lation in nature. Such
isolation is merely part of the procedure of intellectual knowledge.

The laws of nature are the outcome of the characters of the entities
which we find in nature. The entities being what they are, the laws must
be what they are; and conversely the entities follow from the laws. We
are a long way from the attainment of such an ideal; but it remains as
the abiding goal of theoretical science.

CHAPTER VII

OBJECTS

The ensuing lecture is concerned with the theory of objects. Objects are
elements in nature which do not pass. The awareness of an object as some
factor not sharing in the passage of nature is what I call
'recognition.' It is impossible to recognise an event, because an event
is essentially distinct from every other event. Recognition is an
awareness of sameness. But to call recognition an awareness of sameness
implies an intellectual act of comparison accompanied with judgment. I
use recognition for the non-intellectual relation of sense-awareness
which connects the mind with a factor of nature without passage. On the
intellectual side of the mind's experience there are comparisons of
things recognised and consequent judgments of sameness or diversity.
Probably 'sense-recognition' would be a better term for what I mean by
'recognition.' I have chosen the simpler term because I think that I
shall be able to avoid the use of 'recognition' in any other meaning
than that of 'sense-recognition.' I am quite willing to believe that
recognition, in my sense of the term, is merely an ideal limit, and that
there is in fact no recognition without intellectual accompaniments of
comparison and judgment. But recognition is that relation of the mind to
nature which provides the material for the intellectual activity.

An object is an ingredient in the character of some event. In fact the
character of an event is nothing but the objects which are ingredient in
it and the ways in which those objects make their ingression into the
event. Thus the theory of objects is the theory of the comparison of
events. Events are only comparable because they body forth permanences.
We are comparing objects in events whenever we can say, 'There it is
again.' Objects are the elements in nature which can 'be again.'

Sometimes permanences can be proved to exist which evade recognition in
the sense in which I am using that term. The permanences which evade
recognition appear to us as abstract properties eit