Page:The Concept of Nature.djvu/62



two previous lectures of this course have been mainly critical. In the present lecture I propose to enter upon a survey of the kinds of entities which are posited for knowledge in sense-awareness. My purpose is to investigate the sorts of relations which these entities of various kinds can bear to each other. A classification of natural entities is the beginning of natural philosophy. To-day we commence with the consideration of Time.

In the first place there is posited for us a general fact: namely, something is going on; there is an occurrence for definition.

This general fact at once yields for our apprehension two factors, which I will name, the ‘discerned’ and the ‘discernible.’ The discerned is comprised of those elements of the general fact which are discriminated with their own individual peculiarities. It is the field directly perceived. But the entities of this field have relations to other entities which are not particularly discriminated in this individual way. These other entities are known merely as the relata in relation to the entities of the discerned field. Such an entity is merely a ‘something’ which has such-and-such definite relations to some definite entity or entities in the discerned field. As being thus related, they are — owing to the particular character of these relations — known as elements of the general fact which is going on. But we are not aware of them except as entities fulfilling the functions of relata in these relations.

Thus the complete general fact, posited as occurring, comprises both sets of entities, namely the entities