Alexander, Samuel (1859-1938) Space, Time and Deity:
The Gifford Lectures at Glasgow, 1916-1918, Vol I.
Book II. The Categories.
Chapter III. Universal, Particular, and Individual
...It may indeed happen that instances of a species (or, if we prefer to say so, species of a genus) are connected together into an organic whole which is more than a mere whole of parts. This is the case as I believe with human societies ; and wherever beings tend to communal life there is an approach to this state of things. The members of a society are instances of a type which is represented by the society as a whole, and the society is in fact a species which is itself an individual existence. But we are not entitled on the strength of such special (and perhaps disputable cases) to identify a universal with an organised individual because the plan of the individual members happens in these cases to be in some way embodied in the whole. We still need the notion of a plan or law, and this is what commonly is called a universal.
...It remains to add that the idea of system or organisation is of the highest value for understanding the problem of knowledge, and it is by this clue that Mr. Bosanquet himself has been able to render such service to logical theory. Organisation is a great empirical fact. It begins lower down than organic life and is perpetually overcoming the repetitive tendency which is equally empirical. As we ascend the scale of being in the order of time, aggregates are replaced by organic systems ; and the higher a thing is in the scale, the greater it seems is its ordered complexity. But system in general exists in every complex even in the least organised, all disorder has its own complex plan. System is the coherence of elements, and the notion of system represents the essential continuity of Space-Time which it retains while it breaks up into its parts. The parts remain within the whole and are coherent with one another. Science investigates the particular forms of such coherence, and organisms are a highly-developed instance of it.
...Thought, in following the clue of coherence amongst its data, as science always does, is thus bringing back the scattered members of the universe into the spatio-temporal continuity out of which, in spite of their disguises of qualities higher than mere motion, they ultimately sprang. These considerations belong properly to the theory of truth, and the methods by which it is attained in science.
Chapter IV. Relation
...Not all relations of existents are in their immediate character or quality spatio-temporal ; but if our hypothesis is sound they are always spatio-temporal in their simplest expression.
Relation is, as James has so constantly and rightly insisted, as elementary a feature of the universe as ' substantive ' things. This is true not only of our mental states, where it is apprehended in enjoyment, but of the external world, where it is apprehended in contemplation. In the end it depends upon and expresses the continuity of Space-Time. Space and Time we have seen are not relations but they are through and through relational. Neither are they mere existence, but they contain all existence. They are the stuff in which existences are related ; and the terms and the relations between them are equally spatio-temporal.
Book II. The Categories.
Chapter III. Universal, Particular, and Individual
...It may indeed happen that instances of a species (or, if we prefer to say so, species of a genus) are connected together into an organic whole which is more than a mere whole of parts. This is the case as I believe with human societies ; and wherever beings tend to communal life there is an approach to this state of things. The members of a society are instances of a type which is represented by the society as a whole, and the society is in fact a species which is itself an individual existence. But we are not entitled on the strength of such special (and perhaps disputable cases) to identify a universal with an organised individual because the plan of the individual members happens in these cases to be in some way embodied in the whole. We still need the notion of a plan or law, and this is what commonly is called a universal.
...It remains to add that the idea of system or organisation is of the highest value for understanding the problem of knowledge, and it is by this clue that Mr. Bosanquet himself has been able to render such service to logical theory. Organisation is a great empirical fact. It begins lower down than organic life and is perpetually overcoming the repetitive tendency which is equally empirical. As we ascend the scale of being in the order of time, aggregates are replaced by organic systems ; and the higher a thing is in the scale, the greater it seems is its ordered complexity. But system in general exists in every complex even in the least organised, all disorder has its own complex plan. System is the coherence of elements, and the notion of system represents the essential continuity of Space-Time which it retains while it breaks up into its parts. The parts remain within the whole and are coherent with one another. Science investigates the particular forms of such coherence, and organisms are a highly-developed instance of it.
...Thought, in following the clue of coherence amongst its data, as science always does, is thus bringing back the scattered members of the universe into the spatio-temporal continuity out of which, in spite of their disguises of qualities higher than mere motion, they ultimately sprang. These considerations belong properly to the theory of truth, and the methods by which it is attained in science.
Chapter IV. Relation
...Not all relations of existents are in their immediate character or quality spatio-temporal ; but if our hypothesis is sound they are always spatio-temporal in their simplest expression.
Relation is, as James has so constantly and rightly insisted, as elementary a feature of the universe as ' substantive ' things. This is true not only of our mental states, where it is apprehended in enjoyment, but of the external world, where it is apprehended in contemplation. In the end it depends upon and expresses the continuity of Space-Time. Space and Time we have seen are not relations but they are through and through relational. Neither are they mere existence, but they contain all existence. They are the stuff in which existences are related ; and the terms and the relations between them are equally spatio-temporal.