Page:Science and the Modern World.djvu/238

 ingression into definite actual occasions. This principle is expressed by the statement that each eternal object has a ‘relational essence.’ This relational essence determines how it is possible for the object to have ingression into actual occasions.

In other words: If A be an eternal object, then what A is in itself involves A’s status in the universe, and A cannot be divorced from this status. In the essence of A there stands a determinateness as to the relationships of A to other eternal objects, and an indeterminateness as to the relationships of A to actual occasions. Since the relationships of A to other eternal objects stand determinately in the essence of A, it follows that they are internal relations. I mean by this that these relationships are constitutive of A; for an entity which stands in internal relations has no being as an entity not in these relations. In other words, once with internal relations, always with internal relations. The internal relationships of A conjointly form its significance.

Again an entity cannot stand in external relations unless in its essence there stands an indeterminateness which is its patience for such external relations. The meaning of the term ‘possibility’ as applied to A is simply that there stands in the essence of A a patience for relationships to actual occasions. The relationships of A to an actual occasion are simply how the eternal relationships of A to other eternal objects are graded as to their realisation in that occasion.

Thus the general principle which expresses A’s ingression in the particular actual occasion α is the indeterminateness which stands in the essence of A as to its ingression into α, and is the determinateness