THE INDIRECT JUSTIFICATION OF ENTELECHY 239 



first almost hidden to consciousness, but in an advanced 

 stage of philosophy consciously applied : the principle that 

 there must be a something in enlarged givenness which is 

 absolutely unchangeable, and that only this unchangeable 

 something deserves to be called a " substance " definitively. 



INORGANIC SUBSTANCE 



Of course, in our biological lectures we cannot pursue 

 the subject of general ontology and epistemology : so we 

 only mention that inorganic sciences have ended in our 

 days by regarding as the true substance either discrete 

 dynamical points generally called " atoms " though not in 

 the more restricted meaning of chemistry or space itself. 

 Space in this sense is not merely a " form of intuition ' 

 but is identical with what is generally called " ether " as far 

 as the latter is taken as a continuum. In fact, if you 

 think about all the so-called properties of the " ether " of 

 physicists, you find that all of them are non-properties, or 

 at least nothing but the mere expression of possibilities, 1 

 that they are mere negations and that space alone is left as 

 the substantial continuum, as the bearer of phenomeno- 

 logical reality, at the end of the discussion. 



The doctrine which regards space as the inorganic 

 substance applies more strictly than any other the principle 

 of stability, or conservation, or unchangeableness : space 

 cannot even change its " place," whilst all sorts of atoms 

 are changeable according to their position in formal space. 

 But on the other hand this identification of space and 

 substance seems to go too far beyond the common applica- 

 tion of the category of substance, which in its most 



1 With reference to the electromagnetic field. 



