THE INDIRECT JUSTIFICATION OF ENTELECHY 259 



thing and moving through space, now in this and now in 

 that direction. Descartes, as is well known, regarded the 

 soul as having its seat in a specific organ of the brain, the 

 so-called pineal gland. We may follow him so far as to 

 say that there may be specific points of the organism with 

 respect to which entelechy is active while at other points 

 it is inactive. But these would only be points of mutual 

 relation, not points of rest. 



" Entelecliy " so far a Mere System of Negations 



I fully see how difficult it is to say anything positive 

 about entelechy without contradicting other statements 

 regarding it. I say once more that there is nothing at all 

 to be " imagined " in a picture-like manner about entelechy : 

 the non-spatial can never be realised by our imagination in 

 spatial images. It may be hard on us, but so it is. And 

 at the same time we always must bear in mind that in 

 dealing with entelechy we are not dealing with anything 

 psychical, or absolute, or metaphysical : we are analysing 

 an agent at work in nature. We know concerning this 

 factor that it cannot be spatial in any sense, that it has no 

 seat in space nor any dimensions, but merely acts " into ' 

 space ; in one word, that it " is " not in spatial nature but 

 only acts with regard to spatial nature. 



In fact, the characteristics of entelechy form only a 

 complicated system of negations so far, and little more. 

 Nor can it be otherwise unless we are prepared to change 

 our whole view of reality, and of natural reality in particular, 

 as in fact we very soon shall. 



And thus at present the question whether entelechy is a 



