Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1886

Penned notes pasted into page 51 of Charles Hartshorne, Reality as Social Process (Boston: Beacon Press, 1953)

March 9, 1960

 

 

 

 

 

     The COSMOS consists of the Universal Concatenation of Events.

     Each EVENT, large or small, simple or vastly complex, whether particle or wave, atom, cell, structure or system is Cyclic — a Cycle — an integration of Mass, Motion and Time — living or non-living.

    Each event is an act, or an action. Events, in general, are called ACTION. All events act and re-act — inter-act. Action and reaction are equal and opposite. New events ever evolve. The quantity of Action, over-all quantity, does not change. Only the composition of events changes. This gives rise to different KINDS or patterns of events.

    All action is inter-action. Out of the interaction of events new compositions arise — new proportions as to Mass, Motion and Time. As new kinds or patterns of events evolve, those kinds having the greater time content tend to prevail — to be most repeated in their specific pattern — to be most actual, most prevailing, most Real.

    All human personalities are in species alike or the same. The general pattern is the same and, as human, unique and apart, distinguished from all other kinds of living things (events).

    But with /within?/ the specific pattern or kind each individual is unique in his diversity of detail — as every leaf on the tree is uniform in pattern, according to its kind, but diverse in detail. The pattern persists in the variety of its details — unity in variety.