THE DIRECT JUSTIFICATION OF ENTELECHY 311 



by analysis what this unknown might stand for and what it 

 might not. It was found to be irreducible, autonomous, and 

 not an aggregate of extensities. These were all negations, 

 and could only be negations in the realm of the categories 

 of substance and causality, as the necessary relations 

 between changes in spatial nature. 



Negations now become affirmations after psychological 

 introspective self -analysis has awaked a new category. 

 Entelechy now becomes a positive concept, created as the 

 manifestation of the new category that was wanted. We 

 now " understand " entelechy. The ultimate results of our 

 indirect proofs of vitalism though they are by no means 

 superseded by the " new category " acquire their proper 

 intelligible meaning only at the moment when the founda- 

 tion of entelechy upon a special category of its own is 

 appreciated. 



In truth, we Jiave worked already on the theme 

 established by the new category without knowing it quite 

 consciously. We studied the question whether a certain 

 new category came into action in this special field of nature 

 or not. But that implied the semi-conscious conception of 

 the new category. Otherwise it would have been im- 

 possible for the whole problem about the mechanical or 

 non-mechanical character of life to have been formulated at 

 all ! I venture to say that the mechanists also march 

 under the banner of the new category which they deny. 

 They know a certain manifestation of it from themselves, 

 and then ask : " Is the category also at work elsewhere ? ' 

 They would not like to find it elsewhere, but that they 

 regard it as a possibility is shown by the very fact that 

 they discuss it, which otherwise would be meaningless. 



