Page:Science and the Modern World.djvu/246

 value, as abstracted from any particular superject, is the abstract matter — the — which is common to all actual occasions; and the synthetic activity which prebends valueless possibility into superjicient informed value is the substantial activity. This substantial activity is that which is omitted in any analysis of the static factors in the metaphysical situation. The analysed elements of the situation are the attributes of the substantial activity.

The difficulty inherent in the concept of finite internal relations among eternal objects is thus evaded by two metaphysical principles, (i) that the relationships of any eternal object A considered as constitutive of A, merely involve other eternal objects as bare relata without reference to their individual essences, and (ii) that the divisibility of the general relationship of A into a multiplicity of finite relationships of A stands therefore in the essence of that eternal object. The second principle obviously depends upon the first. To understand A is to understand the how of a general scheme of relationship. This scheme of relationship does not require the individual uniqueness of the other relata for its comprehension. This scheme also discloses itself as being analysable into a multiplicity of limited relationships which have their own individuality and yet at the same time presupposes the total relationship within possibility. In respect to actuality there is first the general limitation of relationships, which reduces this general unlimited scheme to the four dimensional spatio-temporal scheme. This spatio-temporal scheme is, so to speak, the greatest common measure of the schemes of relationship (as limited by actuality) inherent in all the eternal objects.