Page:Nature and Life (1934).pdf/88

 We can now again ask the final question as put forward at the close of the former lecture. Physical science has reduced Nature to activity, and has discovered abstract mathematical formulae which are illustrated in these activities of Nature. But the fundamental question remains: How do we add content to the notion of bare activity? This question can only be answered by fusing life with Nature.

In the first place, we must distinguish life from mentality. Mentality involves conceptual experience, and is only one variable ingredient in life. The sort of functioning here termed “conceptual experience” is the entertainment of possibilities fot ideal realization in abstraction from any sheer physical realization. The most obvious example of conceptual experience is the entertainment of alternatives. Life lies below this grade of mentality. Life is the enjoyment of emotion, derived from the past and aimed at the future. It is the enjoyment of emotion