186 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



Entelechy and " Catalysis " 



A few words seem desirable about the specific nature 

 of the potentials of the Inorganic with which entelechy is 

 especially connected. We have said already several times 

 that the field of chemistry and of the states of aggregation 

 is the proper sphere for the activity of entelechy, and it is 

 for this reason that all researches on the chemical and 

 aggregative nature of so-called " living matter " are of so 

 much scientific interest. But I think we can attain still 

 greater certainty as to the exact point where entelechy is 

 chiefly at work. We already know that the process of 

 catalysis plays a leading role not only in normal but also 

 in regulative life processes. Now it is of no import to 

 our present purpose which theory of catalytical processes 

 is right, though personally we believe that catalysers not 

 only accelerate reactions but that without them the reactions 

 in question would never take place. 1 Let us also grant 

 that the effect of the ready made ferment or enzyme is 

 inorganic, just like that of the inorganic ferments studied 

 by Bredig 2 and others. In any case the formation of 

 catalysers or their so-called " activation " is the chief pro- 

 cess concerned in regulation and adaptation phenomena, 

 " activation " of ferments out of the state of " preferments ' 



1 The difference between the two theories would practically disappear, 

 if all processes "accelerated" by catalysers were regarded as happening 

 "infinitely slowly" without them. In this form their occurring without 

 the ferments would only be assumed in deference to a certain innate property 

 of the mind, namely, its inability to conceive beginning. All the applications 

 of the infinitesimal calculus to physics rest upon this property of the mind. 



1 Bredig himself is by no means a dogmatic enemy of vitalism (see 

 Biochcm. Zeitschr. vi., 1907, p. 326; and Centralblatt f. Bakter. xix., 1907, 

 p. 493). 



