with dialectical acuteness. ‘Thus these intermediate representations play a great part in religious life. They are enshrined in modes of worship, in popular religious literature, and in

art. Religions cannot do without them; but if they are allowed to dominate, uncriticised by dogma or by recurrence to the primary sources of religious inspiration, they are prop-

erly to be termed idols. In Christian history, the charge of idolatry has been bandied to and

fro among rival theologians. Probably, if taken in its wide sense, it rests with equal truth on all the main churches, Protestant and

Catholic. Idolatry is the necessary product of static dogmas. [147]

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But the problem of so handling popular forms of thought as to keep their full reference

to the primary sources, and yet also to keep them in touch with the best critical dogmas of their times, is no easy one. The chief figures in the history of the Christian Church who seem to have grasped explicitly its central importance were, Origen in the Church of

Alexandria, in the early part of the third century, and Erasmus in the early part of the sixteenth century. ‘Their analogous fates show the wavering attitude of the Christian Church, culminating in lapses into dogmatic idolatry.

It must, however, be assigned to the great credit of the Papacy of his time, that Erasmus never in his lifetime lost the support of the courtof Rome.* Unfortunately Erasmus, though a good man, was no hero, and the moral atmos-

phere of the Renaissance Papacy was not equal to its philosophic insight. In the phrase

of Leo X, the quarrel of monks began; and

yet another golden opportunity was lost, Erasmus received the offer of a Cardinalate in 1534, and died in 1536, his worke have since been placed on the Index.

[148]

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while rival pedants cut out neat little dogmatic systems to serve as the unalterable measure of the Universe. IV. THE NATURE OF GOD

The general history of religious thought, of which the Reformation period is a particular instance, is that of the endeavour of mankind to interpret the great standard experiences as leading to a more definite knowledge than can be derived from a metaphysic which founds itself upon general experience. There can be nothing inherently illegitimate

in such an attempt. But if we attend to the general principles which regulate all endeav-

ours after clear statement of truth, we must be prepared to amplify, recast, generalize, and

adapt, so as to absorb into one system all sources of experience.

The earlier statements will be not so much wrong, as obscured by trivial limitations, and as thereby implying an exclusion of comple-

mentary truths. The growth will be in the proportion of truth. [149]

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The doctrines—fundamental to religion—of

the nature of God must be construed in this

sense. It is in respect to this doctrine that the great cleavages of religious thought arise.

The extremes are the doctrine of God as the impersonal order of the universe, and the

doctrine of God as the one person creating the universe.

A general concept has to be construed in terms of a descriptive metaphysical system. In this concluding section of this course, we ask what can be said of the nature of God in terms of the metaphysical description which has been adopted as the basis of thought in this course of lectures, and which was more particularly described in the previous lecture. To be an actual thing is to be limited. An actual thing is an elicited feeling-value, which

is analyzable as the outcome of a graded grasping of the elements of the universe into the unity of one fact. This grasping together

may be called a perception. The grading means the grading of relevance of the various [150]

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elements, so far as concerns their contribution to the one actual fact.

The synthesis is the union of what is already actual with what is, for that occasion, new for realization. I have called it the union

of the actual ground with the novel consequent. The ground is formed by all the facts of the world, already actual and graded in their proportion of relevance. The consequent

is constituted by all the ideal forms of pos-

sibility, graded in their proportion. The grading of the actual ground arises from the creativity of some actual fact passing over into a new form by reason of the fact itself. The new creativity, under consideration, has thus already a definite status in the world,

arising from its particular origin. We can indifferently say that the grading arises from

the status, or the status from the grading. They are different ways of saying the same thing.

The grading of the ideal forms arises from

the grading of the actual facts, It is the [151]

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union of the forms with the facts in such measure as to elicit a renewed feeling-value, of the type possible as a novel outcome from the antecedent facts. Depth of value is only possible if the antecedent facts conspire in unison. Thus a measure of harmony in the ground is requisite for

the perpetuation of depth into the future. But harmony is limitation. Thus rightness of limitation is essential for growth of reality. Unlimited possibility and abstract creativity can procure nothing. The limitation, and the basis arising from what is already actual, are both of them necessary and interconnected.

Thus the whole process itself, viewed at any stage as a definite limited fact which has issued from the creativity, requires a definite

entity, already actual among the formative elements, as an antecedent ground for the entry of the ideal forms into the definite process of the temporal world.

But such a complete aboriginal actuality must differ from actuality in process of reali[152]

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zation in respect to the blind occasions of perceptivity which issue from process and require process. These occasions build up the physical world which is essentially in transition.

God, who is the ground antecedent to transition, must include all possibilities of physical value conceptually, thereby holding

the ideal forms apart in equal, conceptual realization of knowledge. Thus, as concepts, they are grasped together in the synthesis of ommniscience.

The limitation of God is his goodness. He gains his depth of actuality by his harmony of

valuation. It is not true that God is in all respects infinite. If He were, He would be evil as well as good. Also this unlimited fu-

sion of evil with good would mean mere nothingness. He is something decided and is thereby limited. —

He is complete in the sense that his vision determines every possibility of value. Such

a complete vision codrdinates and adjusts [153]

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every detail. Thus his knowledge of the relationships of particular modes of value is not

added to, or disturbed, by the realization in the actual world of what is already conceptually realized in his ideal world. ‘This ideal world of conceptual harmonization is merely a description of God himself. Thus the nature of God is the complete conceptual realization of the realm of ideal forms. The kingdom of

heaven is God. But these forms are not realized by him in mere bare isolation, but as

elements in the value of his conceptual experience. Also, the ideal forms are in God’s vision as contributing to his complete experience, by reason of his conceptual realization of their possibilities as elements of value in any creature. Thus God is the one systematic, complete fact, which is the antecedent ground conditioning every creative act. The depths of his existence lie beyond the vulgarities of praise or of power. He gives to

suffering its swift insight into values which can issue from it. He is the ideal companion [154]

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who transmutes what has been lost into a living fact within his own nature. He is the mirror which discloses to every creature its own greatness.

The kingdom of heaven is not the isolation

of good from evil. It is the overcoming of evil by good. This transmutation of evil into good enters into the actual world by reason of the inclusion of the nature of God, which includes the ideal vision of each actual evil so _ met with a novel consequent as to issue in the restoration of goodness. God has in his nature the knowledge of evil,

of pain, and of degradation, but it is there as overcome with what is good. Every fact is what it is, a fact of pleasure, of joy, of pain,

or of suffering. In its union with God that fact is not a total loss, but on its finer side is an element to be woven immortally into the

rhythm of mortal things. Its very evil becomes a stepping stone in the all-embracing ideals of God. Every event on its finer side introduces God [155]

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into the world. Through it his ideal vision is

given a base in actual fact to which He provides the ideal consequent, as a factor saving the world from the self-destruction of evil. The power by which God sustains the world is the power of himself as the ideal. He adds himself to the actual ground from which

every creative act takes its rise. The world lives by its incarnation of God in itself. He transcends the temporal world, because He is an actual fact in the nature of things. He

is not there as derivative from the world; He is the actual fact from which the other formative elements cannot be torn apart. But equally it stands in his nature that He

is the realization of the ideal conceptual harmony by reason of which there is an actual

process in the total universe—an evolving world which is actual because there is order.

The abstract forms are thus the link between God and the actual world. These forms

are abstract and not real, because in themselves they represent no achievement of actual [156]

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value. Actual fact always means fusion into one perceptivity. God is one such conceptual

fusion, embracing the concept of all such possibilities graded in harmonious, relative subordination. Each actual occasion in the temporal world is another such fusion. The forms belong no more to God than to any one occasion. Apart from these forms, no rational description can be given either of God or of

the actual world. Apart from God, there would be no actual world; and apart from the actual world with its creativity, there would be no rational explanation of the ideal vision which constitutes God.

- Each actual occasion gives to the creativity which flows from it a definite character in two

ways. In one way, as a fact, enjoying its complex of relationships with the rest of the world, it contributes a ground—partly good and partly bad—for the creativity to fuse with a novel consequent, which will be the outcome

of its free urge. In another way, as transmuted in the nature of God, the ideal conse[157]

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quent as it stands in his vision is also added. Thus God in the world is the perpetual vision of the road which leads to the deeper realities. V. CONCLUSION

God is that function in the world by reason

of which our purposes are directed to ends which in our own consciousness are impartial as to our own interests. He is that element in

life in virtue of which judgment stretches beyond facts of existence to values of existence. He is that element in virtue of which our purposes extend beyond values for our-

selves to values for others. He is that element in virtue of which the attainment of such a value for others transforms itself into value for ourselves.

He is the binding element in the world. The consciousness which is individual in us, is

universal in him: the love which is partial in us is all-embracing in him. Apart from him there could be no world, because there could be no adjustment of individuality. His pur[158]

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pose in the world is quality of attainment. His purpose is always embodied in the partic-

ular ideals relevant to the actual state of the world. Thus all attainment is immortal in that it fashions the actual ideals which are

God in the world as it is now. Every act leaves the world with a deeper or a fainter impress of God. He then passes into his next relation to the world with enlarged, or diminished, presentation of ideal values.

He is not the world, but the valuation of the world. In abstraction from the course of events, this valuation is a necessary metaphysical function. Apart from it, there could

be no definite determination of limitation required for attainment. But in the actual world, He confronts what 1s actual in it with

what is possible for it. Thus He solves all indeterminations.

The passage of time is the journey of the world towards the gathering of new ideas into

actual fact. This adventure is upwards and downwards. Whatever ceases to ascend, fails [159]

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to preserve itself and enters upon its inevitable

path of decay. It decays by transmitting its nature to slighter occasions of actuality, by

reason of the failure of the new forms to fertilize the perceptive achievements which

constitute its past history. The universe shows us two aspects: on one side it is physically wasting, on the other side it is spiritually ascending.

It is thus passing with a slowness, incon-

ceivable in our measures of time, to new creative conditions, amid which the physical

world, as we at present know it, will be represented by a ripple barely to be distinguished from non-entity.

The present type of order in the world has arisen from an unimaginable past, and it will find its grave in an unimaginable future. There remain the inexhaustible realm of abstract forms, and creativity, with its shifting character ever determined afresh by its own creatures, and God, upon whose wisdom all forms of order depend. [160]

A GLOSSARY OF WHITEHEAD’S TERMS IN RELIGION IN THE MAKING Randall E. Auxier INTRODUCTION

In the past, the lack of a good index for Religion

in the Making has made it difficult to analyze Whitehead’s use of key terms in this formative book.’ This is a problem since, as Whitehead himself remarks, ‘‘The fate of a word has to the ‘I would like to thank Donald Sherburne of Vanderbilt University, William Garland of the University of the South, Charles Hartshorne of the University of Texas, Lewis Ford of Old Dominion University, Judith Jones of Fordham University, and Phillip Lambovsky of Albertus Magnus College for looking at and making suggestions about this glossary. I thank my graduate and undergraduate students in the Process Philosophy seminar I taught in the fall of 1993 at Oklahoma City University. They provided the impetus and end for the project. I also must thank my Graduate Assistant Eric Reiss, and Todd Rust of the OCU Learning Enhancement Center for helping with the adaptation of the glossary to the requirements of the Fordham University Press edition.

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historian the value of a document’”’ (p. 128). This

glossary goes even further than an index can in assisting the reader’s understanding of the fate of certain words in the present text. The major difficulty was in constructing a glossary entry for Whitehead’s use of the term ‘‘God’’ (which is indefinable in any strict or straightforward sense).

This has occasioned a ‘‘Note on Whitehead’s View of God’’ at the end of the glossary, as well

as a substantive note at one important point in the glossary. I have included in the glossary a number of the more poignant and suggestive ‘‘definitions’’ of God given in the book, but one

ought not to take these ‘‘definitions’’ very strictly. It is often difficult to determine whether something Whitehead says should be taken to have the

force of a definition; nor is it always clear what peculiar force a ‘“‘definition’’ should have for Whitehead —at this stage of his thought or at any other. He often uses what would now be called a ‘“hermeneutic’’ technique of progressively refin-

ing his definitions each time he returns to an [162]

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idea.? Thus, it may at least be said that for Whitehead the process of definition is not limited to the classic Aristotelian approach —that of demonstrating the essence of something, once for all, from first principles. Most of Whitehead’s definitions are best taken as open-ended attempts to

provide increasingly adequate metaphors for some fundamental relation. As Whitehead himself says, the process of replacing less adequate metaphors with more adequate ones is the means

RM 131). !

whereby human knowledge increases (cf. I have limited the glossary to those terms that

could most reasonably be classified as definitions, although some readers might take issue with particular entries. Many of the items in this glossary

are defined functionally, by what they do rather than by what they are. I do not think, however, that all Whitehead’s definitions are simply func? Cf. Whitehead’s remarks about how he will gradually define ‘‘Reason’’ throughout a book-length discussion in The Function of Reason (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1929; repr. Boston: Beacon Press, 1958), p. 4.

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tional; sometimes he does appear to be providing

a demonstration of a thing’s essence from first principles. This dual mode of defining terms cer-

tainly complicates editorial decisions. I have striven for inclusiveness—listing what, in some

instances, only the specialist in Whitehead’s thought and language might recognize as a definition. In any case, this glossary is not suited for ‘‘stand-alone’’ usage; it is intended as a companion text to the passages from which the definitions are taken.

The items in the glossary are exhaustively cross-referenced. The terms that both are employed in definitions and have separate entries of their own appear in SMALL CAPITAL LETTERS.

The documentation of each definition is compre-

hensive, and includes a listing of all pages on which it occurs, as well as those of any other definitions with which it is virtually synonymous. Most of the definitions are nearly verbatim quotations from the text.

Sometimes it is as valuable to know words which were not defined as it is to know words which have been defined and how. In a number [164]

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of cases I have included in the glossary certain key terms which Whitehead employs, but does not explicitly define. In such entries, I provide the passage which comes closest to defining the term, and then generally articulate a presumptive

definition of my own based on that context. I have indicated this absence of explicit definition by enclosing each such glossary entry in brackets. Along similar lines, I have also included entries on a few words which are not technical terms in Whitehead’s philosophy at this stage, but which

became such later (e.g., Beauty, Peace, etc.). Since this book represents a beginning in the development of several ideas which later became important, it is worth noting the presence of these terms in this work. Religion in the Making was written immediately after Science and the Modern World. In the

Preface to Religion in the Making, Whitehead comments that the two books bring to bear the same ‘‘train of thought’’ in different ‘‘applications.’’ Insofar as these two books ‘‘elucidate”’ each other, there is also a good bit of shared terminology. On a few occasions, this cross-applied [165]

GLOSSARY

terminology is defined only in Science and the Modern World. I identify each such item with ‘‘SMW term’’ without further comment. The general format of this glossary is modeled on Sherburne’s glossary of Process and Reality.

The one major variation is that whereas Sherburne often alphabetizes compound terms such as ‘‘actual entity’’ or ‘‘eternal object’’ by the first

letter of the modifier (e.g., ‘‘actual entity’’ is found under ‘‘a’’ in his glossary), I have always classified such words by the substantive. For ex-

ample, ‘‘epochal occasion’’ is to be found not under ‘‘e’’ in this glossary, but under ‘‘o’’ for ‘foccasion, epochal.’’ I believe this to be a bit easier, if readers know in advance that it is consistently done, since it will not be necessary for them to wonder whether a given adjective is important enough to the definition to have made it into the glossary. Checking the noun will suffice, and if the adjective is important, it will appear in

the entry. It has also been necessary to distinguish in many cases between the generic use of a term and a specific use—for example, the term ‘‘ideal’’ has a generic meaning not included in [166]

GLOSSARY

the entry for ‘‘forms, ideal.’’ In generic entries, I have generally provided a list of the page numbers on which the term occurs, and some indication of the other terms it is used to modify. GLOSSARY

Abstract, Abstraction [SMW term. Cf. pp. 16, 23 (abstract IDEA), 31 (abstract METAPHYSICS); 57, 131 and 144 (abstract CONCEPTs); 78 (abstract

level of thought); 94, 156 and 160 (realm of abstract Form); 108, 116 (abstractions of physical science), 131 (artificial abstractions), 143 (scheme of abstractions), 145, 152 (abstract CREATIVITY), 159.]

Actual, Actuality [Never explicitly defined. SMW term.°* Whitehead indicates that it can be * Since this term is so central to Whitehead’s philosophy, its definition, as far as Whitehead gives one prior to Religion in the Making, ought to be included here. In Science and the Modern World White-

head says that the ‘‘metaphysical status of an eternal object [cf. Forms, IDEAL, which is a synonym for ‘eternal objects’] is that of a possibility for an actuality. Every actual occasion is DEFINED as to its CHARACTER by how these possibilities are actualized for that OccaSION. Thus actualisation is a selection among possibilities . . . a selection issuing in a GRADATION of possibilities in respect to their realisation in that OcCASION’’ (SMW 159).

[167]

GLOSSARY

used as a synonym for FEELING in some contexts

(p. 104). Cf. also pp. 25 (actual Vivin Fact), 51; 53, 71, 112-113, 115, 151, 156-157 and 159 (actual Fact); 59, 61, 69, 71, 88-91, 104-105, 109, 112-113, 119, 154-157 and 159 (actual Wor LD); 60, 78, 80; 86 and 101 (actual UNIVERSE), 87 (ac-

tual passage of actual THINGS); 88, 90, 92—94, 98-102, 108 (actual ENTITIES), 91 (OCCASIONS of

actualization, actual UNrts, actual COMMUNITY), 92 (actual CREATURE); 94, 99-100, 102, 112, 116, 157 and 160 (actual OCCASIONS); 103 (collapse of actuality, depths of actuality, importance of actuality), 113; 114, 151 and 156 (actual GROUND); 114, 120 and 156 (actual ACHIEVEMENT); 119, 150

(actual THING), 151-153, 155 (actual EviL), 156

(actual Process), 159 (actual state of the WORLD), 159 (actual IDEAS), 160, FEELING, ENJOYMENT; WORLD, ACTUAL; ENTITY, ACTUAL; COMMUNITY, ACTUAL; and THING, ACTUAL. ]

Adequacy, Adequate [Never explicitly defined; closest 1s on p. 127. This term is used to describe the extent to which a given verbal EXPRESSION assists us in APPREHENDING a GENERAL TRUTH. [168]

GLOSSARY

Cf. also pp. 14, 34, 36, 83, 89, 95, 127, 131, 136, 147.]

Adjustment [Never explicitly defined; closest is on p. 100. A TEMPORAL RELATION between (at

least) the present and the future, in which the present is altered RELATIVE to the future, with the aim of making other sorts of alterations possible in the future. The PuRPOSE of all these alterations is to make VALUE possible. Cf. also pp. 18,

57, 59, 80, 104, 131, 143, 153, 158, and PurPOSE, ACTIVE. |

Aesthetic See EXPERIENCE, AESTHETIC. Cf. also pp. 99, 113, 128, 143 (aesthetic VALUATION), and ORDER.

Analysis See REVERSION. Cf. also pp. 24, 57, 78, 84, 89, 91, 101, 117-118, 131, 134, 143, 150. Apprehension PERCEPTIVITY (p. 101); does not depend upon FORMULATION or EXPRESSION. Cf.

also pp. 15, 25, 48, 61, 64, 80, 86, 119, 125-127, 132-133, 136-137, TRUTH, and CHARACTER. [169]

GLOSSARY

Attainment The ImMMorRTAL fashioning of the ACTUAL IDEALS which are Gop in the WORLD as

it is now, which leaves either a deeper or a fainter impress of Gop (pp. 158-159). [Evidently, attainment is accomplished via LIMITATION (cf. pp. 158-—159).] Cf. also pp. 37, 60, 61, 67, 94, 96,

100, 104, 112, DETERMINATION, EvIL, and VALUE.

Beauty [Never explicitly defined or used in such a way as to make its meaning clear; cf. pp. 48, 119. |

Belief A way of pre-RATIONALLY joining RITUAL and EMOTION; myth is a common Form of

belief (pp. 23-24). Cf. also pp. 13-15, 18-19, 26-28, 31-32, 38, 42, 58, 63, 77, 83-85, 110-111, 125, 144.

Character [Never explicitly defined; closest is on pp. 58-59, 61. The INTUITION of IMMEDIATE OCCASIONS, as failing or succeeding in reference to the IDEAL RELEVANT to them, is a revelation of CHARACTER, APPREHENDED as we APPREHEND [170]

GLOSSARY

the CHARACTERS of our friends (the term 1s simi-

larly used on p. 127). On p. 109, the term is used in a different sense, meaning that which is common to each OCCASION (whether PHYSICAL or MENTAL) on a given RouTE. Cf. also pp. 15, 17, 48, 58-59, 61, 66-67, 71, 86, 89-92, 94-95, 102, 109, 115, 117-119, 124, 127, 135, 139, 157, 160.]

Community, Actual The AcTUAL WORLD as composed of EPOCHAL OCCASIONS (p. 91). Cf. pp.

36, 43, 59, 84, 88, 109, 132, and SOCIETY.

Concept IDEAL ForRMS SYNTHESIZED into a MENTAL OCCASION via the entry into REALITY of the CONSEQUENT of IDEAL NOVELTY which possesses an ANALYTIC force against the SYNTHETIC GROUND, i.e., blind EXPERIENCE (pp. 117-118).

Cf. also pp. 19, 27, 31-32, 41, 54-55, 57, 59, 66, 68-72, 74, 77, 78-79, 83, 95, 105-106, 131, 139, 144, 150, 153-154, 156-157, REVERSION, and EXPERIENCE, IMMEDIATE.

Concrete, Concretion SMW term. [Never explicitly defined; closest is on p. 93, where concre[171]

GLOSSARY

tion is evidently a PRocEss whereby CREATURES are QUALIFIED by the IDEAL FORMS, and conversely the IDEAL FORMS are QUALIFIED by the CREATURES, giving EMERGENCE to an EPOCHAL

Occasion. Cf. also pp. 38, 58, 92; 101 and 118 (concrete Fact), 103 (mode of concretion), 116 (concrete OCCASIONS), 118 (complete concretion of PHYSICAL OCCASIONS). |

Conformity [Never explicitly defined; closest is on pp. 61-62 in its association with producing HARMONY in the ACTUAL WoRLD. Cf. also pp. 66—68, 94-95, and DIVERSITY. ]

Consciousness, Immediate [Never explicitly defined or used in a context which makes its meaning clear. Cf. also pp. 27, 48, 57, 85, 137, OccaSIONS, IMMEDIATE; APPREHENSION; IMMEDIATE;

and EXPERIENCE, IMMEDIATE. |

Consciousness, Reflective That which distin-

52, 54.

guishes MENTAL PERCEPTIVITY or APPREHENSION

from non-MENTAL (pp. 101-102). Cf. also pp. 48, [172]

GLOSSARY

Consciousness, Religious A moment which starts from SELF-VALUATION, but broadens into

the ConcepT of the WoRLD as a realm of ApDJUSTED VALUES, mutually INTENSIFYING or mutu-

ally destructive (p. 59). Cf. also pp. 16, 42, 47, 124, 158.

Consciousness, Self- [Never explicitly defined; closest is on p. 59 in association with the SYNTHEsis of three CONCEPTS of levels of VALUE. Cf. also

pp. 16, 44, 48.]

Consciousness, Social A notion of rightness of conduct RELATIVE to the preservation of PERSONS

whom you might KNow and love; associated with pre-RATIONAL RELIGIOUS BELIEF (p. 41; cf. CONn-

SCIOUSNESS, WORLD). Cf. also pp. 33, 39, 42.

Consciousness, World A notion of an ESSENTIAL rightness of THINGS which is disengaged; its growth brings about RATIONAL RELIGION (p. 41).

Cf. also pp. 40, 158, UNIVERSALITY, and Con. SCIOUSNESS, SOCIAL. [173]

GLOSSARY

Consequent In respect to one particular NEW birth of one center of EXPERIENCE, the NOVELTY

of the IDEAL Forms (p. 114) The consequent 1s constituted by all the IDEAL Forms of possibility, GRADED in their proportion (p. 151). Cf. also pp. 42, 93, 115-117, 139-140, 155-157.

Contrast 1. The whole INTUITION of CONFORMITY and DIVERSITY which an INDIVIDUAL

item yields for RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE (pp. 61-

62). 2. [By inference from pp. 115-116: the extent to which IDENTITY between GROUND and CONSEQUENT is not maintained in the CREATIVE

Process.] Cf. also pp. 96-97, 99, 117, RELEVANCE, and VIBRATION.‘

Creativity, Creation, Creative One of the three FORMATIVE ELEMENTS of the all-inclusive UNIVERSE; the one whereby the ACTUAL WORLD has its CHARACTER Of TEMPORAL passage to Nov-

ELTY (p. 90); not separable from what it creates, viz., its CREATURES (p. 92), cf. p. 95, and Ep* There are numerous non-technical occurrences of this term not reflected in this entry.

[174]

GLOSSARY

OCHAL OCCASIONS; due to lack of DETERMINATE

CHARACTER, creativity cannot be CONCEIVED as an ACTUAL ENTITY [and hence, cannot be IDEN-

TIFIED with Gop] (pp. 91-93). Cf. also pp. 94, 96, 98-99, 101-102, 104, 111-114, 116, 119, 133, 150-152, 154, 156-157, 160, SYNTHESIS, and PROCESS, CREATIVE.

Creature(s) See Creativiry. Cf. also. pp. 91-94, 102, 104, 109, 119, 154—155, 160.

Definite, Definiteness, Definition MEASURE of the depth of ACTUALITY wherein all ELEMENTS of

a complex whole contribute to some one effect, to the exclusion of other effects (p. 113). Cf. also pp.

18, 20, 24, 59, 61, 66, 68, 79, 91-94, 108-109, 112, 115, 135, 149, 151-152, 157, 159.°

Degrade, Degradation The self-eliminating activity of EviL; the PRocEss whereby HIGHER ExPERIENCE becomes LOWER EXPERIENCE (pp. 96—

97). Cf. also pp. 17, 37, 155. * There are numerous non-technical occurrences of this term not reflected in this entry.

[175]

GLOSSARY

Derivate, Derivative, Derive In the CREATIVE Process, that which includes the FusIon of the particular GROUND with the CONSEQUENT, so far as the CONSEQUENT is GRADED by its RELEVANCE

to that GROUND (p. 114). Cf. also pp. 32, 50-51, 57, 59, 68, 99-100, 102, 105, 109, 113, 115, 149, 156.

Determination, Determine [Never explicitly defined; closest is on pp. 94-95. A word which describes what the FORMATIVE ELEMENTS do RELA-

TIVE to any given EPOCHAL OCCASION in mutually LIMITING one another. The result is that the EPOCHAL OCCASION becomes DEFINITE

by having this ‘‘ORDERED balance’’ imposed

upon it. Determination can bring about ConFORMITY, but Whitehead does not explicitly say

whether it can also bring about DIVERSITY— which may, by implication, be a failure of determination, since ‘‘ORDERED balance’’ is absent. Determination is RELATED to DETERMINISM (cf.

p. 94). Cf. also pp. 60, 67, 78, 90, 92, 109, 129, 131, 142, 146, 153, 159-160. ] [176]

GLOSSARY

Determinism A simple MEtTapHysiIc’ which holds the complete self-consistency of the TEMPO-

RAL WORLD; the conclusion drawn by [overly credulous] thinkers who hold METAPHYSICAL Concepts to be ADEQUATE (pp. 94-95). This view makes the problem of Evit insoluble. Cf. also p. 99. Diversity [Never explicitly defined; closest is on pp. 61-62 when used in comparison with ConFORMITY. It evidently means ‘‘failure to COnFORM fully,’’ or ‘incomplete CoNFormiry.’’ Diversity in this sense is apparently to be blamed for the presence of Evit in the ACTUAL WORLD (pp. 61-62). Cf. also pp. 21, 35, 59, 88, 93, 103. ]

Dogma, Dogmatic, Dogmatism 1. A_ precise enunciation of a GENERAL TRUTH, divested so far as possible from particular EXEMPLIFICATION (p.

126). Opposed to ‘‘empiric’’ which appeals only to EXPERIENCE without such GENERAL TRUTHS

(p. 129). 2. The EXPRESSION of a FACT as it appears within a certain sphere of thought; a dogma has its being as one of a SySTEM of IDEAS (pp. [177]

GLOSSARY

129-130), and is never final, but rather ADEQUATE in its ADJUSTMENT of certain ABSTRACT

CONCEPTS (pp. 130-131). 3. Bits of the TRUTH,

EXPRESSED in terms which in some ways are

over-assertive and in other ways lose the EsSENCE Of TRUTH (p. 145). Cf. also pp. 13, 45, 47-49, 52, 58, 60, 67-68, 76-77, 79, 83-85, 128,

136-139, 144, 147-149, and DOGMA OF RELIGION.

Dogma of Religion 1. An attempt to FormvuLATE in precise terms the TRUTHS disclosed in the

RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE of mankind (p. 58). 2. Clarifying modes of external EXPRESSION (p. 137). 3. STATEMENTS of how the complex WORLD is to be EXPRESSED in the light of the INTUITIONS

fundamental to RELIGION; not necessarily simple in CHARACTER or LIMITED in number (p. 139).

4. The ark within which the church floats safely down the flood-tide of history (pp. 145-146). Cf. also pp. 147-148.

Element(s), Elementary See ELEMENTS, ForMATIVE. Cf. pp. 13, 31, 39, 44, 47, 97, 100—101, [178]

GLOSSARY

103, 110, 112, 113, 123, 129, 135, 136 (element of NOVELTY), 150-152, 154-156, 158.°

Elements, Formative The Factors which are either non-ACTUAL or non-TEMPORAL that are disclosed in the ANALYsIS of what is both ACTUAL

and TEMPORAL, 1.e., disclosed by descriptive METAPHYSICS (p. 89). These formative elements are: (1) CREATIVITY; (2) the realm of IDEAL ENTI-

TIES; and, (3) Gop (p. 90). These elements stand in mutual isolation apart from the CONCRETION of EPOCHAL OCCASIONS, but as RELATED in an EPOCHAL OCCASION the elements QUALIFY one

another (p. 93). Cf. also pp. 99, 101, 103-104, 152, 156, 158, and PERCEPTION.

Emergent, Emergence [Never explicitly defined; closest is on pp. 93-94. Emergence appears to be the Process by which an EPOCHAL OCCaA© This term lies somewhere between a technical and a non-technical

term. Whitehead commonly uses it to mean ‘‘basic part or constituent,’’ but this slides easily into its technical usage in creative synthesis— Whitehead’s ‘‘elements of communion,”’ if you will. I have listed

all occurrences in this entry, excepting those that refer explicitly to the ‘‘formative elements,’’ which receives its own entry.

[179]

GLOSSARY

SION comes to CONCRETION due to the LimitaTIONS the three FORMATIVE ELEMENTS impose

upon one another. Cf. also pp. 17-18, 26, 33, 38, 47, 60, 65, 101-102, 133, and DETERMINATION. |

Emotion, Emotional The sensitizing of the organism by RITUAL which issues in either RELIGION or play depending upon the QUALITY of the

emotion FELT (p. 21). Cf. also pp. 16, 18-20, 22—26, 38, 42—43, 48-49, 54, 60, 64-65, 77, 83, 85, 100, 124-125. Enjoyment ACTUALITY; the EXPERIENCING of

VALUE (p. 100). Cf. also pp. 95, 98, 138, 155 (joy), 157, and SELF-INTEREST.

Entity, Entities [Never explicitly defined, but used by Whitehead as a generic term incorporating ACTUAL ENTITIES, IDEAL ENTITIES (or

Forms), and Gop. Cf. pp. 68—71, 78, 88, 90, 92-94, 98-102, 104, 108, 137, 140, 152, 160 (non-entity). | [180]

GLOSSARY

Entity, Actual 1. The outcome of a CREATIVE SYNTHESIS, INDIVIDUAL and passing (p. 93).’

2. That which has a SELF-INTEREST (p. 100). 3. A microcosmic arrangement of the whole UNI’ This may be a non-technical use of the term ‘‘actual entity,’’ but the context makes it rather difficult to determine this with much certainty. Nowhere in Religion in the Making does Whitehead explain the relationship between the terms ‘‘epochal occasion’’ and ‘‘actual entity.’’ Still, his use of them here points markedly in the direc-

tion of the familiar use of the terms ‘‘actual entity’’ and ‘‘actual occasion’’ in Process and Reality. In spite of neglecting to define it, Whitehead does use the term ‘‘actual entity’’ in a very important con-

nection in Religion in the Making to define God. This creates the following interesting combination of definitions: ‘‘God is the actual but non-temporal entity through which the indetermination of mere creativity is transmuted into a determinate freedom, and as an actual entity, God must also be the outcome of a creative synthesis, individual and passing, since all actual entities are’’ (pp. 90, 92). Note how this anticipates the systematic relations expounded in the doctrine of the consequent nature of God, in spite of the indefiniteness of the term ‘‘actual entity’’ at this stage. Sherburne points out in his A Key to Whitehead’s “Process and Reality” that the difference between “factual entity’’ and ‘‘actual occasion’’ in the later book is that the latter term is not applicable to God, who is non-temporal (pp. 206—

207), and thus God is subject to change only as is consistent with God’s complete nature—goodness or total self-consistency (RM 97-99).

Lewis Ford reads ‘‘actual entity’’ at this stage in Whitehead’s development as more or less equivalent to ‘‘actual occasion’’ in PR, there being as yet no genetic phases at this stage of Whitehead’s thought. This is how Ford understands the statement, at RM 97-98, that God is ‘‘an actual entity which enters into every creative phase, and yet is above change.’’ Ford also doubts whether the consequent

[181]

GLOSSARY

VERSE, ACTUAL and IDEAL, whereby there is constituted that SELF-VALUE which is the entity itself

(p. 101). Cf. also pp. 88, 90, 92, 94, 98-99, 102, 108, and THING, ACTUAL.

Entity (or Entities), Ideal Used interchangeably with ‘‘IDEAL FoRMS,’’ e.g., p. 93, and ‘‘AB-

STRACT FORMS,’’ e.g., pp. 94, 156, 160. The realm of ideal entities is one of the three FORMATIVE ELEMENTS of the all-inclusive UNIVERSE; they are not ACTUAL in themselves, but they are such that they are EXEMPLIFIED in everything that is ACTUAL, according to some proportion of RELEVANCE (p. 90). As ideal, these entities are ‘“INDETERMINATE ’ due to the ‘‘boundless wealth

of possibility’ in the ideal realm (p. 94). These FORMS or entities are the link between Gop and the ACTUAL WORLD, but are not REAL because in

themselves they represent no achievement of AcTUAL VALUE (pp. 156-157). Cf. also pp. 98, 108, 112, 114, 117, 151-154, and Wor Lp, IDEAL. nature of God is truly anticipated in this portion of RM. Cf. Ford’s The Emergence of Whitehead’s Metaphysics, 1925-1929 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984); and ‘‘The Riddle of Religion in the Making,’’ Process Studies, 22, No. 1 (Spring 1993), 42-50.

[182]

GLOSSARY

Essence, Essential [Never explicitly defined or used in a context which makes its meaning clear. Cf. also pp. 23, 28, 40, 41 (essential rightness of

THINGS), 48, 92 (essential incompleteness of TEMPORAL WORLD), 103, 108, 113 (essence of depth of ACTUALITY), 145 (essence of TRUTH), 152—153). ]

Evidence, Evident [Never explicitly defined; closest is p. 111. Special evidence apparently leads eventually to SYSTEMATIC theories, in isola-

tion of which it is much weaker. Surveying Whitehead’s use of this word throughout the book, one can conclude that ‘‘evidence’’ 1s clearly at least empirical in his view; whether he

is willing to use this term in direct connection with purely RATIONAL argumentation is an open

question, but he does not generally use the term in that way here. Cf. also pp. 18, 21-22, 30, 48, 62, 65, 67, 70, 73, 76, 79, 83, 86, 125, 143.] Evil 1. The REALIZATION in FACT of something with which there is a concurrent REALIZATION of a PuRPOSE toward the elimination of that some[183]

GLOSSARY

thing. Evil is recognized in the presence of a PurPOSE, i.e., the promotion of the elimination of the ForM which made that sort of evil ACTUAL— by destruction, DEGRADATION, or elevation. Thus,

evil is unstable, and its instability zs the moral ORDER in the WorLD. Evil is GooD RELATIVE to

itself, but a destructive agent in RELATION to ev-

erything greater than itself. Evil is a descent toward nothingness, both positive and destructive, which causes the loss of Forms of ATTAINMENT, Or HIGHER EXPERIENCE (pp. 95-96). 2. The note of evil is internal inconsistency (p. 98).°®

Cf. also pp. 17, 26, 48—49, 51-52, 62, 77, 87-88, 97, 99, 119, 134, 153, 155-156.

Exemplification, Exemplify [Never explicitly defined (an SMW term, cf. RM 89); closest is on pp. 111-112. Here the enduring EXISTENCE of MATTER and of MIND ‘‘exemplifies’’ the ORDER

immanent in the WorRLD. Exemplification seems related to particularity as opposed to GENERALITy. Cf. also pp. 20, 36, 40, 48, 86, 90, 124, 126. ] ® This last comment about evil by Whitehead may be inconsistent with his earlier statements that evil is ‘‘good in itself’’ or relative to itself. This matter would require further investigation.

[184]

GLOSSARY

Existence, Existent, Existing [Never explicitly defined; there are two distinct approximations of a definition: 1. (p. 80): More than a succession of bare Facts, but living in a common WORLD of mutual ADJUSTMENTS, of intelligible RELATIONS, of VALUATIONS, of ZEST after PURPOSES, of Joy

and grief, of INTEREST concentrated on SELF, of INTEREST directed beyond SELF, of short-TIME and long-TiMmE failures and successes, of different layers of FEELING, of LIFE-weariness and of LIFE

ZEST. Evidently all of this is involved in existence. 2. (p. 143): According to RELIGION, the discernment of RELATIONSHIPS FOrRMs in itself the

very substance of existence. Cf. also pp. 16, 33 (pre-existing), 34, 49, 59, 84 (COMMUNITY of exis-

tents), 85 (Facts of existence, nature of existence), 96, 100, 106, 111 (enduring existence of MATTER), 124, 133 (existent INTUITION), 158 (VALUES of existence, Facts of existence), and EXISTENCE OF GOD. ]

Existence of God See Gop and ‘‘Note on God.”’ Cf. also pp. 63, 68, 70—71, 106-108, 154, 158. [185]

GLOSSARY

Experience [Never explicitly defined as a generic term or used in such a way as to make its generic meaning clear; types of experience are variously defined in entries below. Cf. also pp. 31-32, 49, 52, 63, 65-66, 71, 88, 100, 105, 112114, 117, 118, 125, 129, 131-132, 134, 138, 140, 147, 149, 154.]

Experience, Aesthetic FEELING arising out of the REALIZATION of CONTRAST under IDENTITY

(p. 115). Cf. also pp. 105, 116, and ORDER.

Experience, Higher See EXPERIENCE, VIVID.

Cf. also pp. 95, 27 (higher stages), 28 (higher THINGS), 98 and 125 (higher level), EviL, and EXPERIENCE, LOWER.

Experience, Immediate 1. As_ referring to PHYSICAL Occasions: A complete CONCRETION

of physical RELATIONSHIPS in the UNITY of a blind PERCEPTIVITY; an ultimate physical Fact (p. 118). 2. As referring to a MENTAL OCCASION: The CONSCIOUSNESS of physical EXPERIENCE,

having the CHARACTER of being an incomplete [186]

GLOSSARY

ANALYSIS of physical experience by SYNTHESIS with the CONCEPTS involved in the MENTALITY

(p. 118). Cf. also pp. 80, 84 (immediacy), and ImMEDIATE.

Experience, Lower [Never explicitly defined; closest is on pp. 95f. This seems to be a kind of experience which results from DEGRADATION, or

the self-eliminating activity of EviL. Lower experience can only be called ‘‘Evit’’ RELATIVE to what might have been, 1.e., some HIGHER EXPERIENCE. Cf. also pp. 57 (lowest ABSTRACTIONS), 86 (lower FORMS), 96 (below). |

Experience, Religious A _ certain widespread, direct APPREHENSION Of a CHARACTER [presumably, ‘‘rightness’’] EXEMPLIFIED in the ACTUAL

UNIVERSE (p. 86). Cf. also pp. 17, 32 (Supernormal), 58, 60-62, 64, 89, 123, 136.

Experience, Vivid Depth of ACTUALITY, DEFINITENESS (p. 113). Cf. also p. 83 and VIVID.

Expression 1. The one fundamental sacrament; the outward, visible and INTERPRETABLE [187]

GLOSSARY

SIGN of an inward spiritual grace; an expressive SIGN is CREATIVE and elicits the INTUITION which

INTERPRETS it, as a tuning fork elicits a sympathetic VIBRATION from a particular piano string

(pp. 131-132). 2. (Especially expression by DocGma) The return from solitariness to SOCIETY

(p. 137). Cf. also pp. 18, 23, 33 (self-expression), 34, 38, 43, 48, 50, 54-55, 57, 67-68, 72, 75, 78, 83, 115-116, 126-127, 129 (philosophy of), 130, 133-134, 136, 138-139, 143-145, SIGN and RELIGION #3, #4.

Fact See Fact, ACTUAL. [Never explicitly de-

fined as a generic term; closest is on p. 155: Whitehead states that every fact is what it is—a fact of pleasure, joy, pain, or suffering—but no fact is a total loss in its union with Gop and its weaving together of mortal and IMMORTAL rhythms. Cf. also pp. 15-17, 24, 25 (Vivip fact, GENERAL fact), 37, 49—51 (historical fact, contin-

gent fact), 52 (elucidatory facts), 57, 59, 68 (METAPHYSICAL fact); 69, 96 and 154 (complete fact), 76—77, 80 (bare facts, fact of LIFE, ImMorTAL fact), 85 and 158 (facts of EXISTENCE), 87 (bi[188]

GLOSSARY

ological facts, final fact), 92 and 99 (MATTER of fact), 95 and 151 (facts of the WoRLD, REALIzATION in fact), 101 (CONCRETE fact, non-MENTAL facts), 143 (ANALYsIS of fact), 150, 152 (anteced-

ent facts, LimITED fact), 155 (living fact), 157, PERCEPTION; GROUND; Fact, ACTUAL; FACT, RELIGIOUS; and EXPERIENCE, IMMEDIATE.”

Fact, Actual 1. An ACTUAL fact is a fact of AEsTHETIC EXPERIENCE (p. 115). 2. An ACTUAL fact

always means FUSION into one PERCEPTIVITY, Gop being one such CONCEPTUAL FUSION (p.

157). Cf. also pp. 25, 53, 71, 151, 156-157, 159, PERCEPTION, GROUND, and EXPERIENCE, IMMEDIATE.

Fact, Religious [Never explicitly defined; Whitehead twice contrasts religious facts with METAPHYSICAL doctrines in RELIGIONS (pp. 51,

72). Cf. also p. 86.] ° There are numerous non-technical occurrences of this term, for example, in transitional phrases such as ‘‘in fact,’’ etc., which are not reflected in this entry.

[189]

GLOSSARY

Factors [Never explicitly defined or used in such a way as to make its meaning clear. Cf. pp. 14, 18-19, 38, 40, 43, 60, 71, 73 (Gop as a factor in the UNIVERSE), 89, 138, 156, FACT, ELEMENT, and ELEMENTS, FORMATIVE. |

Feeling [Never explicitly defined; closest is on p. 103: A UNIT of feeling arises out of a specific mode of CONCRETION of the DIVERSE ELEMENTS

and CREATES a specific VALUE. Feeling is some-

times used as a synonym for ‘‘ACTUALITY’’ (p. 104). Cf. also pp. 21, 80 (layers of feeling), 98 (unfeeling), 100 (feeling of SELF-VALUATION), 102— 103 (VALUE-feeling), 104 (ACHIEVED feeling), 112

(UNITY or feeling), 115, 150 and 152 (feelingVALUE), and EXPERIENCE, AESTHETIC. |

Form, Forms, Formation, Formative, Forming [Never explicitly defined or used in a context that makes its meaning clear. See ENTITIES, IDEAL; ELEMENTS, FORMATIVE; and FORMULA.

Cf. also pp. 13, 17, 33, 35-37, 48, 57, 60, 62-64, 67, 86-87, 89, 96, 98, 101, 107, 109, 112, 126, [190]

GLOSSARY

132, 134-135, 143, 145-146, 148, 151-152, 160. |

Forms, Abstract See ENTITIES, IDEAL. Cf. also pp. 94, 156, 160. Forms, Ideal See ENTITIES, IDEAL. Cf. also pp. 93, 108, 112, 114, 117, 151-154.

Forms, Realm of See ENTITIES, IDEAL. Cf. also pp. 94, 98, 119, 154, 160.

Formula, Formularization, Formulae, Formulate, Formulation One LIMITED way of EXPRESSING an INTUITION which increases VIVIDNESS of AP-

PREHENSION; the formula is secondary to its meaning, like a literary device (pp. 136-137); particularly RELATED to the STATEMENT of DocMAS and DOGMAS OF RELIGION. Cf. also pp. 56,

58, 60, 63, 77, 126-128, 136 (unformularized), 138, 140 (reformulate), 143-144.

Freedom, Free _ |Never explicitly defined or used in such a manner as to suggest a clear meaning. [191]

GLOSSARY

Apparently related to Creativity. Cf. also pp. 34, 90 (DETERMINATE freedom), 119 (INFINITE freedom), 157 (free urge). }

Fusion, Fuse A synonym for SYNTHESIS. In the CREATIVE PROCESS, the bringing together of the

GROUND, which is ACTUAL, with the CONSEQUENT, which is not ACTUAL when the PROCESS begins, but is ACTUAL when the PROCESs ends (p.

114). Whitehead explicitly relates this term to ‘‘confusion’’ on p. 104. Cf. also pp. 47 (confusion), 104 (PERCEPTIVE fusion), 153 (fusion of Goop and Evi), 157 (CONCEPTUAL fusion, examples of types of fusions), DERIVATE, and FACT, ACTUAL.

Generality, General, Generalization The salt of RELIGION (p. 44). Distinct from UNIVERSAL (p. 62). See IDEA, GENERAL. Cf. also pp. 14-15 (general TRUTHS, general principles), 24 (general void

of DEFINITION), 25 (general Fact), 31 (general STATEMENTS), 32, 33 (general progress), 34, (gen-

eral terms, generality of thought), 35; 48, 52, 84, 128 and 149 (general principles); 54 and 126 (gen[192]

GLOSSARY

eral TRUTHS); 58, 60, 63 (general doctrine), 64-65, 67; 83 and 150 (general CONCEPTS); 85, 107, 115 (general type), 124, 134 (FORMATIVE generalities), 149 (general EXPERIENCE), 149, DocMA; TRUTH, RELIGIOUS; and RELIGION, DOCTRINAL. *°

God [See the ‘‘Note’’ at the end of this glossary.] 1. One of the three FORMATIVE ELEMENTS

of the all-inclusive UNIVERSE; the ACTUAL but non- TEMPORAL ENTITY whereby the INDETERMINATION of mere CREATIVITY is transmuted into a

DETERMINATE FREEDOM (p. 90). 2. The ORDER-

ING ENTITY (pp. 104-105; cf. also p. 150). 3. The GROUND antecedent to transition who includes all possibilities of physical VALUE CONCEPTUALLY,

thus holding the IDEAL Forms apart in equal CONCEPTUAL REALIZATION Of KNOWLEDGE (p.

153); the one SYSTEMATIC, complete FAcT condi-

tioning every CREATIVE act (p. 154). 4. The com10 There are numerous non-technical occurrences of this term not reflected in this entry. Also, various etymologically related forms of this word, such as ‘‘generation,’’ ‘‘generating,’’ etc., are not documented here.

[193]

GLOSSARY

plete CONCEPTUAL REALIZATION of the realm of IDEAL Forms, or the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (p.

153). 5. The IDEAL companion who transmutes

what has been lost into a living Fact within its own nature; the mirror which discloses to every CREATURE its own greatness (p. 154). 6. The AcTUAL FactT in the nature of THINGS from which the other FORMATIVE ELEMENTS cannot be torn apart (p. 156). 7. The REALIZATION of the IDEAL CONCEPTUAL HARMONY by REASON of which there is an ACTUAL PROCEsS in the total UNIVERSE — an evolving WORLD which is ACTUAL be-

cause there is ORDER (p. 156). 8. An ACTUAL fAcT or CONCEPTUAL FUSION embracing the Con-

CEPT of all other such possibilities GRADED in HARMONIOUS, RELATIVE subordination (p. 157).

9. The VALUATION of the WorLD (p. 159). Cf.

pp. 157-160 for several more ‘‘definitions’’ of God. The word ‘‘God’’ appears on the following pages: 16-17, 20, 28, 36, 39, 41, 48—49, 53, 55, 62—63, 66-79, 85, 87, 90, 93-95, 98-100, 104—108, 111, 119-120, 130, 139, 149-150, 153-160.

Good, Goodness, Goods 1. That which is positive and CREATIVE (p. 96). 2. The ‘‘PEACE which [194]

GLOSSARY

passeth all understanding’’; the stable self-preservation of that which is good RELATIVE to itself

(pp. 97-98). Cf. also pp. 17-18, 37; 41, 70 and 153 (goodness of GOD); 52, 57; 76 and 138 (good

tidings, good news), 87-88, 95, 148, 155, 157, and EvIL.

Grade, Graded, Grading, Gradual, Gradations Proportion of RELEVANCE of the various ELEMENTS, so far as concerns their contribution to the one ACTUAL Fact (pp. 150-151). Both AcTUAL FACTS and IDEAL ForMS can be graded. The

grading of the ACTUAL Fact arises from the CREATIVITY of some ACTUAL FACT passing over into a

NEw Form by REAsOn of the Fact itself. This CREATIVITY already has a DEFINITE status in the

WORLD, and one can say that the grading arises from the status, or the status from the grading (it

amounts to the same THING). The grading of IDEAL FORMS arises from the grading of ACTUAL

Facts as the union of the IDEAL Forms with the FACTS in such a MEAsuRE as to elicit a renewed FEELING-VALUE of the type possible as a NOVEL

outcome from the antecedent Facts (p. 151). Cf. [195]

GLOSSARY

also pp. 18-19, 33, and 74 (gradual); 25, 60 (grad-

ing of VALUES), 103, 112, 114-115, 118, 157, and DEGRADE.

Ground Any one ACTUAL Fact (p. 113). The

ground is FORMED by all the Facts of the WorRLD, already ACTUAL and GRADED in their proportion of RELEVANCE (p. 151). Cf. also pp.

103, 114-117, 152-154, 156-157, SYNTHESIS, FUSION and REVERSION. !!

Harmony (in the ACTUAL WoRLD) 1. CONFORMITY with the CHARACTER of permanent rightness (p. 61). 2. Harmony is LIMITATION, and rightness of LIMITATION is ESSENTIAL for the growth of REALITY (p. 152). Cf. also pp. 61 (har-

monious conditions, harmonious IDEAL), 104 (harmonious ORDER), 119 (harmony of APPREHENSION), 120 (IDEAL harmony which is Gop), 152 (harmony in the GROUND), 153 (harmony of '! There are a few non-technical occurrences of this term not reflected in this entry, in terms like ‘‘background,’’ or when it is used in an historical context generally to mean ‘‘the basis of a position.”’

[196]

GLOSSARY

VALUATION); 154 and 156 (CONCEPTUAL harmony), 157, DETERMINATION, and ELEMENTS, FORMATIVE.

Heaven (Kingdom of) 1. The Kingdom of Heaven is Gop (p. 154); 2. The overcoming of EviL by Goon (p. 155). Cf. also pp. 37, 72 (King-

dom of Heaven is within you), 87-88, Evm, Gop, Goon. Idea(s) [Never explicitly defined; two approximations of a definition are offered: 1. (p. 114) the

lapse of Time is the renovation of the WorLD with ideas. The context seems to imply a close connection (perhaps even an identification) between ideas and IDEAL Forms. 2. (p. 129) No idea 1s DETERMINATE in a vacuum: it has its being as one of a SysTEM of ideas. Cf. also pp. 18, 30, 35 and 77 (RELIGIOUS idea); 23 (ABSTRACT

idea), 25, 33-34, 36, 39, 43-44, 51 (METAPHYSICAL ideas), 56; 65 and 129 (distinct idea), 76 (sim-

plicity of dominant ideas), 78 (profound ideas cloaked by LANGUAGE), 84—85, 130 (SYSTEM of [197]

GLOSSARY

ideas), 131 (set of ideas), 134, 141, 159 (particular ideas, ACTUAL ideas). !?]

Ideal See ENTITIES, IDEAL; Forms, IDEAL; and IpbEA #1. Cf. also pp. 39, 51, 57 (supreme ideal), 60; 61, 120 and 156 (HARMONIOUS ideal, ideal HARMONY, and ideal CONCEPTUAL HARMONY); 63, 87, 99; 114 and 156-157 (ideal CONSEQUENT); 116-117 (ideal NOVELTY), 119 (CONSCIOUSNESS

of an ideal, PERFECTION of ideals), 141-142 (ide-

alism), 154 (ideal WoRLD); 154 and 156 (ideal companion, i.e., GOD as ideal), 155-157 (ideal vision, ideals of Gob), 159 (ideal VALUES).

Identity [Never explicitly defined; closest is p. 115: By implication, identity appears to be the agreement between GROUND and CONSEQUENT in the CREATIVE PROCESS; this agreement pre-

serves DEFINITENESS. Cf. also pp. 115 (identity of CHARACTER, CONTRAST under identity), 116 2 It is difficult to be certain whether this is a technical term for Whitehead at all in this book. In some cases, however, it is certain that the term is being used in a purely ordinary way. Thus, there are some non-technical occurrences of this term not reflected in this entry.

[198]

GLOSSARY (identity of type), 138, 144 (identical INTUITIONS), 147, NOVELTY, and RELEVANCE. |

Idolatry SPIRITUAL TRUTH which dominates, uncriticized by DoOGMa or by recurrence to the primary sources of RELIGIOUS inspiration; the necessary product of static DoGMas (p. 147). Cf. also pp. 37, 148.

Imagination, Imaginary [Never explicitly defined or used in a context so as to make its mean-

ing clear. Cf. pp. 19, 25, 27 (development of imagination), 147 (imaginative representations of spiritual TRUTHS), 160 (unimaginable past). ]

Immediacy, Immediate See EXPERIENCE, ImMEDIATE; and OCCASIONS, EPOCHAL. Cf. also pp.

27 (immediate objects, immediate sense and PERCEPTION), 40 (immediate social routine or setting); 47 and 135 (immediate surroundings or environment), 47 (immediate detail), 48 (immediate present), 57 (immediate pictures), 67 (immediate ends), 84 (patch of immediacy), 85 (immediately

Conscious), 89 (immediate comparison), 100, [199]

GLOSSARY

137 (immediate APPREHENSION), 138 (immediate conviction), and OCCASIONS, IMMEDIATE.

Immortality A BELIEF (regarding which White-

head claims to be neutral) that a spiritual or MENTAL ROUTE might go on indefinitely without its associate MATERIAL or PHYSICAL ROUTE (p.

111). Cf. also pp. 80 Gmmortal Fact), 110, 155, 159.

Indetermination, Indeterminate See DETERMINATION. Cf. pp. 90, 94, 159.

Individual, Individuality [Never explicitly defined; there are two close approximations to a definition: 1. (pp. 108—109) The most individual ACTUAL ENTITY 1s a DEFINITE act of PERCEPTIV-

ITY; the further context suggests that individuality is to be understood in contrast to ABSTRACTNESS. If that is the case, individuality may be, by implication, a species of CONCRETION. 2. (pp.

108-109) A second possible rendering of these passages is that the individuality of an ACTUAL ENTITY is MEASURED by the increase in the DEFI[200]

GLOSSARY NITENESS, or INTENSIVE QUANTITY of PERCEPTI-

viTy. Contextually, Whitehead often associates individuality with PERSONALITY. Cf. also pp. 16, 17 (individual worth and CHARACTER), 20 (indi-

vidual habits), 33 (isolated individuals), 36 (direct

individual Intuition, individual prayer, individual criticism, individualistic FoRMsS of RELIGION, individual INSIGHT), 37, 39—41, 47; 49 and 51 (individual PERSONALITY); 58, 59 (VALUE of individ-

uals for themselves and for each other), 60-61, 63 (individual PERSONAL EXPERIENCE), 68 (PERSONAL GOD), 69, 78 (used with PERSONAL, 1mPERSONAL, ACTUAL and ENTITy); 87 and 88 (indi-

vidual and SociETY mutually FORMATIVE); 93;

105, 107-108 and 140 (individual substances); 128 (individual MINnpb), 132-133; 134 and 137 (in-

dividual primary INTUITIONS, cf. p. 36), 136— 137, 140 (individual subject of EXPERIENCE), 141

(finite, enduring individuals), 158 (individual CONSCIOUSNESS contrasted with UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS of GOD, and ADJUSTMENT of in-

dividuality). ]

Infinite [Never explicitly defined or used in a context which makes its meaning clear. Cf. pp. [201]

GLOSSARY

119 (infinite FREEDOM, infinite possibilities), 141 (finite INDIVIDUALS), 142 (finite TRUTHS), 143 (fi-

nite SYSTEMATIZED scheme), 153 (infinity of Gop), and DEFINITE. |

Inheritance An influence in the background of the (PHYSICAL or MENTAL) OCCASIONS in a given

RoutTeE which makes possible a REAL transmission of the common ELEMENT along that ROUTE (pp. 109-110). Cf. also p. 72.

Insight [Never explicitly defined or used in such a way as to make its meaning clear. Cf. pp. 31-32 (moments of insight), 36 (INDIVIDUAL insight), 56

(direct insight), 148 (philosophic insight), 154 (swift insight of suffering), and INSIGHT, RELIGIOUS. |

Insight, Religious The grasp of the TRUTH that nothing ACTUAL could be ACTUAL without some MEASURE of ORDER; the UNIVERSE exhibits a

CREATIVITY with INFINITE FREEDOM, and a realm of (IDEAL) FORMS with INFINITE possibili-

ties, but this CREATIVITY and these FORMS are [202]

GLOSSARY

impotent to achieve ACTUALITY apart from the completed IDEAL HARMONY which is GoD (p. 119). Cf. also ELEMENTS, FORMATIVE.

Intensiveness, Intensify, Intense, Intensity Synonymous with QUANTITY, INTENSIVE. Cf. also pp. 35, 59 (WORLD as REALM of ADJUSTED VALUES, mutually intensifying, and mutu-

ally destructive), 83 (intensity of EMOTION), 103 (intensiveness of VALUE).

Interest [Never explicitly defined or used in a context which suggests any clear definition. It seems related to VALUE. Cf. also pp. 18, 32 (specialized interests), 38, 52, 84 (historical interest), 89 (SMW term), 124 (direction of interest), 125, RELIGIOUS interest), 158, SELF-INTEREST, and SELF-VALUE. |

Interpretation [Never explicitly defined; closest is on pp. 132-133. In the text, interpretation is related to EXPRESSION and INTUITION, and appears to be the way in which an INDIVIDUAL artic-

ulation of direct INTUITION contributes to the [203]

GLOSSARY

KNOWLEDGE of all PERSONS in a group. Cf. also pp. 47, 51 (SYSTEMATIC interpretation), 56, 62, 65

(psychological interpretation), 66 (RATIONAL in-

terpretation), 83-85 (interpretation of past and present dependent on MEtTapHysics), 124-125, 145 (strict interpretation), 149. ]

Intuition [Never explicitly defined as a generic term; closest is pp. 59 and 65. 1. Intuition into the ACTUAL WORLD gives a particular DEFINITE

content to the bare notion of a principle DETERMINING the GRADING of VALUES (p. 59). This definition may be specific to a RELIGIOUS INTUITION; the context does not make clear whether

the term is being used generically. 2. Intuitions may first EMERGE as distinguished in CONSCIOUS-

NESS (p. 65). Here it is clear that the term is being

used generically. Cf. also pp. 29, 32, 36, 57, 59, 61—64 and 132 (direct intuition); 36 (direct ethical intuition), 56 (first-hand intuition), 60-62, 66-67, 132 (COMMUNITY of intuition), 133, 134 (NOVEL

intuitions, primary intuitions), 135 (DEFINITE Intuitions), 137 (INDIVIDUAL intuitions), 144, and INTUITION, RELIGIOUS. | [204]

GLOSSARY

Intuition, Religious An awareness of a CHARACTER of permanent rightness, whose inherence in the nature of THINGS modifies both efficient and final cause, so that the former CONFORMS to HARMONIOUS conditions, and the latter ConTRASTS itself with an HARMONIOUS IDEAL (p. 61).

Whitehead explicitly says this is not a linguistic

discernment (p. 67). Cf. also pp. 29, 32, 36, 56-57, 59-60, 62—65, 86, 132, 139, INTERPRETATION, and EXPRESSION.

Judgment, Moral The way Gop, as conditioning the CREATIVITY with his HARMONY of APPREHENSION, issues into the MENTAL CREATURE ac-

cording to a perfection of IDEALS (p. 119). Cf. also

pp. 32, 158, and Gop.

Knowledge, Know [Never explicitly defined as a generic term; closest is on p. 143. Knowledge of a discernment of ORDERED RELATIONSHIPS, especially in AESTHETIC VALUATIONS (which stretches

far beyond anything which has been EXPRESSED SYSTEMATICALLY in words), is one of the two sources of EVIDENCE which GROUNDS the final [205]

GLOSSARY

principle of RELIGION, i.e., that there is wisdom in the nature of TuinGs. Surveying Whitehead’s

use of this term, there are evidently at least two kinds of knowledge: scientific knowledge, and some sort of knowledge more comprehensive and CONCRETE than this. The latter involves AEsTHETIC VALUATION, RELIGIOUS and moral dis-

cernment, sensation, and INTUITION in some sort

of arrangement (perhaps this is to be understood as KNOWLEDGE-VALUE (see below). Cf. also pp.

36 (our knowledge of Gop), 41 (unknown), 67, 70

(Lruits of knowledge), 75, 80 (circle of our knowledge), 90, 104, 123 (knowledge acquired via senses), 126 (RELIGIOUS knowledge), 127 (knowledge of CHARACTER), 132, 136, 138, 142, 149 (DEFINITE knowledge), 153 (CONCEPTUAL REALIZATION of knowledge); 154 and 156 (Gop’s knowledge), 160.'*]

Knowledge-Value The VALUE REALIZED in a MENTAL Occasion; the issue of the full CHARAC‘3 There are numerous non-technical occurrences of this term not reflected in this entry.

[206]

GLOSSARY

TER of the CREATIVITY into the CREATURE WORLD (pp. 118-119). Cf. also KNOWLEDGE.

Language 1. A LIMITED mode of EXPRESSING such IpDEAs as have been frequently entertained, and urgently needed, by the group of human beings who developed that mode of speech (p. 34).

2. Language cloaks the most profound IDEAS under its simplest words (p. 78). Cf. also pp. 35 (language and SOCIETY), 57, 133 (theological language).

Life [Never explicitly defined; closest is p. 15. Life is an internal Fact for its own sake before it is an external FacT RELATING itself to others. Cf.

also pp. 15-16 and 49 (conduct of life); 18 and 138 (human life); 21 (necessary work of life), 23 (life of the spirit), 24 (routine of life), 31 (coherent ORDERING of life), 38, 39 (common life), 51,

56—57 (life of Buddha and Christ), 58 (life of man), 60 (ATTAINMENT of life), 70 (daily life), 80 (life-weariness, life-ZEST, QUALITY of life), 98 (interior life); 112 and 116 (life history), 119 (ZEST of life, PEACE of life), 124 (INTERPRETATION of life); [207]

GLOSSARY

137 and 147 (RELIGIoUs life); 139 (aim of life); 158 (Gop’s RELATION to life), LIFE OF THE Bopy, and LIFE OF THE MIND. ]

Life (of the Body), Physical Life See ROvuTE, PHYSICAL. Cf. also pp. 102, 116, and LIFE.

Life (of the Mind), Mental Life See ROureE, MENTAL. Cf. also pp. 102-103, 116, 123, and LIFE, and MIND.

Limitation, Limit 1. In the CREATIVE PROCESS,

the whole Wor LD presents both opportunities and limitations, and the limitations are the opportunities (pp. 112—113). 2. See QUALIFICATION.

3. HARMONY is limitation, and rightness of limitation is ESSENTIAL to the growth of REALITY (p.

152). Cf. also pp. 22, 32 (limited VALIDITY); 34 and 133 (limits of LANGUAGE); 39 (limited horizon), 91 (DEFINITE limited PHYSICAL event), 93

(DEFINITE limited CREATURE, mutual limitations), 118 (limitations of CONCEPTS), 124, 130, 136, 139, 145, 149, 150, 152 (unlimited possibility, DEFINITE limited Fact), 153 (limitation of [208]

GLOSSARY

Gop, unlimited Fusion of Goop with EvIL), 159 (no DEFINITE, DETERMINATE limitation required for ATTAINMENT), and THING, ACTUAL.

Magic Ritual hero-worship joined to EMOTION by mythical BELIEF wherein the object of hero worship is a THING (p. 26). Cf. also RELIGION

#5. Matter, Material A subordinate COMMUNITY which is a ROUTE whose various [PHYSICAL] Oc-

CASIONS exhibit some COMMUNITY of type of VALUE (pp. 108-109). Some bits of matter have an associate ROUTE of MENTALITY, and these are

called ‘‘organic,’’ while other bits of matter have a negligible associate MENTAL ROUTE, and these

are called ‘‘inorganic’’ (p. 110). Cf. also pp. 105 and 107-108 (inorganic bits of matter); 107 (matter and MInpb), 111 (enduring EXISTENCE of mat-

ter), 131 (subject matter), 140 (MIND and matter as substance), MIND, CREATIVITY, and OCCASION, PHYSICAL.

Measure ‘To count VIBRATIONS in the PHYSICAL

WORLD (p. 116). Cf. also pp. 57 (immeasurable [209]

GLOSSARY

innocence), 61 (measure of CONFORMITY, measure of DIVERSITY), 94 (measure of DETERMINA-

TION), 99 (Gop as the measure), 119 (measure of ORDER), 145 (measure of TRUTH), 149 (measure of the UNIVERSE), 152 (measure of HARMONY), 160 (measures of TIME).

Media, Mediation, Mediate See IMMEDIATE. Cf. also pp. 69, 132, 144, 147 (intermediate). Mental, Mentality See MIND; ROUTE, MENTAL; LIFE OF THE MIND, and OCCASION, MENTAL. Cf.

also pp. 43, 73, 95 (mental suffering), 101 (nonmental Facts); 102 and 123 (mental LIFE); 118, 119 (mental CREATURE), 141 (Western mentality).

Metaphysics, Metaphysical 1. (rational) The attempt to Express the most GENERAL CONCEPTS ADEQUATE for the all-inclusive UNIVERSE,

and criticism of the meanings used in this attempt

(p. 83). 2. The science which seeks to discover the GENERAL IDEAS which are indispensably RELEVANT to the ANALYysIs of everything that

happens (p. 847.). 3. Metaphysics is a descrip[210]

GLOSSARY

tion which takes its direction from one select field of INTEREST (pp. 88-89). Cf. also pp. 31 (ABSTRACT metaphysics), 32, 36; 49 and 68 (meta-

physical Fact); 50 (applied metaphysics, meta-

physical SYSTEM, metaphysical __ notion, metaphysical doctrine), 51 (metaphysical IDEAs),

52 (metaphysical theory), 70 (metaphysical RaTIONALIZATION); 71 and 104 (metaphysical situa-

tion); 72, 75, 79, 83, 84 (metaphysical principles, metaphysical DOGMAS, metaphysical INTERPRE-

TATION), 85 (metaphysical BELIEFS, primary metaphysical data), 86 (metaphysical presuppositions), 94, 95 (metaphysical CONCEPTs), 104, 105,

108 (metaphysical scheme), 110 (metaphysical theory), 141 (principles of metaphysics), 149, 150

(metaphysical SyvsTEM, metaphysical description), 159 (metaphysical function), DOGMA oF RELIGION, and DOGMA.

Mind A subordinate COMMUNITY which is a ROUTE whose various [MENTAL] OCCASIONS ex-

hibit some COMMUNITY of type of VALUE (pp. 108-109). Cf. also pp. 13, 54 (states of mind), 56,

67, 87, 105, 107-111, 114 (mind of space), 116, [211]

GLOSSARY

126, 128 (INDIVIDUAL mind), 140, MATTER, MEN-

TAL, LIFE OF THE MIND, and OCCASION, MENTAL.

Novelty, Novel, New Synonymous with ‘‘IDEAL novelty’’; the birth of a new instance; the information of the ACTUAL WORLD with a new set of IDEAL ForMS (pp. 113-114). Cf. also pp. 13, 26 (new FORMATIVE agent), 29; 33, 39 and 159 (new IDEAS); 35 (new SYNTHESIS), 38 (new FACTORS),

39 (new virtues), 40—41, 72, 90, 92 (new CREATURE), 113 (new CREATION, passage into novelty), 114; 115, 151, 155 and 157 (novel CONSEQUENT); 115 (new AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE), 116, 117 (new dimension), 127 (new STATEMENT), 134

(novel INTUITIONS), 136 (ELEMENT of novelty, new FORMULA, new FACTS, new EXPRESSION,

new circumstances), 146, 151 (new FORM, new CREATIVITY), 152 (novel outcome, renewed FEELING), 160 (new FORMS, new CREATIVE conditions), and CONSEQUENT.

Occasion(s), Epochal 1. The primary ACTUAL Units of which the TEMPORAL WoRLD and the [212]

GLOSSARY

ACTUAL COMMUNITY are composed (p. 91). 2. A

DEFINITE LIMITED physical event in the PuysiCAL WORLD, LIMITED both as to space and time,

but with TimeE-duration as well as with its full spatial dimensions (p. 91) 3. CREATURES, but not separable from CREATIVITY (pp. 91-92); cf. Ac-

TUAL WORLD. 4. A CONCRETION; a mode in which DIVERSE ELEMENTS come together into a REAL UNITY (pp. 92-93). 5. A DEFINITE LImMITED CREATURE EMERGENT in CONSEQUENCE of

the LIMITATIONS mutually imposed by the ForMATIVE ELEMENTS upon one another (p. 93). 6. A

microcosm inclusive of the whole UNIVERSE (p. 100). 7. The self-creating CREATURE (p. 102).

7. Epochal occasions, although a UNITY, have two sides: (a) a mode of CREATIVITY bringing together the UNIVERSE, or the occasion as cause, its own CREATIVE act; (b) occasion as CREATURE, the one EMERGENT Fact which is the SELF-VALUE of

the CREATIVE act (pp. 101-102). In SMW and PR, Whitehead uses the term ‘‘ACTUAL OCCASION’’ synonymously with what is here called the

‘epochal occasion’’ (cf. RM 102, 157). Cf. also pp. 60 (IMMEDIATE occasions), 91 (multiplicity of [213]

GLOSSARY

occasions), 103, 112-113, 114 (antecedent occa-

sion), 116 (CONCRETE occasions), 151, 160 (slighter occasions of ACTUALITY), OCCASION, MENTAL; and OCCASION, PHYSICAL.

Occasion(s), Mental 1. The CHARACTER of a REFLECTIVE PERCEPTIVITY issuing into VALUEFEELING; DERIVATIVE from its physical counter-

parts (p. 102). 2. An ultimate Fact in the SpirITUAL WORLD (p. 103). Apparently synonymous with REFLECTIVE occasion, p. 102. Cf. also pp. 108-109, 116-118; OCCASIONS, PHYSICAL; and EXPERIENCE, IMMEDIATE.

Occasion(s), Physical [Never explicitly defined;

closest is on pp. 102-103. From the remarks made on these pages, one would gather that a physical occasion is any EPOCHAL OCCASION which is non-MENTAL. Physical occasions are '* The epochal occasion seems to be the genus of which the mental and physical occasions are species. I have noted generic occurrences of the term ‘‘occasion’’ under ‘‘OccasION, EPOCHAL,”’ excluding references to the two designated species of occasions, which are reflected in the following entries.

[214]

GLOSSARY

more fundamental than MENTAL OCCASIONS. Ap-

parently physical occasion 1s synonymous with bodily occasion (p. 117) and blind occasion (p. 153). Cf. also pp. 108-109, 116, 118, and EXPERIENCE, IMMEDIATE. |

Order All order (e.g., HARMONIOUS, p. 104, natural, p. 104, etc.) 1s AESTHETIC order DERIVED from the immanence of Gop (p. 105). Cf. also pp. 18 (order of EMERGENCE), 19 (inverse order), 31 (ordering of LIFE), 32 (ordering of all EXPERIENCE); 68 and 150 (imPERSONAL order,

self-ordering WORLD); 80 (order which inForMs the WORLD), 94 (moral order, common order, or-

dered balance), 99, 111 (order immanent in the WORLD, order laid upon the CREATIVITY), 112 (stable order of the ACTUAL WoRLD), 119 (order of the WorLD, MEAsuRE of order), 132 (ordered UNIVERSE), 143 (order of THINGS, ordered RELA-

TIONSHIPS), 156, 160 (order in the WORLD), WoRLD, ACTUAL #4, and FEELING. '° 'S There are numerous non-technical occurrences of this term (in phrases like ‘‘in order to. . .’’) which are not reflected in this entry.

[215]

GLOSSARY

Peace [Never explicitly defined or used in such a way as to make its meaning clear; cf. pp. 40, 97, 119 (peace of LIFE). |

Perception A grasping of ELEMENTS of the UNI-

VERSE into the Unity of one Fact (p. 150). It is unclear what the relationship is between percep-

tion and PEeErceptTiviry. Cf. also pp. 27, 58 (sense-perception), 96.

Perceptivity, Perceptive 1. APPREHENSION (p. 101). 2. By inference, perceptivity is the ENJoyMENT of the VALUE of the CONCRETE FAcT of one’s ACTUALITY (pp. 100-101). There are at least two sorts of perceptivity: MENTAL and nonMENTAL. Non-MENTAL perceptivity is: (a) the SELF-VALUE of its own microcosmic APPREHENSION; it is blind, or devoid of REFLECTIVE CON-

SCIOUSNESS (p. 101); and (b) an ultimate ConCRETE Fact in the PHysicAL WORLD (p. 103). MENTAL perceptivity, on the other hand, is not devoid of REFLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS, but is a

REFLECTIVE perceptivity (p. 102). Cf. also pp. 104 (perceptive Fusion), 108 (DEFINITE act of [216]

GLOSSARY

perceptivity), 112 (EXPERIENCED perceptivity), 117 (perceptive ANALYSIS); 118 and 153 (blind perceptivity); 125 (perceptive powers, perceptive EXPERIENCE), 157, 160 (perceptive ACHIEVEMENTS), EXPERIENCE, IMMEDIATE; OCCASION, EPOCHAL; OCCASION, PHYSICAL; and OCCASION, MENTAL.

Personality, Person, Personal [Never explicitly defined or used in a context such as to make its meaning clear. Related to INDIVIDUAL, and some-

times appears to be synonymous with it. Cf. p. 26, 27 (body of persons); 49 and 51 (INDIVIDUAL personality); 61 (DEFINITE person); 62, 63, 66, 68,

73, 87 and 150 (personal God), 62 (personality substantial to the UNIVERSE), 63 (personal EXPE-

RIENCE, divine personality), 64 (divine persons, personal being), 66 (personal SIGNIFICANCE); 68 and 150 (impersonal ORDER); 74 (three-fold personality of Gop), 78, 140 (active personality). ]

Process [Never explicitly defined as a generic term or used in such a way as to make its meaning clear. It is possible to distinguish between the [217]

GLOSSARY

generic use of this term and its specific use in describing the CREATIVE PROCESS (see below). Cf.

pp. 33 and 134 (process of development); 35, 48 (process of REFLECTIVE FORMATION), 97 (process

of DEGRADATION), 132 (process of FORMING a common EXPRESSION of direct INTUITION), 156, and PROCESS, CREATIVE. |

Process, Creative 1. The achievement of ACTUALITY by the IDEAL CONSEQUENT, in virtue of its union [FUSION] with the ACTUAL GROUND;

the Fusion of being with not-being (p. 114). 2. Discerned in that transition by which one OcCASION, already ACTUAL, enters into that of another instance of EXPERIENCED VALUE. A process

of exclusion and inclusion on the basis of elicited RELEVANCE to some AESTHETIC UNITY (p. 114).

Cf. also pp. 111-113, 116, 152-153, PRocEss, and SYNTHESIS.

Purpose(s) Securing the avoidance of Evi (p. 95). Cf. also pp. 24, 25 (hidden purpose), 26 (explanatory purpose), 31 (unified purpose), 55, 60, 75, 79, 80 (ZEST after purposes), 85, 97, 118 (spe[218]

GLOSSARY

cific purpose), 119 (CREATIVITY with a purpose), PuRPOSE, ACTIVE, and PURPOSE OF GOD.

Purpose, Active The ADJUSTMENT of the present for the sake of further ADJUSTMENTS of VALUE in the IMMEDIATE or remote future (p. 100). Purpose of God 1. The ATTAINMENT of VALUE in the TEMPORAL WORLD, which is a CREATIVE pur-

pose (pp. 100, 104). 2. The QuaALity of ATTAINMENT embodied in the particular IDEALS RELEVANT to the ACTUAL state of the WORLD (p. 143). Cf. also

pp. 115, 119, 158-159, Gop and PURPOSE.

Qualification, Qualify [Never explicitly defined; closest is on pp. 92—93. Whitehead seems to use this term to describe one of the most fundamental RELATIONS of all, the RELATION between any given EPOCHAL OCCASION or CONCRETION and the three FORMATIVE ELEMENTS from which the EPOCHAL OcCASION ‘‘is thus EMERGENT.’’ The RELATION of

qualification is the one whereby the EPOCHAL OcCASION has in its own nature the other CREATURES

under the aspect of the IDEAL Forms, and analo[219]

GLOSSARY

gously includes the IDEAL ForRMs in its own nature under the aspect of these CREATURES. Presumably (since Whitehead seems to use IDEAL FORMS as an example in this passage) this RELATION of qualification also holds as a RELATION among EPOCHAL

OccasIons and the other two FORMATIVE ELEMENTS, GoD and CREATIVITY. This presumption 1s

consistent with the use of the term ‘‘qualification’’ on p. 98. This term may also be synonymous with Whitehead’s use of the term ‘‘LummtaTIon.’’ Cf.

also pp. 72, 96.] Quality [Never explicitly defined; SMW term. This means something akin to VALUE, but of a sort which lies always beyond the mere FAcT of LIFE, yet the quality is included in the Fact (p. 80). Cf. also pp. 16 (final quality), 21 (quality of EMOTION), 44, 115, 159 (quality of ATTAINMENT).

This term does not seem to have any relation to QUALIFICATION. !°] '©In Science and the Modern World quality is called (along with substance and simple location) ‘‘the most natural ideas for the human mind’’ without which ‘‘we could not get our ideas straight for daily use.”’ However, these ideas are highly abstract, ‘‘elaborate logical constructions,’’ rather than concrete. They are ‘‘simplified editions of immediate matters of fact’’ (p. 52).

[220]

GLOSSARY

Quantity, Intensive 1. A MEASURE OF VALUE used to GRADE and compare SPECIFIC VALUE;

zero intensive quantity means the collapse of ACTUALITY. [Evidently, the greater the intensive

quantity, the greater the ‘‘depth’’ and/or ‘‘importance’ of the EPOCHAL OCCASION (p. 103).] 2. The contribution of some one ELEMENT in the SYNTHESIS to this one intensiveness of VALUE [presumably in a given EMERGENCE of an EpOCHAL OCCASION] (p. 103). Cf. also INTENSIVE.

Quantity, Physical Aggregates of physical VIBRATIONS, which are the EXPRESSION among the ABSTRACTIONS of physical science of the fundamental principle of AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE (p. 116).

Rationalism (in religion), Rationalization, Rationality 1. BELIEF raised beyond itself by a note of progressive solitariness (p. 30). 2. The safeguard of the objectivity of RELIGION which secures for it the GENERAL coherence denied to hys-

teria (p. 64). Cf. also pp. 18-19, 24, 28-33, 35-36, 40-43, 47, 49, 52, 54, 56-58, 63, 66-68, {221]

GLOSSARY

70, 77, 79, 83 (rational METAPHYSICS), 86, 90,

138 (rational principle), 142, 157 (rational description, rational explanation), and RELIGION, RATIONAL.

Real, Reality, Realization, Realize [Never explicitly defined; seems to be synonymous with ACTUALITY when used as a noun, and with the CREATIVE PROCESS when used as a verb or verbal

noun. Cf. also pp. 16 (self-realization of Ex1sTENCE), 17 (greater reality), 25, 69 (unreal, Gop’s reality), 93 (real UNITY), 95 (realization in FActT, realization of a PURPOSE); 100, 102 and 119 (real WORLD); 110 (real transmission), 115 (realization of CONTRAST under IDENTITY), 117 (reality), 118

(VALUE realized), 125, 126 (VIviD realization), 131 (root of reality), 141 (ultimate reality), 142, 146, 151, 152 (growth of reality), 153 (realization of KNOWLEDGE, PROCESS of realization), 154 (re-

alization in the WORLD, CONCEPTUAL realization), 156, 158 (deeper realities). '’] 7 There are some non-technical occurrences of this term not reflected in this entry.

[222]

GLOSSARY

Reason, Reasonable [Never explicitly defined; closest is pp. 76-77: Reason seems to be a discipline for the discernment of TRUTH which cannot

be restricted a priori to approved outcomes and Forms of conduct which are VALUED merely EMOTIVELY (pp. 76-77). Whitehead also says that reason is the safeguard of objectivity in RELIGION which secures for RELIGION the GENERAL coher-

ence denied to hysteria (p. 64). Also, reason mocks at majorities (p. 66). Cf. also pp. 30, 42,

47, 57, 64, 73, 91, 95, 104 (reason for the WoRrRLD), 111, 119, 125, 132, 141, 151, 154, 155, 156, 158, 160, RATIONALISM, and RELIGION, RaTIONAL. !?]

Reflection See CONSCIOUSNESS, REFLECTIVE.

Cf. also pp. 48 (PRocEss of reflective FORMATION), 52, 54, 102 (reflective PERCEPTIVITY, reflective OCCASION).

Relation, Relationship, Relative [Never explicitly defined or used in such a way as to make its '8 There are some non-technical occurrences of this term not reflected in this entry.

[223]

GLOSSARY

meaning clear. Cf. pp. 16, 25 (GRADES of relationship), 57, 59; 76 and 131 (interrelations); 80 (intelligible relations), 89 (correlate), 96—97, 99, 102 (various relationships, correlative), 103 (relative depths of ACTUALITY), 108 (relatively ABSTRACT), 116, 118 (physical relationships), 125, 134, 143 (ORDERED relationships), 145, 154, 157

(relative subordination, complex of relationships), 159, and RELEVANCE. |

Relevance [Never explicitly defined; closest is on p. 112. It seems that relevance is the MEASURE of how much IDENTITY is maintained between an ACTUAL GROUND and its NOVEL CONSEQUENT In

the CREATIVE Procsss. The greater the MEASURE

of IDENTITY between GROUND and CONSEQUENT, the greater the relevance of GROUND to CONSEQUENT, and similarly with irrelevance. Ir-

relevance seems sometimes synonymous with CONTRAST (e.g., p. 115). Cf. also pp. 14, 20, 31,

43; 90 and 151 (proportion of relevance); 113114, 117 (degree of relevance), 118 (relevance of

CONCEPTS), 150 (relevance of various ELEMENTS), and GRADE. | [224]

GLOSSARY

Religion 1. The force of BELIEF cleansing the inward parts (pp. 15, 58). 2. The art and the theory of the internal Lire of man, so far as it depends on the man himself and what is permanent in nature (pp. 16, 58). 3. What the INDIVIDUAL does with his own solitariness (pp. 16-17, 47, 58). 4. RITUAL hero-worship joined to EMOTION by mythical BELIEF wherein the object of hero-worship is a PERSON (pp. 26-27; cf. Macic). 5. The last refuge of human savagery, and the main instrument for progress (p. 37). 6. WorLpD-LoyALTY (p. 60). 8. The direct APPREHENSION that,

beyond the happiness and pleasure induced by the QUALITIES of human EXPERIENCES, there re-

mains the function of what is ACTUAL and passing, that it contributes its QUALITY as an IMMOR-

TAL Fact to the OrpDER which inForms the WORLD (p. 80). 9. The longing of the spirit that the Facts of EXISTENCE should find their justification in the nature of EXISTENCE (p. 85).!°

Religion, Communal _ Generic term for all preRATIONAL religion; leads to morbid exaggeration '° This term occurs on over 80% of the pages in the book.

[225]

GLOSSARY

of national self-CONSCIOUSNESS (cf. pp. 41-43). Cf. also pp. 36, 38, 68, and RELIGION.

Religion, Doctrinal A SysTEM of GENERAL TRUTHS which have the effect of transFORMING

CHARACTER when they are sincerely held and VIVIDLY APPREHENDED (p. 15). Cf. also pp.

13-14, 16, 30, 32, 50-52, 56, 61-63, 68-69, 73—74, 77; 86 and 104 (METAPHYSICAL doctrines),

124, 144, 150, RELIGION, and TRUTH, RELIGIOUS.

Religion, Rational 1. RELIGION whose BELIEFS and RITUALS have been reorganized with the aim of making RELIGION the central ELEMENT in a coherent ORDERING of LIFE both in the elucidation of its thought and in the direction of conduct toward a UNIFIED PURPOSE commanding ethical approval (p. 31). 2. The wider CONSCIOUS reaction of men to the UNIVERSE in which they find

themselves (p. 42). 3. Religion centered upon RELIGIOUS INTUITION in which divine PERSONAL-

ITY is an inference—as distinct from the direct, private INTUITION of a divine PERSONALITY (such [226]

GLOSSARY

as one finds in mysticism), or the EMOTIONAL BELIEF in direct contact with a divine PERSONALITY (such as one finds in COMMUNAL RELIGION). Cf.

pp. 63-64. 4. Interdependent with descriptive METAPHYSICS in order to scrutinize and fix the meanings of its terms (pp. 79, 83) [It would seem

that recognition of religion’s dependence upon descriptive METAPHYSICS is the RELATION that rationalizes religion (cf. pp. 82—85).] Cf. also pp.

32-33, 40, 47, 52, 54, 58, 142. Religion, Topic of INDIVIDUALITY in COMMUNITY (p. 88). Cf. also p. 125.

Reversion, Reverse, Revert The undoing of the SYNTHESIS exhibited in the GROUND; reversion 1s the PRocEss whereby PHYSICAL OCCASIONS come to be MENTAL OCCASIONS in the next phase of the CREATIVE PROCESS due to an exhibition of IDEAL NOVELTY in the CONSEQUENT’S RELATION to its GROUND (pp. 116-117). A synonym for ANALY-

sis. Cf. also pp. 43, 101, and CONCEPT.

Ritual 1. The habitual performance of DEFINITE actions which have no direct RELEVANCE to [227]

GLOSSARY

the preservation of the physical organisms of the

actors (p. 20). 2. The primitive outcome of superfluous energy and leisure (p. 20). Cf. also pp.

17-19, 21-26, 28, 31-32, 42, Macic, and EMOTION.

Route [Never explicitly defined as a generic term; closest is on pp. 102—103. This seems to be a general name for the various possible modes of TEMPORAL succession. Whitehead says that from any given PHYSICAL OCCASION, there are two basic routes of CREATIVE passage: one toward another PHysICAL OCCASION; the other toward a DERIVATIVE, REFLECTIVE OCCASION. A physical

route apparently tends to remain physical, and a MENTAL route remains MENTAL by ‘‘INHERI-

TANCE from the antecedent members of the route,’’ an INHERITANCE which may be either fa-

vored or obstructed by the ‘‘environment’’ (pp. 109-110). Cf. also pp. 89 (route of ANALYysIS), 92 (route of TEMPORAL succession), ROUTE, PHYSICAL, and RouTE, MENTAL. |

Route, Mental [The term ‘‘mental route’’ is not explicitly employed in the text in the place where [228]

GLOSSARY

its definition is given; its EXISTENCE may be in-

ferred from what is called ‘‘the other route’’ on p. 102, as contrasted with the PHYSICAL ROUTE.

Whitehead speaks of the route of MIND later on pp. 108—110.] That which links this bodily Lire

with a corRELATIVE mental LIFE (p. 102), ROUTE, PHYSICAL, and ROUTE.

Route, Physical That which links together PHYSICAL OCCASIONS as successive TEMPORAL In-

cidents in the LIFE oF A Bopy (p. 102). Cf. also pp. 108-110, ROUTE, MENTAL, and ROUTE.

Self-Interest The FEELING or EMOTIONAL tone of SELF-VALUATION possessed by an ACTUAL ENTITY. The INTEREST of what one’s EXISTENCE, as

in that of an EPOCHAL OCCASION, comes to; the ultimate ENJOYMENT of being ACTUAL (p. 100). Cf. also pp. 80, VALUE, and SELF-VALUE.

Self-Value The Unit Fact which EMERGES (p. 101). [Also, this is apparently a type of SELF-INTEREST (p. 100).] Cf. also pp. 59, 98 (self-preservation), pp. 99 (self-CONTRAST), 102, 106 (self(229]

GLOSSARY

sustaining), 146 (self-sufficient), 146 (self-satisfied), 156 (self-destruction), 158, and SELF-INTEREST.

Sign, Signification, Significance See EXPRESSION. Cf. pp. 129, 131-132, 133 (EXPRESSIVE sign).

Society [Never explicitly defined; closest is on p. 108, where it evidently means the totality of ENTITIES, both ACTUAL and IDEAL, considered

together. It seems to be used interchangeably with COMMUNITY, except that a COMMUNITY

may also be a subset of the SOCIETY (p. 110). Since it is unclear what the relationship is between the ordinary use of the term ‘‘society’’ and this metaphysical definition, all occurrences of the term are given below. Cf. also pp. 16, 23, 35, 39, 48, 75, 87, 97, 108, 137.] Statements, Exact The MEpiaA by which IDENTICAL INTUITIONS into the WORLD can be IDENTI-

FIED amid a wide variety of circumstances (p. 144). Presumably this is to be contrasted with [230]

GLOSSARY

GENERAL statements (e.g., pp. 31, 78, 127), and is synonymous with ‘‘precise statements’’ (e.g., pp. 130). Cf. also pp. 139, 149.

Synthesis The UNION of what is already AcTUAL with what is, for that OCCASION, NEw for

that OccASsION; the UNION of the ACTUAL GROUND with the NOVEL CONSEQUENT (p. 151).

A synonym for Fusion. Cf. also pp. 35, 93—94, 98, 103, 117-118, 153, Gop, CREATIVITY, LIMITATION, and FORMS, IDEAL.

System [Never explicitly defined or used in a context which makes its meaning clear. It most often is applied to arrangements of IDEAS and thoughts, but is curiously applied to GOD on p. 154: ‘‘Gop is the one systematic, complete FAcT,

which is the antecedent GROUND conditioning every CREATIVE act.’ It seems that if an ENTITY

can be a systematic Fact, then the term ‘“‘system’’ must have more than merely descriptive force. Cf. pp. 15 (system of GENERAL TRUTHS), 18 (system of BELIEFS), 35 (social system); 50 and 150 (METAPHYSICAL system), 51 (systematic IN{231]

GLOSSARY

TERPRETATION), 56, 101 (systematic theory), 124 (coherent system); 129 and 130 (system of IDEAs);

50, 130 and 141 (system of thought), 143 (system-

atized scheme), 145 (exact system, system of philosophic thought, philosophic system, system | of DoGmas), 149 (DOGMATIC systems). ] Temporality, Temporal See TIME, and WORLD, TEMPORAL.

Thing (Actual) A LIMITED, elicited FEELINGVALUE, which is ANALYZABLE as the outcome of GRADED grasping of the ELEMENTS of the UNI-

VERSE into the UNITY of one Fact (p. 150). [This

technical use of the term ‘‘thing’’ seems distinct from its generic use in the text—often to distinguish inanimate from animate beings. That dis-

tinction is not ultimate for Whitehead, and it would seem that both animate and inanimate ENTITIES are ‘‘actual things’’ in the technical sense of the term. Nevertheless, all generic occurrences of the term ‘‘thing’’ are given below. The reader may decide which are technical and which are generic occurrences.] Cf. also pp. 15 (multi[232]

GLOSSARY

plicity of things); 16-17, 43, 49, 56, 58, 61, 63, 64, 67, 124, 143, and 156 (nature of things); 25, 26 (hero-thing), 28 (higher things); 41, 66, and 134 (rightness of/in things); 87 (ACTUAL things),

95, 97, 100, 101 (EMERGENT thing), 103, 105 (scheme of things), 106 (EXISTENT thing, CREATED thing), 124, 137, 143 (ORDER of things),

143-144 (disposition of things), 155 (mortal things), PERCEPTION, RELEVANCE, and _ ENJOYMENT.?°

Time (Lapse of) 1. The renovation of the WORLD with IDEAs (p. 114). Cf. also NOVELTY.

2. The MIND of space (p. 114 [quoted approvingly from Samuel Alexander]). 3. (Passage of time) The journey toward the gathering of NEw IDEAS into ACTUAL Fact (p. 159). [Presumably, ‘‘time’’ and “‘temporal passage,’’ ‘temporal suc-

cession,’’ and a number of other words Whitehead uses in this manner are at this point inter70There are numerous non-technical occurrences of the word ‘‘thing’’ not reflected in this entry. I have also omitted all occurrences of terms such as ‘‘something,’’ ‘‘nothing,’’ ‘‘anything,’’ and “‘everything.’’

[233]

GLOSSARY

changeable.|] Cf. also pp. 53-54, 89, 91, 160 (MEASURES of time), and WorRLD, TEMPORAL.?!

Truth, True [Never explicitly defined; closest is on p. 124. By implication, truth here seems to mean something like ‘‘success in INTERPRETATION.’’ Our APPREHENSION of a GENERAL truth

is not dependent upon its accurate verbal ExPRESSION (p. 126). Also, truth progresses in evolv-

ing notions and framing CONCEPTS which strike more deeply into the root of REALITY, and discarding artificial ABSTRACTIONS and partial met-

aphors (p. 131). Cf. also pp. 13 (ELEMENTARY truths); 14-15, 54 and 126 (GENERAL truths); 23, 25 (symbolic truth), 28, 32, 43 (true description), 58, 61, 63 (Gop as a truth); 65 and 124 (arithmeti-

cal truth); 71, 75, 77 (discernment of truth), 78-80, 95, 106, 119, 125, 127-128, 130-131, 133,

138 (effect of truth, test of truth), 142 (finite truths), 145 (ESSENCE of truth, exact truth, MEaSURE of truth), 149 (STATEMENT of truth, comple21 There are numerous non-technical occurrences of this term not reflected in this entry.

[234]

GLOSSARY

mentary truths, proportion of truth), 153 and TRUTH, RELIGIOUS. |

Truth, Religious (or Spiritual) 1. TRUTH dealing explicitly with VALUES, bringing to ConSCIOUSNESS that permanent side of the UNIVERSE

we care for and thus providing a meaning, in terms of VALUE, for our own EXISTENCE. Developed from KNOWLEDGE acquired when our ordi-

nary senses and intellectual operations are at their highest pitch of discipline (p. 124); the GENERALIZATION of final truths first PERCEIVED as

EXEMPLIFIED in particular instances (p. 124). The conversion of the Gentiles is both the test of truth and the effect of truth. 2. Intermediate representations enshrined in modes of worship, popular RELIGIOUS literature, and art which play a great part in RELIGIOUS LIFE (p. 147). Cf. also pp. 14-15, 63, 76, 123, 136, 147 and RELIGION, DOCTRINAL.

Unit, Unity, United, Unified, Unify, Union, Unison (Never explicitly defined as a generic cluster of terms or used in such a way as to make [235]

GLOSSARY

its meaning clear. However, it is often associated with the Process of CREATIVE SYNTHESIS. Cf. pp. 31 (unified PURPOSE), 36 (INDIVIDUAL as RELIGIOUS unit), 38 (social unity), 39 (tribal unit), 73 (PERSONAL unity), 93 (REAL unity), 100 (unifica-

tion of the UNIVERSE, atomic unit), 101 (unit Fact), 103 (CREATED unit of FEELING), 112 (unity of FEELING), 113 (AESTHETIC unity), 114 (union with the ACTUAL GROUND), 118 (unity of a blind PERCEPTIVITY), 145, 150 (unity of one Fact), 151

(SYNTHESIS as union), 152 (union of the Forms,

unison), 155 (union with Gop), and UNITs, PRIMARY. |

Units, Primary The EpocHAL OCCASIONS which compose the ACTUAL COMMUNITY; each

has in its nature a reference to every other member of the COMMUNITY; each unit is a microcosm

representing in itself the entire all-inclusive UNIVERSE (p. 91).

Universality, Universal, Universalization A disconnection from IMMEDIATE surroundings; an

endeavor to find something permanent and intel[236]

GLOSSARY

ligible by which to INTERPRET the confusion of IMMEDIATE detail (p. 47). Cf. also pp. 32 (universal VALIDITY), 34, 54, 60, 62, 67, 135, 138, 158, and solitariness in RELIGION #3, #4).

Universe 1. That which is comprehensive of all there is (p. 89). 2. That which is constituted by the TEMPORAL WORLD and its FORMATIVE ELE-

MENTS (p. 90). 3. The all-inclusive SOCIETY which every ENTITY requires in order to EXIST, because every ENTITY is social (p. 108). 4. A PROCESS of ATTAINING instances of DEFINITE Ex-

PERIENCE out of its own ELEMENTS, each of which embraces the whole—both ACTUAL FACT and IDEAL Foro (p. 112). Cf. also pp. 24, 42, 55, 59, 60 (objective universe), 61-62, 64, 70, 73, 79 (description of the universe); 83, 90—91 and 108 (all-inclusive universe); 86 (ACTUAL universe), 87; 98 and 156 (total universe); 100—101 (whole universe, UNIFICATION of the universe), 119, 124 (permanent side of the universe), 132 (ORDERED universe), 149 (MEASURE of the Universe), 150, 160. [237]

GLOSSARY

Validity, Objective Whatever has objective validity 1s capable of partial EXPRESSION in terms of ABSTRACT CONCEPTS, so that a coherent doctrine

arises which elucidates the WORLD beyond the locus of the DOGMAS in question (p. 144). [It is unclear whether all validity is ‘‘objective’’ valid-

ity in the text, but it seems not to be, given Whitehead’s willingness to also speak of a ‘‘LimITED’’ validity.] Cf. also pp. 14 (valid RELIGIOUS BELIEFS), 32 (LIMITED validity, UNIVERSAL va-

lidity), 66 (objective validity), 130 (validity of a DOGMA).

Valuation, Value, Valuable 1. That which it is Gop’s PuRPOSE to ATTAIN in the TEMPORAL WORLD; inherent in ACTUALITY itself. All value is DERIVATIVE of the SELF-VALUATION of ACTUAL

ENTITIES (p. 100). 2. The GROUND for the comparability of SPECIFIC VALUE-FEELINGS as MEASURED by their INTENSIVENESS (p. 103). Cf. also pp. 35, 56, 59 (ADJUSTMENT of values), 60 (GRAD-

ING of values, EMERGENCE of value), 80, 85

(pragmatic value), 88 (common value), 102 (value-FEELING), 104 (ATTAINMENT of value), [238]

GLOSSARY

109, 113 (EXPERIENCED value), 118-119 (KNOWLEDGE value, value of the WoRLD), 124,

128, 143 (AESTHETIC valuations), 144; 150 and 152 (FEELING value); 152 (depth of value), 153 (HARMONY of valuation, possibility of value), 154

(modes of value, ELEMENTS of value), 157 (AcTUAL value), 158 (values of EXISTENCE), 159 (IDEAL values, valuation of the WorRLpD), PurPOSE, GOOD, SELF-INTEREST, SELF-VALUE, and QUANTITY, INTENSIVE.

Value, Specific As opposed to ‘‘bare value,’’ which does not Exist, this is the CREATED UNIT

of FEELING arising out of the specific mode of CONCRETION of the DIVERSE ELEMENTS. Specific

VALUE-FEELINGS can be compared with one an-

other (p. 103). Cf. Value #2, and Quantity, INTENSIVE.

Vibraiton A physical law which EXPRESSES the principle of CONTRAST under IDENTITY; this law EXPRESSES the recurrence of CONTRAST within

IDENTITY type which enters into the ultimate nature of atomic organisms. The possibility of MEA{239]

GLOSSARY

SUREMENT in the PHYSICAL WORLD depends on

vibration (pp. 115-116). Vivid See EXPERIENCE, Vivip. Cf. also pp. 15 and 137 (vivid APPREHENSION), 24 and 25 (vivid

fancy, vivid effects, vivid acts, vivid Fact), 56 (vivid record), 115 (vividness), 126 (vivid REALIZATION).

World 1. At once a passing shadow and a final Fact, the shadow passing into the Fact, while yet the FACT is prior to the shadow (p. 87). 2. A scene of solitariness in COMMUNITY (p. 88). 3. (according to RELIGION) A mutually ApbJUSTED disposition of THINGS, issuing in VALUE

for its own sake (pp. 143-144). Cf. also pp. 17 (texture of the world); 22, 43, 64, 74 and 76 (mod-

ern world); 24 (unfathomed world); 39, 87 and 113 (world as a whole); 40—42 (world-CONScIOUS-

NESS), 41 (world-CONCEPT), 44, 48 (possible

worlds); 49, 62, 88, 95, 97, and 99 (Evi in the world); 50 (EXPRESSION of the world), 51, 54-57,

59 (objective world, CONCEPT of the world); 62 and 137 (civilized world); 68—69, 71, 75 (Chris[240]

GLOSSARY

tian world), 76 (simple world), 80 (common world of mutual ADJUSTMENT), 85, 88 (natural world, world of EXPERIENCING), 94, 95 (FACcTs of the world, moral ORDER of the world), 96, 98 (QUALI-

FIED by the world), 99 (consistency and inconsistency of the world), 104 (REASON for the world), 105 (foundations of the world), 106, 111 (ORDER immanent in the world), 114, 119 (CREATURE

world, OrpDER of the world, REALITY of the world, VALUE of the world, BEAUTY of the world), 133, 135-136, 138 (objective world), 139 (complex world); 141 and 142 (world of appearances, picture of the world), 143-144, 151 (Facts of the world, status in the world), 154 (IDEAL world), 156 (saving the world, Gop sustains the world, DERIVATIVE from the world, evolving

world), 157-160, and all subsequent entries under ‘‘world.’’

World, Actual 1. A world of EXPERIENCING,

thinking, and physical activity made up of a COMMUNITY of many DIVERSE ENTITIES which

contribute to or derogate from the common VALUE of the total COMMUNITY (p. 88). 2. The [241]

GLOSSARY

TEMPORAL WORLD (pp. 89-90); a COMMUNITY of

EPOCHAL OCCASIONS (pp. 91-92). 3. There is an

actual world because there is an ORDER in nature, and the actual world’s EXISTENCE 1s the way human beings Know that there is an ORDER in nature (p. 104). 4. The outcome of AESTHETIC ORDER DERIVED from the immanence of Gop (p.

105). Cf. also pp. 59, 61, 69, 71, 100 (REAL

world), 109, 112-113, 119, 154-157, 159, WORLD, and ELEMENTS, FORMATIVE.

World, Physical [Never explicitly defined in the text; closest is on pp. 89-91. This seems to be the place where PHYSICAL OCCASIONS occur, and the

place which provides conditions for the EMERGENCE of both the SPIRITUAL WORLD and its MENTAL Occasions. Cf. also pp. 49, 76, 103, 115-116, 153, 160.] World, Spiritual [Never explicitly defined; closest is on pp. 102-103. It appears to be the realm in which MENTAL OCCASIONS occur, as distinct from the PHysICAL WORLD in which PHYSICAL

Occasions occur. There is little doubt that the [242]

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spiritual world is to be thought of as DERIVATIVE

from the PHysICAL WORLD, although all that is said in the text (at the point where the ‘‘spiritual world’’ is mentioned) is that there is an ‘‘ESSENTIAL reference’’ from one world to the other (p.

103). The spiritual world is later compared (as that which ‘‘ascends’’ or preserves itself) with the PHysIcAL WoRLD (as that which ‘‘decays,’’

or fails to preserve itself, p. 160). Together the spiritual world and PHysICAL WORLD make up the two aspects of the UNIVERSE (p. 160).]

World, Temporal An ESSENTIAL incompleteness

(p. 92), beyond which we Know nothing, and which, with its FORMATIVE ELEMENTS, constitutes for us the all-inclusive UNIVERSE (p. 90). Cf.

also pp. 91, 95, 99, 100, 107, 152, 156-157, TIME, PURPOSE OF GOD, and WoRLD, ACTUAL.

World-Loyalty 1. RELIGION (p. 60). 2. The self-surrender to, and self-appropriation of, the UNIVERSAL claim of RELIGION by the spirit (p. 60). 2. The INTUITION of IMMEDIATE OCCASIONS

as failing or succeeding in reference to the IDEAL [243]

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RELEVANT to them (pp. 60-61; cf. CHARACTER).

3. An APPREHENSION of CHARACTER permanently inherent in the nature of THINGS (p. 61).

Lest (of/for Life), and perhaps Zeal [Never explicitly defined; both seem to anticipate Whitehead’s later term ‘‘adventure.’’ Cf. pp. 80, 87, 119, 128, 146.] A NOTE ON WHITEHEAD’S VIEW OF GOD IN RELIGION IN THE MAKING

While there is a glossary entry under the term ‘‘God’’ above, it is not a ‘‘definition’’ of God, for

several reasons. First of all, Whitehead says so many different things about God which might defensibly be included in a definition that the task

of defining God becomes impractical. Second, and more important (for Whitehead), God is not the sort of thing one defines after the manner of a glossary. God is incompletely known by us, al-

though we do strive for increasingly adequate metaphors as our religious understanding grows (cf. RM 38ff., 131-132). For all that, one might [244]

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still give an incomplete ‘‘definition’’ of God in a

glossary of Whitehead’s technical terms. Yet, Whitehead said only few years after Religion in

the Making that relating God and the world (which is what we do in the act of defining God) is a matter for ‘‘interpretation,’’?? and this I believe

stands in the place of a definition (for one would certainly feel more secure in one’s knowledge of something with a definition than with an interpretation). Using an interpretation instead of a definition indicates an admission of greater fallibility on the part of the thinker (although a defi-

nition is certainly not itself beyond all questioning). —

In any case, Whitehead’s concept of God is not

finished developing (which is ironically appropriate) in Religion in the Making, and arguably, for the human mind at least, cannot ever be finished developing, even in principle. A more ‘‘ma-

ture’? account of God was to be published by Whitehead only a few years after Religion in the Making, and, according to some, God plays less 22 Cf. Whitehead, Process and Reality, ed. Donald W. Sherburne and David Ray Griffin, corr. ed. (New York: Free Press, 1978), p. 341.

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of a central role in Process and Reality than in this earlier book. Thus, it can be (and has been) argued that Religion in the Making gives God a more exaggerated role than Whitehead’s ‘‘mature’’ (by about three, albeit important, years) judgment would allow. It would be difficult to show convincingly that Whitehead thought God less important to the cosmos in 1929 than he did in 1925. But perhaps it would be easier to show

that by the later date he realized that he knew less about the nature of God than he believed he knew three years earlier; certainly he made fewer direct, unqualified claims about God in the later book. His increased caution (and humility) would be in some ways explained by the fact that he had

undertaken a study of language and its limitations in the interim.*? In any case, Whitehead’s humility is itself legendary, and one would expect

that the greatest minds come to know their own limitations better with the passage of time—to

which the appropriate response is greater humility. *3 Cf. Whitehead, Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect (New York: Macmillan, 1927; repr. New York: Fordham University Press, 1958).

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For whatever else it may be, a definition is a linguistic articulation of some intuition, and as an articulation, it always remains partial and incomplete. As Whitehead puts it, language is ‘‘a limited mode of expressing such ideas as have been frequently entertained, and urgently needed, by

the group of human beings who developed that mode of speech’’ (RM 34). Taken to heart, this alone might prevent us from attempting a ‘‘definition’’ of God, but there is no reason it should prevent us from talking about God. The key is to keep our various levels of meaning ever before us. Whitehead says: .. . In expressing our conception of God, words

such as ‘‘personal’’ and ‘‘impersonal,’’ ‘‘entity,’’ ‘‘individuality,’’ ‘‘actual,’’ require the closest careful watching, lest in different connections we should use them in different senses, not to speak of the danger of failing to use them in any determinate sense. But it is impossible to fix the sense of fundamental terms except by reference to some definite metaphysical way of conceiving the most penetrating description of the universe [RM 78-79]. [247]

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This has been, to say the least, a very influential idea (although hardly new —it can be found in vari-

ous mutations in Erasmus, St. Bonaventure, Nicholas of Cusa, Moses Maimonides, Duns Scotus, Giambattista Vico, Joseph Butler, and others who employ theories of indirect speech about God). Yet,

somehow this bit of wisdom seems to have been lost at some time in the early nineteenth century (perhaps due to the influence of Fichte, or his brand

of Kantians, or other absolute idealists such as Hegel and Schelling). Whitehead has been instrumental in recovering the wisdom of clear but indirect speech about God. An excellent example of Whitehead’s influence

in this regard is that Charles Hartshorne (while certainly not a negative theologian or firm advocate of indirect speech) built his entire argument for the ‘‘divine relativity’’ on this insight about keeping levels of meaning (or ‘‘abstraction’’) clearly separated and well-specified. 4 A word should also be said about the triadic account of how ‘‘epochal occasions’’ emerge and be24 Cf. Hartshorne, The Divine Relativity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), pp. 2-6.

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come actual in Religion in the Making. Whitehead’s triad of ‘‘formative elements’’ is unusual, insofar as his ‘‘trinity’’ contains only one divine member.’?> The formative elements are God, the realm of ideal forms or ideal entities,?° and creativ-

ity. These three formative elements bring epochal occasions into actuality by their mutual limitation; this relation of mutual limitation is called ‘‘qualification’’ by Whitehead, and when it results in an

epochal occasion, he calls the process ‘creative synthesis.”’ The qualification relation is the one whereby the epochal occasion has all the other epochal occasions as a part of its own nature under the aspect of the ideal forms, creativity, and God. In this way at least, God is in everything, and ‘‘the inclusion of God in every creature shows itself in 25 Whitehead does later work out the threefold nature of creative synthesis and the role of the deity itself therein in Process and Reality (cf. pp. 87-88), but not in Religion in the Making. 26 It is peculiar, and has been noted by scholars before, that Whitehead should have referred to ‘‘ideal forms’’ or ‘‘ideal entities’’ as ‘‘eternal objects’’ both before Religion in the Making (in Science and the Modern World, 1925), and after it (in Process and Reality). Yet the term ‘‘eternal object’’ never occurs in Religion in the Making. I suspect that there is no important difference between what Whitehead means by ‘‘eternal objects’’ in other works, and what he means by ‘‘ideal forms’’ in RM.

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the determination whereby a definite result is emergent. God is that non-temporal actuality which has

to be taken account of in every creative phase’’ (RM 94). Here we have the basis of what some scholars (e.g., Hartshorne) say is Whitehead’s panentheism.

Other scholars, such as William Christian, argue that Whitehead never was a panentheist, in that the fact that God must be taken account of zm every occasion is not the same as the idea that God must take account of every occasion.?’ Whitehead holds that history had produced, up to his day, three distinctly different notions of God: the Eastern Asiatic, the Semitic, and the Pantheistic. The first is impersonal and immanent; the sec-

ond is personal and transcendent; and the third is like the second ‘‘except that the actual world is a phase within the complete fact which is the ultimate individual entity’’ (RM 68; cf. also 150). Inso-

far as he chooses among these at all, Whitehead chooses the third, and supplements it with elements of the first and second, rendering it more compre27 Cf. Christian, An Interpretation of Whitehead’s Metaphysics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), pp. 404ff.

[250]

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hensive than the third conception alone. It might be said, however, that Whitehead’s God is sufficiently different from the three historical versions he discusses to constitute a fourth option which demonstrates the partialness of the other three. In a synthetic philosophy such as Whitehead’s, partial truths are not so much falsified by being replaced by other, incompatible accounts, as shown to be false due only to incompleteness. Thus, in Hegelian fashion, the partial truth is taken up as a special case into newer, more complete truths. If Whitehead leans toward the third, pantheistic conception, then, this is because of its greater inclusiveness and comprehensiveness. Much more than this cannot be said

about Whitehead’s conception/definition of God without a full-scale study, and of course this has been done before by many excellent scholars. ”® 28In particular I would recommend two essays by Charles Hartshorne: ‘‘Is Whitehead’s God the God of Religion?’’ and ‘‘Whitehead’s Idea of God.’’ Although Hartshorne himself expresses some later dissatisfaction with ‘‘Whitehead’s Idea of God,’’ the difficulties with it do not greatly reduce its value. Both these essays have been reprinted in an accessible volume by Hartshorne, Whitehead’s Philosophy: Selected Essays (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972), pp. 63-110. As background material for Religion in the Making, Whitehead’s chapter on God in Science and the Modern World should be consulted (pp. 173-179).

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GENERAL INDEX Compiled by Randall E. Auxier and Eric Reiss

Abraham, 40 Buddha, Buddhism, 20, 31,

Alexander, Samuel, 114 44, 49, 50-52, 55-56, 62,

Alexandria, 148 139-41, 146

America, 30, 130, 141 cause,. 61, 101 Ames, E. S., 123 Amos. 37 China 37, 40, 62

Anselm Sto71 Christ, Christian, 22, 35, 38,

Apocrypha, renee 43-44, 49-52, 55-57, 62, 66, 71-75, 130, 139-140, appearance, 19, 22, 25, 69, 71, 146-148 107, 125, 129, 141-142 church, 17, 63, 72-74, 130,

Ararat, Mount, 146 146-148

Aristotle, 40, 114, 140 coherence, 18, 24, 31, 64, 89, arithmetic, 13-15, 65, 125; see 124, 144 also math, mathematics Confucianism, 62

art, 16, 21, 58, 128, 132, 147 criticism, 28, 36-37, 49, 63, 67,

Asia, 29, 68-69 83, 85, 121, 123, 147-148 Athenaeus, 22 cult, 27-28, 38, 42, 63—64 Ath 135

athens Dante, ‘ death, die, 50,15 52, 75, 110 Augustus Caesar, 43 Descartes, René, 71, 105, 107-108

Babylon, 40 doctrine, 13-16, 30, 32, 50-52,

Berkeley, George, 107 56, 61-63, 68-69, 73-74, 86,

Bible, 17, 29, 30-31, 33, 37, 104, 108, 110, 115, 124,

40, 48, 74 144, 150 biology, biological, 21, 87 duration, 29, 91 [253]

INDEX

Eaton, R. M., 129 hate, hatred, 37, 55 Ecclesiastes, 52-53 Herodotus, 40 Egypt, 73-74, 126 Hinduism, 62 embodiment, embodied, 38, history, 13-14, 18, 20, 32-38, 43, 52, 62, 159 40, 42, 47, 50-52, 55~57, 70, energy, 20, 54, 87, 112 74-75, 79, 84, 92, 112, 116, England, 135 128, 134, 138, 142, 144, 146-

environment, 16, 39, 65, 97, 149, 160

109-110, 135, 137 Hobbes, Thomas, 107

Erasmus, Desiderius, 148 Hosea, 36

Euclid, 126 hysteria, 37, 64 Europe, 20, 29-30, 35, 79,

140-151 immanence, 68, 71, 73-74, 99, evolution, 16, 20, 28, 36, 43, 105, 111 131, 134, 156 India, 40, 62 explanation, explain, 19,

24-26, 65, 71-72, 111, 138, | Jehovah, 36, 37

187 Jerusalem, 146 Jew, Jewish, 30, 40, 43, 53, 56,

faith, 15, 32, 85-86 Joh 4840.55"

fear, 26,feel, 49, 21, 75-76 76 Oe . feeling, 80,hn. 98, St.. 10072-74. Jo ae Oty

19 Pa 04 rr 9 ' 15 1s 6 1s ; justice, just, justification, jus, ? ’ ’ tify, 13, 15, 31, 36, 38, 42, force, 15, 23, 25, 43, 57, 58, 65, 48, 78-79, 85, 138 86, 117, 125

France, French, 36-37 law, 42, 64, 115 function, 63, 65, 80, 104, 123, Leibnitz, G. W., 127

139, 158-159 Leo X, Pope, 148

future, 100, 152, 160 logic, 36, 89 logos, 73-74

Galen, 128—129 Lord, 53-55, 75 Gentiles, 138 love, 41, 73, 75-76, 158 Gerazim, Mount, 146

Goethe, J. W., 135 Mahomet, Mahometanism, 20,

Gospel, 30, 49, 51, 73, 75, 138 31, 44, 70

Greek, 22, 40, 63, 126, 128— math, mathematics, 126-127;

130, 140 see also arithmethic [254]

INDEX Mercier, Désiré Joseph Cardi- practice, 24, 27, 42, 83, 129,

nal, 71 137, 142-143, 146

Mithras, 22 prayer, 26, 36

monism, 69 present, 35, 37, 48, 84-85, 92,

moral, 44, 49, 53, 94-95, 98, 100, 106”, 110, 160

104-105, 119, 140-141, 148 __ principle, 14, 31, 36, 48, 52,

myth, 23-26, 28, 32, 35 60, 84, 106”, 115-116, 128, 138, 141, 143, 149

nature, 15-17, 42-43, 49, 54, Progress, 26, 28, 30, 33, 38-39, 56, 58, 61, 63-64, 67-68, 72, _ 26, 98, 131

76, 85, 88, 91, 93, 95-96, vrophets, 36 pe 125-124, 132, 139-140, 142- Proportion, 90, 118, 128, 149, 143, 149-150, 154-157, 160

Newton, Sir Isaac, 127 Protestant, 147

Nile. 30 Proverbs, 52-53,85 75 ’ Psalms, 54-55,

psychology, psychological, 16,

Olympic Games, 22 23, 29, 65, 123m, 124

Origen, 148 126

OMNISCIENCE, 73, 153 Pythagoreans, Pythagoras, 63, orthodox, 110

reference, refer, 31, 52, 60, 67,

pantheism, 68-70 78, 91, 103, 116, 118, 129,

Papacy, 148 148 past, 29, 84-85, 92, 144, 160 Reformation, 149 Paul, St., 40, 74-76 Renaissance, 148

Persia, 22, 70 Roman Catholic Church, 63, physics, 58, 76, 115-116, 127, 147

143 Rome, 42-44, 130, 148

Plato, 40, 74, 108, 140 Rosmini, Antonio, 63

possibility, 26, 34, 42, 48, 70, rule, ruler, 54-55, 57, 68, 137 78, 94, 96, 112, 116, 119,

126, 129, 143, 147, 151-154, sacrament, 131-132, 138

157, 159 science, 26, 58, 76, 79, 84-85,

power, 32, 44, 50, 54-55, 57, 89n, 106, 116, 131, 14175, 77, 106, 125, 141, 184, 144, 146

156 Shakespeare, William, 135 [255]

INDEX simplicity, simplification, sim- _—_ theory, 16, 32, 52, 58, 95, 110-

ple, 13, 50, 68, 72-73, 111, 143

76-78, 94, 107, 113, 138-139 Thessalonians, 75

Socrates, 135 Thucydides, 40

solitary, solitariness, 16-17, Tigris, 30 19-20, 28, 30, 47, 58, 60, transcendence, 18, 68, 71,

88, 137 87-88, 156 Solomon, 52

space, 91, 114 understanding, understand, spirit, spiritual, 20, 23, 60, 85, 53, 72, 76, 98, 130, 145

102-103, 110-111, 131, 137,

146 ieo $ virtue, 15, 27, 39, 111, 114, substance, substrate, 62, 64, 158 wisdom, wise, 49, 52—54, 66,

theology, 33, 40, 62-63, 66, 143, 160 70-71, 74, 76, 79, 133, 139-

141, 147 Xenophon, 40

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