Page:Nature and Life (1934).pdf/87

 active in my nature. My unity — which is Descartes’ “I am.” — is my process of shaping this welter of material into a consistent pattern of feelings. The individual enjoyment is what I am in my rôle of a natural activity, as I shape the activities of the environment into a new creation, which is myself at this moment; and yet, as being myself, it is a continuation of the antecedent world. If we stress the rôle of the environment, this process is causation. If we stress the rôle of my immediate pattern of active enjoyment, this process is self-creation. If we stress the rôle of the conceptual anticipation of future whose existence is a necessity in the Nature of the present, this process is the teleological aim at some ideal in the future. This aim, however, is not really beyond the present process. For the aim at the future is an enjoyment in the present. It thus effectively conditions the immediate self-creation of the new creature.