198 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



and that our principle of diversity in its most general form 

 is observed as well. Also in organic systems diversities 

 are only created on the basis of pre-existing diversities, 

 even if external agents are excluded, for organic systems 

 are governed by entelechy, and therefore contain all possible 

 future perceptible diversities in an imperceptible latent 

 form, but qua diversities ; 1 in short, differentiation is 

 " evolutio " in the ontological sense of the word. 



Of course the principle of univocality does not appear 

 here in the form of real spatial causality, as will be seen 

 later on. 



e. THE ' DEMONS OF MAXWELL 



Physicists, particularly in this country, have very 

 often contrasted vital with physical principles. As far 

 as these statements relate to pure mechanics we shall 

 have to deal with them later on. But there is one famous 

 instance of an assertion that organic processes may 

 contradict the true second energetical principle, at least 

 in thermodynamics. The principle of Clausius, that heat 

 cannot pass from the cooler to the warmer body unless 

 an equivalent amount of work is performed, has been 

 said to be possibly contradicted by something like an 

 organism. The famous instance we refer to starts from 

 so-called mechanical physics, but as it does not touch the 



1 We have not said a single word in our discussion on the so-called 

 vital "self-motion" of a particle of matter, and, in fact, should reject 

 this "concept" most emphatically. "Self-motion" is self -contradictory, 

 if applied to a particle of matter alone. We do not even admit the creation 

 of motion by entelechy, but merely the regulation of existing motion, as 

 will become still clearer in a later chapter. 



