Page:Nature and Life (1934).pdf/62

 lute self-enjoyment, creative activity, aim. Here “aim” evidently involves the entertainment of the purely ideal so as to be directive of the creative process. Also, the enjoyment belongs to the process and is not a characteristic of any static result. The aim is at the enjoyment belonging to the process.

The question at once arises as to whether this factor of life in Nature, as thus interpreted, corresponds to anything that we observe in Nature. All philosophy is an endeavour to obtain a self-consistent understanding of things observed. Thus, its development is guided in two ways — one is the demand for a coherent self-consistency, and the other is the elucidation of things observed. It is, therefore, our first task to compare the foregoing doctrine of life in Nature with our direct observations.

Without doubt the sort of observations most prominent in our conscious experience