either one or many individual substances, “which requires nothing but itself in order to exist.” This presupposition is exactly what is denied in the more Platonic description which has been given in this lecture. There is no entity, not even God, “which requires nothing but itself in order to exist.”
According to the doctrine of this lecture, every entity is in its essence social and requires the society in order to exist. In fact, the society for each entity, actual or ideal, is the all inclusive universe, including its ideal forms.
But Descartes has the great merit that he states facts which any philosophy must fit into its scheme. There are bits of matter, and there are minds. Both matter and mind have to be fitted into the metaphysical scheme.
Now, according to the doctrine of this lecture, the most individual actual entity is a definite act of perceptivity. So matter and mind, which persist through a route of such occasions, must be relatively abstract; and
