330 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



once more. Morphogenesis is a succession of typical 

 stages ; when one stage is perfect the next stage begins. 

 The validity of these statements is not affected by the 

 fact that, as the experiments of Klebs have shown, in 

 so-called " open '" forms, such as plants, the different stages 

 may be lengthened or shortened or even completely 

 suppressed under certain external conditions. In any 

 case an embryo of a plant would not form a flower until 

 it had formed its first leaves, the so-called cotyledons. Now 

 we have said on a former occasion that the fact of there 

 being consecutive stages in all morphogenesis may well 

 be understood on the assumption that entelechy by its 

 having performed stage A, i.e. by the spatial existence 

 of A, is summoned to perform the next stage B. In this 

 way morphogenesis would consist in a permanent inter- 

 action between entelechy and matter. But even then, the 

 activity of entelechy always wants time in order to 

 manifest itself completely. This is true even if the single 

 steps in the process of an entelechian manifestation are 

 regarded as strictly instantaneous, i.e. requiring the time zero. 



As to acting, it is enough to remark that a conscious 

 aim, say the creation of a work of art, is invariably reached 

 by stages, one completed stage provoking the completion 

 of the next stage. The psychoid therefore cannot manifest 

 itself except in time. 



And what about introspective self-experience ? Is not 

 the most immediate fact presented to the conscious Ego 

 the fact of its own duration ? Bergson, in fact, has made 

 the concept of la duree not le temps the centre of 

 all episternology and biology. 



The important question here arises, whether we shall 



