The 'Prospective' and the 'Retrospective' 275 



not solve the question of its nature, as far as science can 

 state a solution of that question ? 



§ 4. TJie 'Prospective' and the 'Retrospective' 

 But we cannot say that the whole difference is one of 

 greater modesty on the part of the psychologists. The 

 facts rather account for their modesty. And the prime 

 fact is one formulated in more or less obscurity by many 

 men, beginning with Aristotle : the fact, namely, that or- 

 ganization, considered as itself a category of reality, never 

 reaches universal statement in experience. To confine the 

 case at first to vital phenomena, we may say that to sub- 

 sume a plant or animal under the category of organization 

 is to make it at once to a degree an x ; a form of reality 

 which, by right of this very subsumption, predicts for itself 

 a phase of behaviour as yet unaccomplished — gives a proph- 

 ecy of more career, as a fact, but gives no prophecy (apart 

 from other information which we may have) of the new 

 phase of career in kind. Every vital organization has part 

 of its career yet to run. If it has no more career yet to 

 run, it is no longer an organization ; it is then dead. It 

 then gets its reality exhausted by the predication of the 

 categories of chemistry, mechanics, etc., which construe 

 all careers retrospectively. A factor of all biological and 

 mental realities alike is just this element of what has 

 been elsewhere called 'Prospective Reference.' ^ In biol- 

 ogy it is the fact of Accommodation ; in psychology it is 

 the fact found in all cases of Selection — most acute in 

 Volition. 



And it does not matter how the content in any particu- 

 lar filling up of the category may be construed after it 



1 See Mental Development, Chaps. VII., XI. 



