204 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



Negative Characteristics of Entelechy 



What sort of natural factor then is entelechy ? 



We know already that it is not energy and not intensity, 

 since quantity is not one of its characteristics. For the 

 same reason it cannot be a " force >: in any of the very 

 ambiguous meanings of that word. Could it be called a 

 " constant " ? I thought so once myself ; ] I thought it 

 possible to speak of the entelechy of an organic system as 

 its " constant " in the sense of its permanent property ; the 

 word property meaning the same as it does in the Inorganic, 

 where it is to signify nothing but the possibility of becoming 

 that would be actual with regard to immediate perception. 

 But it now seems to me that the word " constant " can be 

 applied to an entelechian system only in a very metaphorical 

 meaning, if at all : for a constant always is the property of 

 a body, always is a something that is really possessed by 

 the body. Only by help of the categories of substance and 

 inherence can the real relation of a constant to its bearer 

 be properly understood. Our next lecture will show that 

 we are not at all able thus to regard the relation of 

 entelechies to the material systems upon which they act. 

 So then it must be sufficient to state it here in a more 

 provisionary and apodictic way : entelechy is not a constant. 

 We may only say that in this specific harmonious system 

 or in this acting system we are studying there is something 

 which is constant, viz., its prospective potency, which comes 

 into all its reactions in the same manner. But this some- 

 thing which is constant is not " a constant." 



1 Die organist-hen Regulationcn, Leipzig, 1901. 



