[334] The philosophy of organism is a cell-theory of actuality. Each ultimate unit of fact is a cell-complex, not analysable into components with equivalent completeness of actuality.
The cell can be considered genetically and morphologically. The genetic theoryt is considered in this part; [335] the morphological theory is considered in Part IV, under the title of the 'extensive analysis' of an actual entity.
In the genetic theory, the cell is exhibited as appropriating for the foundation of its own existence, the various elements of the universe out of which it arises. Each process of appropriation of a particular element is termed a prehension. The ultimate elements of the universe, thus appropriated, are the already constituted! actual entities, and the eternal objects. All the actual entities are positively prehended, but only a selection of the eternal objects. In the course of the integrations of these various prehensions, entities of other categoreal types become relevant; and some new entities of these types, such as novel propositions and generic contrasts, come into existence. These relevant entities of these other types are also prehended into the constitution of the concrescent cell. This genetic process has now to be traced in its main outlines.
An actual entity is a process in the course of which many operations with incomplete subjective unity terminate in a completed unity of operation, termed the 'satisfaction/ The 'satisfaction' is the contentment of the creative urge by the fulfilment of its categoreal demands. The analysis of these categories is one aim of metaphysics.
The process itself is the constitution of the actual entity; in Locke's phrase, it is the 'real internal constitution' of the actual entity. In the older phraseology employed by Descartes, the process is what the actual entity is in itself, Jormaliter. 7 The terms 'formal' and 'formally' are here used in this sense.
The terminal unity of operation, here called the 'satisfaction/ embodies what the actual entity is beyond itself. In Locke's phraseology, the 'powers' of the actual entity are discovered in the analysis of the satisfaction. In Descartes' phraseology, the satisfaction is the actual entity considered as analysable in respect to its existence [336] 'objective,'* It is the actual entity as a definite, determinate, settled fact, stubborn and with unavoid-
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able consequences. The actual entity as described by the morphology of its satisfaction is the actual entity 'spatialized/ to use Bergson's term. The actual entity, thus spatialized, is at given individual fact actuated by its own 'substantial form/ Its own process, which is its own internal existence, has evaporated, worn out and satisfied; but its effects are all to be described in terms of its "satisfaction/ The 'effects' of an actual entity are its interventions in concrescent processes other than its own. Any entity, thus intervening in processes transcending itself, is said to be functioning as an 'object/ According to the fourth Category of Explanation it is the one general metaphysical character of all entities of all sorts, that they function as objects. It is this metaphysical character which constitutes the solidarity of the universe. The peculiarity of an actual entity is that it can be considered both 'objectively' and 'formally/ The 'objective' aspect is morphological so far as that actual entity is concerned: by this it is meant that the process involved is transcendent relatively to it, so that the esse of its satisfaction is sentiri. The 'formal' aspect is functional so far as that actual entity is concerned: by this it is meant that the process involved is immanent in it. But the objective consideration is pragmatic. It is the consideration of the actual entity in respect to its consequences. In the present chapter the emphasis is laid upon the formal consideration of an actual entity. But this formal consideration of one actual entity requires reference to the objective intervention of other actual entities. This objective intervention of other entities constitutes the creative character which conditions the concrescence in question. The satisfaction of each actual entity is an element in the givenness of the universe: it limits boundless, abstract possibility into the particular real potentiality from which each novel concrescence originates. The 'boundless, abstract possibility' means the creativity [337] considered solely in reference to the possibilities of the intervention of eternal objects, and in abstraction from the objective intervention of actual entities belonging to any definite actual world, including God among the actualities abstracted from.