There are two “absolutes” in the world: is and change. These go on anywhere and any time and they just are. When a thing is, there are no conditions, reservations, and such. When a thing changes, it changes.

In change, there is what the thing began with, what it went through, and what it ended up with. When a thing that is changed is thought of in terms of what it went through, process is being thought of.

Life can be seen as a process. That is, Henry Stevens can be thought of as something he began with, something he went through, and something he ended up with. In the instance of Henry Stevens, as in the instance of tin put into a machine to become a can—if Henry Stevens is thought of in terms of what he went through, this man is thought of in terms of process.

You can say that Henry Stevens’s life as process was all that went on between the time he left his mother’s body as a being of 7½ pounds, to the moment he lay dead, in a room far from where he was born. So, if you wanted to, you could say, Henry Stevens’s life as process ended with death. However, it does seem strange to say that a person is born for the purpose of dying. It perhaps is true that what a thing ends up with is not its purpose. At this time, it is well to point out that process and purpose are valuably different; though, often, they cover the same ground.