Page:Nature and Life (1934).pdf/85

antecedent world as active in its own nature. This is the reason why events have a determinate status relatively to each other. Also, it is the reason why the qualitative energies of the past are combined into a pattern of qualitative energies in each present occasion. This is the doctrine of causation. It is the reason why it belongs to the essence of each occasion that it is where it is. It is the reason for the transference of character from occasion to occasion. It is the reason for the relative stability of laws of Nature, some laws for a wider environment, some laws for a narrower environment. It is the reason why — as we have already noted — in our direct apprehension of the world around us we find that curious habit of claiming a twofold unity with the observed data. We are in the world and the world is in us. Our immediate occasion is in the society of occasions forming the soul, and our soul is in our present occasion. The body is ours, and