THE INDIRECT JUSTIFICATION OF ENTELECHY 261 



would also be mere phenomena to the Ego and nothing 

 else. At the end of these lectures we shall devote some 

 time to certain considerations that might probably lead us 

 beyond this theoretical Egoism. 



With the starting of a new actual individual, entelechy 

 begins a new manifestation, and with death it ends one ; 

 that is all we can say. What that manifestation, qua 

 individual, was before that beginning, and what it is after 

 death is absolutely unknown to us. We are not even able 

 to say whether it was and will be anything " individual " at 

 all in these two periods or not the words " was * and 

 " will be " to be understood in a non-metaphysical sense, 

 that is to say, in the sense of a " possible immediate 

 experience. ' : For the ideal or Platonic existence of 

 entelechy as an individualising agent does not, of course, 

 guarantee any sort of permanence of the individuals which, 

 on account of an entelechian manifestation, form part of the 

 given universe at a given time. 



Spiritualists claim to have some knowledge about our 

 problem, saying that after death the manifestations of 

 entelechy preserve their individuality though using a new 

 (so-called " astral ") kind of material. But I say once more 

 that I can form no opinion in this matter, though I should 

 like very much to be able to do so. Science, in fact, ought 

 to deal with these questions even at the risk of finding a 

 mere chaos of defective criticism and actual fraud : but one 

 single fact, positively established, would well repay the hard 

 work of generations. 



What science knows about death is simply this : a 

 certain amount of matter that was formerly controlled by 

 entelechy becomes freed from this control, and then obeys 



