250 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



any constellation of different specific chemical compounds 

 of any sort, which might otherwise perhaps be regarded 

 as the materia viva. 



No Chemical Substance Possible as the Basis of Entelecky 



Entelechy, we know, is an intensive manifoldness, i.e. 

 it is an agent acting manifoldly without being in itself 

 manifold in space or extensity. Entelechy therefore is only 

 an agent that arranges, but not an agent that possesses 

 quantity. 



What then would be the significance of saying that a 

 specific chemical substance is the bearer of entelechy ? To 

 say so would be to attribute the property of extensity to a 

 something that has nothing to do with extensity at all, to a 

 something which in a certain respect may be said to be the 

 negation of extensity. 



It gives a good idea of the strange consequences to which 

 the doctrine of a " living substance >: as the bearer of 

 autonomic entelechy would lead, to recall the fact that, of 

 course, a living substance in the sense of a specific chemical 

 compound would be measurable by weight like any other 

 chemical compound. We should have to speak of, say, six 

 pounds of lion-substance, or a pound and a half of eagle- 

 substance, or three ounces of earthworm-substance ; and all 

 these chemical compounds would some day be sold in the 

 market perhaps. We here see most clearly that it is quite 

 impossible to assign the characteristic of extensity to an agent 

 which is simply a determinant of order in extensities ; for our 

 lion-substance, of course, would not signify so much of the 

 actual substance of a given lion, but would mean so many 



