120 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



both cases it is for the sake of the "bearer of the eutelechy 

 that everything goes on. 



But if there is acting between two or more human beings 

 there may be I do not say that there always is a very 

 strange exception to this retortion on the performer himself : 

 there may occur acting which tends not to the liking of the 

 agent but to the normal state or the " liking " of another 

 being. This kind of acting may even lead to the sacrifice 

 of the agent's life in order that " the other " may be saved. 



What occurs here is as contrary to entelechy as was 

 entelechy to mechanics, though in some way it shows a 

 certain similarity to instinct. 



In these few words we have sketched the character- 

 istics of morality of morality, that is, considered as a 

 phenomenon of bodily nature by a naturalist ; l and at the 

 same time, it seems to me, we have given account of the 

 second elemental entity, besides acting for oneself, that was 

 still wanted in order to complete the truly elemental facts 

 upon which the history and social life of mankind are built 

 up. History and its results, taken by themselves, are mere 

 cumulations, but cumulations grown up by the permanent 

 interaction of entelechial life in all its forms and morality. 



It is not unimportant to notice that the role which 

 general morality plays, or rather which moral acting 

 individuals play in history, might have an enormous effect 

 even if history were proved some day to contain certain 

 evolutionary elements. Morality in fact, as the general 

 law regulating the actions among at least two human 



1 Morality, of course, from such a point of view belongs to "nature," and 

 is not alien to it, as is often asserted by philosophers. We shall come back 

 to this point at the eud of the book. 



