with various finite hierarchies. The synthesis into the occasion of the infinite hierarchy is according to its specific mode of realisation, and that of the finite hierarchies is according to various other specific modes of realisation. There is one metaphysical principle which is essential for the rational coherence of this account of the general character of an experient occasion. I call this principle, ‘The Translucency of Realisation.’ By this I mean that any eternal object is just itself in whatever mode of realisation it is involved. There can be no distortion of the individlial essence without thereby producing a different eternal object. In the essence of each eternal object there stands an indeterminateness which expresses its indifferent patience for any mode of ingression into any actual occasion. Thus in cognitive experience, there can be the cognition of the same eternal object as in the same occasion having ingression with implication in more than one grade of realisation. Thus the translucency of realisation, and the possible multiplicity of modes of ingression into the same occasion, together form the foundation for the correspondence theory of truth.
In this account of an actual occasion in terms of its connection with the realm of eternal objects, we have gone back to the train of thought in our second chapter, where the nature of mathematics was discussed. The idea, ascribed to Pythagoras, has been amplified, and put forward as the first chapter in metaphysics. The next chapter is concerned with the puzzling fact that there is an actual course of events which is in itself a limited fact, in that metaphysically speaking it might have been otherwise. But other
