ii SCIENTIFIC RECONSTRUCTION 261 



the previous class of generalisations. For any character- 

 istic of a whole, if it really is nothing but a characteristic 

 of that whole precisely, is something true of the whole as 

 such. It is not dependent on any third term, except it be 

 one on which the whole depends, for its existence is a part 

 of the existence of the whole. The same is true of the 

 whole as compared with the several parts which truly con- 

 stitute it. Hence, lastly, the element which characterises 

 the whole as a whole is true of the parts which constitute 

 the whole as such, and therefore universally. (2) The 

 assumption covers the laws of causation and of the per- 

 manence of substance. For the assumption is that a rela- 

 tion holding between two terms as such at any given time 

 in any given part of space will hold at any other time in 

 any other phase. This is to assume that time and space as 

 such are indifferent, and do not affect the relations of con- 

 tents within them. It follows that if any element A per- 

 sists momentarily, this persistence may be regarded as a 

 relation A- A, and if this relation is not due to some external 

 condition it is self-determined, and is therefore indestruc- 

 tible and eternal. It follows, secondly, that all change is a 

 process of continuous becoming which, given any phase in 

 its completeness, will run the same course uniformly. If 

 A is followed by B, either A must be a phase of continuous 

 process of becoming which yields B as a subsequent phase, 

 or B must arise from some other source C l which must be 

 of that character. Whatever the cause x which yields B, it 

 cannot persist momentarily unchanged and then give place 

 to B, for this would imply that it suffers at one time a 

 change which it does not suffer at another without any 

 difference in the elements of reality to account for it. 

 Hence everything that exists is either a substance, and 

 therefore unchanging, or a phase in a continuous process 

 following immediately on an antecedent phase which passes 

 into it, and which will always wherever it recurs undergo the 

 same transition, or lastly, a phase in a process which is in part 

 self-determining and is indestructible and in part a process 

 of change i.e. having both substantiality and causality. 

 Furthermore, in any complex process of becoming in which,, 

 1 It may be other only in the sense that C is needed to complete B. 



