The Concept of Nature / The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919

by Alfred North Whitehead

I will use the term ‘moment’ to mean ‘all nature at an instant.’ A moment, in the sense in which the term is here used, has no temporal extension, and is in this respect to be contrasted with a duration which has such extension. What is directly yielded to our knowledge by sense-awareness is a duration. Accordingly we have now to explain how moments are derived from durations, and also to explain the purpose served by their introduction.

A moment is a limit to which we approach as we confine attention to durations of minimum extension. Natural relations among the ingredients of a duration gain in complexity as we consider durations of increasing temporal extension. Accordingly there is an approach to ideal simplicity as we approach an ideal diminution of extension.

The word ‘limit’ has a precise signification in the logic of number and even in the logic of non-numerical one-dimensional series. As used here it is so far a mere metaphor, and it is necessary to explain directly the concept which it is meant to indicate.

Durations can have the two-termed relational property of extending one over the other. Thus the duration which is all nature during a certain minute extends over the duration which is all nature during the 30th second of that minute. This relation of ‘extending over’—‘extension’ as I shall call it—is a fundamental natural relation whose field comprises more than durations. It is a relation which two limited events can have to each other. Furthermore as holding between durations the relation appears to refer to the purely temporal extension. I shall however maintain that the same relation of extension lies at the base both of temporal and spatial extension. This discussion can be postponed; and for the present we are simply concerned with the relation of extension as it occurs in its temporal aspect for the limited field of durations.

The concept of extension exhibits in thought one side of the ultimate passage of nature. This relation holds because of the special character which passage assumes in nature; it is the relation which in the case of durations expresses the properties of ‘passing over.’ Thus the duration which was one definite minute passed over the duration which was its 30th second. The duration of the 30th second was part of the duration of the minute. I shall use the terms ‘whole’ and ‘part’ exclusively in this sense, that the ‘part’ is an event which is extended over by the other event which is the ‘whole.’ Thus in my nomenclature ‘whole’ and ‘part’ refer exclusively to this fundamental relation of extension; and accordingly in this technical usage only events can be either wholes or parts.

The continuity of nature arises from extension. Every event extends over other events, and every event is extended over by other events. Thus in the special case of durations which are now the only events directly under consideration, every duration is part of other durations; and every duration has other durations which are parts of it. Accordingly there are no maximum durations and no minimum durations. Thus there is no atomic structure of durations, and the perfect definition of a duration, so as to mark out its individuality and distinguish it from highly analogous durations over which it is passing, or which are passing over it, is an arbitrary postulate of thought. Sense-awareness posits durations as factors in nature but does not clearly enable thought to use it as distinguishing the separate individualities of the entities of an allied group of slightly differing durations. This is one instance of the indeterminateness of sense-awareness. Exactness is an ideal of thought, and is only realised in experience by the selection of a route of approximation.

The absence of maximum and minimum durations does not exhaust the properties of nature which make up its continuity. The passage of nature involves the existence of a family of durations. When two durations belong to the same family either one contains the other, or they overlap each other in a subordinate duration without either containing the other; or they are completely separate. The excluded case is that of durations overlapping in finite events but not containing a third duration as a common part.

It is evident that the relation of extension is transitive; namely as applied to durations, if duration A is part of duration B, and duration B is part of duration C, then A is part of C. Thus the first two cases may be combined into one and we can say that two durations which belong to the same family either are such that there are durations which are parts of both or are completely separate.

Furthermore the converse of this proposition holds; namely, if two durations have other durations which are parts of both or if the two durations are completely separate, then they belong to the same family.

The further characteristics of the continuity of nature—so far as durations are concerned—which has not yet been formulated arises in connexion with a family of durations. It can be stated in this way: There are durations which contain as parts any two durations of the same family. For example a week contains as parts any two of its days. It is evident that a containing duration satisfies the conditions for belonging to the same family as the two contained durations.