THE INDIRECT JUSTIFICATION OF ENTELECHY 233 



Inorganic is well illustrated by the mere fact that in 

 the case of entelechy the affecting inorganic combinations 

 act as totalities. It was for this reason that we said that 

 the " analysis of the type of affection ' by itself forms 

 here a proof of the " autonomy ' of what happens, whilst 

 in our discussion of the active role of entelechy, with 

 regard to energetics and mechanics, we had to start from 



o o 



the autonomy of life as proved, and had to study what 

 might follow from such autonomy with regard to single 



o / o ' 



effects in inorganic nature. 



All changes of normality that affect entelechy are 

 " causes," of course, in so far as they are changes of given 

 realities in space, though their effect is not an immediate 

 spatial effect but one that has passed through entelechy. 

 Qua causes, they are as specific as is their final spatial 

 effect induced by entelechy. Thus we meet the strange 

 fact here that, as regards biology, first cause and final 

 effect are in the most intimate relation to one another 

 with regard to specificity, though not in an immediate 

 relation. This sort of relation between cause and effect 

 occurs nowhere in the inorganic except in pure mechanics, 

 and there in quite another form. A general ontological 

 theory of relation I do not say of " causality " might 

 take advantage of this most important logical fact. 



