application for science in its preparatory stages. But its use in metaphysical description distorts the true vision of the metaphysical situation. The use of the term ‘universal’ is intimately connected with this Aristotelian analysis: the term has been broadened of late; but still it suggests that classificatory analysis. For this reason I have avoided it.
In any actual occasion α, there will be a group g of simple eternal objects which are ingredient in that group in the most concrete mode. This complete ingredience in an occasion, so as to yield the most complete fusion of individual essence with other eternal objects in the formation of the individual emergent occasion, is evidently of its own kind and cannot be defined in terms of anything else. But it has a peculiar characteristic which necessarily attaches to it. This characteristic is that there is an infinite abstractive hierarchy based upon g which is such that all its members are equally involved in this complete inclusion in α.
The existence of such an infinite abstractive hierarchy is what is meant by the statement that it is impossible to complete the description of an actual occasion by means of concepts. I will call this infinite abstractive hierarchy which is associated with α ‘the associated hierarchy of α.’ It is also what is meant by the notion of the connectedness of an actual occasion. This connectedness of an occasion is necessary for its synthetic unity and for its intelligibility. There is a connected hierarchy of concepts applicable to the occasion, including concepts of all degrees of complexity. Also in the actual occasion, the individual essences of the eternal objects involved in these
