4. All these systems of influence or non-influence may be listed
under the general problem of the world's CAUSAL UNITY. If the minor
causal influences among things should converge towards one common
causal origin of them in the past, one great first cause for all
that is, one might then speak of the absolute causal unity of the
world. God's fiat on creation's day has figured in traditional
philosophy as such an absolute cause and origin. Transcendental
Idealism, translating 'creation' into 'thinking' (or 'willing to'
think') calls the divine act 'eternal' rather than 'first'; but the
union of the many here is absolute, just the same--the many would
not BE, save for the One. Against this notion of the unity of origin
of all there has always stood the pluralistic notion of an eternal
self-existing many in the shape of atoms or even of spiritual units
of some sort. The alternative has doubtless a pragmatic meaning, but
perhaps, as far as these lectures go, we had better leave the
question of unity of origin unsettled.
5. The most important sort of union that obtains among things,
pragmatically speaking, is their GENERIC UNITY. Things exist in
kinds, there are many specimens in each kind, and what the 'kind'
implies for one specimen, it implies also for every other specimen
of that kind.
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