THE INDIRECT JUSTIFICATION OF ENTELECHY 183 



tion. One plant is able to live in water as well as in the 

 open air, whilst another one is killed if submerged under 

 the surface of water ; the newt regenerates the foot with 

 the utmost perfection, whilst mammals are only capable of 

 healing up their wounds. 



Even these facts, it seems to me, are understood without 

 difficulty, if we assume that entelechy can only suspend the 

 compensation of differences of energetical intensities or 

 potentials which exist already, but that it is not able to 

 create such differences. The acting of entelechy thus be- 

 comes dependent on the potentials of the single parts of the 

 body, which are themselves of an inorganic character, and 

 on the potentials of the surrounding medium. 



Now somebody might say that the medium always con- 

 tains potentials of the highest possible value, as exhibited, 

 for instance, in the temperature of the medium and in the 

 intensity of the rays emanating from the sun. These 

 potentials certainly are of the greatest importance for the 

 permanence of life, because, thanks to them, life is not ex- 

 clusively dependent on the internal potentials of the material 

 the organisms consist of. But we know, on the other hand, 

 that there must be not only " differences " of potentials as 

 such, in order that becoming may be possible, but also 

 differences in potentials of energy which are " coupled " 

 with each other, which may be transformed one into the 

 other. It is, moreover, a well-known fact that most 

 chemical and aggregative processes are almost absolutely 

 beyond the influence of radiant energy of even the 

 strongest intensity. 



Entelechy then is limited in its operation to the differ- 

 ences of potentials already existing, so far as the organism 



