308 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



such a way as to imply substantiality in a certain sense 

 though it is more than substantiality. 1 



Inorganic events can thus claim to be " understood '" by 

 means of the categories of substance and causality, the 

 word " understand " being used here in a sense higher than 

 the merely psychological. 



The Problem of a New Category of Relation 



Are there no categorical means of understanding vitalism 

 in the same way as mechanics or energetics were under- 

 stood ? Would our analytical discussions about vitalism and 

 entelecliy have been possible at all if there ivere no such 

 categorical means ? The question itself, in fact, seems to 

 offer us a key to its solution. 



It seems to me that we encounter here a very grave 

 defect in the categorical system of Kant. To put it 

 shortly : among the categories of relation the place of his 

 " Gemeinschaft " or " Wechselwirkung," which only is a 

 sort of commentary on causality, has to be taken by a 

 quite different kind of category, and this new category 

 must be such as to allow of the scientific analysis of life. 

 It is true, in the Kritik der Urtheilskraft, Kant most fully 

 discussed the concept of " teleology," but he did not regard 

 it as a category, but only as of a certain " regulative," not 

 of any " constitutive " importance. That this is wrong will 

 be demonstrated by showing what is right. Kant was too 

 much a Cartesian with respect to our problems. Eduard 

 von Hartmann, as far as I know, is the only philosopher 



1 Once more we repeat that "energy" is not substance, but only a 

 standard of measurement of causality (see p. 162). The substance that exhibits 

 causality would be the ultimate units of matter. 



