Page:Nature and Life (1934).pdf/58

 that, on the other hand, the notion of life should involve the notion of physical Natute.

Now as a first approximation the notion of life implies a certain absoluteness of self-enjoyment. This must mean a certain immediate individuality, which is a complex process of appropriating into a unity of existence the many data presented as relevant by the physical processes of Nature. Life implies the absolute, individual self-enjoyment arising out of this process of appropriation. I have, in my recent writings, used the word “prehension” to express this process of appropriation, Also, I have termed each individual act of immediate self-enjoyment an “occasion of experience”. I hold that these unities of existence, these occasions of experience, are the really real things which in their collective unity compose the evolving universe, ever plunging into the creative advance.