The Concept of Nature | Page 4

is, without
reference either to sense-awareness or to thought. Furthermore, I do not
wish to be understood as implying that sense-awareness and thought
are the only activities which are to be ascribed to mind. Also I am not
denying that there are relations of natural entities to mind or minds
other than being the termini of the sense-awarenesses of minds.
Accordingly I will extend the meaning of the terms 'homogeneous
thoughts' and 'heterogeneous thoughts' which have already been
introduced. We are thinking 'homogeneously' about nature when we are
thinking about it without thinking about thought or about
sense-awareness, and we are thinking 'heterogeneously' about nature
when we are thinking about it in conjunction with thinking either about
thought or about sense-awareness or about both.
I also take the homogeneity of thought about nature as excluding any
reference to moral or aesthetic values whose apprehension is vivid in
proportion to self-conscious activity. The values of nature are perhaps
the key to the metaphysical synthesis of existence. But such a synthesis
is exactly what I am not attempting. I am concerned exclusively with
the generalisations of widest scope which can be effected respecting
that which is known to us as the direct deliverance of sense-awareness.
I have said that nature is disclosed in sense-perception as a complex of
entities. It is worth considering what we mean by an entity in this
connexion. 'Entity' is simply the Latin equivalent for 'thing' unless
some arbitrary distinction is drawn between the words for technical
purposes. All thought has to be about things. We can gain some idea of
this necessity of things for thought by examination of the structure of a
proposition.
Let us suppose that a proposition is being communicated by an

expositor to a recipient. Such a proposition is composed of phrases;
some of these phrases may be demonstrative and others may be
descriptive.
By a demonstrative phrase I mean a phrase which makes the recipient
aware of an entity in a way which is independent of the particular
demonstrative phrase. You will understand that I am here using
'demonstration' in the non-logical sense, namely in the sense in which a
lecturer demonstrates by the aid of a frog and a microscope the
circulation of the blood for an elementary class of medical students. I
will call such demonstration 'speculative' demonstration, remembering
Hamlet's use of the word 'speculation' when he says,
There is no speculation in those eyes.
Thus a demonstrative phrase demonstrates an entity speculatively. It
may happen that the expositor has meant some other entity--namely,
the phrase demonstrates to him an entity which is diverse from the
entity which it demonstrates to the recipient. In that case there is
confusion; for there are two diverse propositions, namely the
proposition for the expositor and the proposition for the recipient. I put
this possibility aside as irrelevant for our discussion, though in practice
it may be difficult for two persons to concur in the consideration of
exactly the same proposition, or even for one person to have
determined exactly the proposition which he is considering.
Again the demonstrative phrase may fail to demonstrate any entity. In
that case there is no proposition for the recipient. I think that we may
assume (perhaps rashly) that the expositor knows what he means.
A demonstrative phrase is a gesture. It is not itself a constituent of the
proposition, but the entity which it demonstrates is such a constituent.
You may quarrel with a demonstrative phrase as in some way
obnoxious to you; but if it demonstrates the right entity, the proposition
is unaffected though your taste may be offended. This suggestiveness
of the phraseology is part of the literary quality of the sentence which
conveys the proposition. This is because a sentence directly conveys
one proposition, while in its phraseology it suggests a penumbra of

other propositions charged with emotional value. We are now talking
of the one proposition directly conveyed in any phraseology.
This doctrine is obscured by the fact that in most cases what is in form
a mere part of the demonstrative gesture is in fact a part of the
proposition which it is desired directly to convey. In such a case we
will call the phraseology of the proposition elliptical. In ordinary
intercourse the phraseology of nearly all propositions is elliptical.
Let us take some examples. Suppose that the expositor is in London,
say in Regent's Park and in Bedford College, the great women's college
which is situated in that park. He is speaking in the college hall and he
says,
'This college building is commodious.'
The phrase 'this college building' is a demonstrative phrase. Now
suppose the recipient answers,
'This is not a college building, it is the lion-house in the Zoo.'
Then, provided that the expositor's original proposition has not been
couched