ct all mankind to be aware
of the fact, as they are aware of it. But in the case of congruence,
mankind agree in an arbitrary interpretation of sense-awareness when
there is nothing in nature to guide it.

I look on it as no slight recommendation of the theory of nature which I
am expounding to you that it gives a solution of this difficulty by
pointing out the factor in nature which issues in the preeminence of one
congruence relation over the indefinite herd of other such relations.

The reason for this result is that nature is no longer confined within
space at an instant. Space and time are now interconnected; and this
peculiar factor of time which is so immediately distinguished among the
deliverances of our sense-awareness, relates itself to one particular
congruence relation in space.

Congruence is a particular example of the fundamental fact of
recognition. In perception we recognise. This recognition does not
merely concern the comparison of a factor of nature posited by memory
with a factor posited by immediate sense-awareness. Recognition takes
place within the present without any intervention of pure memory. For
the present fact is a duration with its antecedent and consequent
durations which are parts of itself. The discrimination in
sense-awareness of a finite event with its quality of passage is also
accompanied by the discrimination of other factors of nature which do
not share in the passage of events. Whatever passes is an event. But we
find entities in nature which do not pass; namely we recognise
samenesses in nature. Recognition is not primarily an intellectual act
of comparison; it is in its essence merely sense-awareness in its
capacity of positing before us factors in nature which do not pass. For
example, green is perceived as situated in a certain finite event within
the present duration. This green preserves its self-identity throughout,
whereas the event passes and thereby obtains the property of breaking
into parts. The green patch has parts. But in talking of the green patch
we are speaking of the event in its sole capacity of being for us the
situation of green. The green itself is numerically one self-identical
entity, without parts because it is without passage.

Factors in nature which are without passage will be called objects.
There are radically different kinds of objects which will be considered
in the succeeding lecture.

Recognition is reflected into the intellect as compari