ACTUALITY 267 



than the actual leads to a far better understanding of 

 the actual. 



From a broader point of view than that of elaborating 

 the physical scheme of law we cannot treat the connection 

 with mind as merely an incident in a self-existent inor- 

 ganic world. In saying that the differentiation of the 

 actual from the non-actual is only expressible by reference 

 to mind I do not mean to imply that a universe without 

 conscious mind would have no more status than Utopia. 

 But its property of actuality would be indefinable since 

 the one approach to a definition is cut off. The actuality 

 of Nature is like the beauty of Nature. We can scarcely 

 describe the beauty of a landscape as non-existent when 

 there is no conscious being to witness it; but it is through 

 consciousness that we can attribute a meaning to it. 

 And so it is with the actuality of the world. If actuality 

 means "known to mind" then it is a purely subjective 

 character of the world; to make it objective we must 

 substitute "knowable to mind". The less stress we lay 

 on the accident of parts of the world being known at 

 the present era to particular minds, the more stress we 

 must lay on the potentiality of being known to mind as 

 a fundamental objective property of matter, giving it 

 the status of actuality whether individual consciousness 

 is taking note of it or not. 



In the diagram Mr. X has been linked to the cycle at 

 a particular point in deference to his supposed claim 

 that he knows matter; but a little reflection will show 

 that the point of contact of mind with the physical 

 universe is not very definite. Mr. X knows a table; but 

 the point of contact with his mind is not in the material 

 of the table. Light waves are propagated from the 

 table to the eye; chemical changes occur in the retina; 

 propagation of some kind occurs in the optic nerves; 



