222 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



by entelechy, as seen in inheritance, but we regard our 

 previous remarks on this point of the theory as sufficient 

 (see page 181). 



Entelechy as Transporting Mechanical Energy 



Before discussing our result any further let us turn to 

 the second possible way in which entelechy may influence 

 mechanical systems. The discovery of this possible role of 

 the Non-mechanical in mechanics goes back to Descartes. 

 In our own days Eduard von Hartmann in particular has 

 investigated more carefully what is supposed to happen here. 

 Descartes, strictly speaking, was not trying to study the 

 influence of entelechy as a natural factor on mechanical 

 mass and motion, but to fix the interaction of " mind " and 

 body. You are aware that we ourselves regard such a 

 problem as not legitimately formulated. But Descartes' 

 analysis holds well on a different epistemological basis in 

 the form that any non-mechanical agent, though not able to 

 change in any way the amount of energy in any dynamical 

 system, 1 has the faculty of reversing any mass-element it 

 likes, and of thereby changing the direction of forces and 

 motions. It might be objected that a certain amount of 

 energy would be necessary for any "turning" of amass-element, 

 there being required a certain force, or rather pair of forces, 

 from the side on account of inertia. Where is the necessary 

 energy to come from, since entelechy itself is regarded as 



1 Descartes, strictly speaking, according to his theory of the continuity 

 of matter, knew only kinetic energy ; the so-called "quantity of motion" 

 (mv), therefore, was the mechanical quantity he would not allow to be altered 

 by mind. For this reason our first hypothesis about the relation between en- 

 telechy and mechanics would have been impossible for him. Even his own 

 statement about this relation or rather about the relation between "mind" 

 and matter does not acquire any very clear meaning on the kinetic theory. 



