THE INDIRECT JUSTIFICATION OF ENTELECHY 215 



portance for the ontology of the Inorganic, have no bearing 

 at all upon the problem before us, at least in its most 

 fundamental form. And it would not affect us if movements 

 in nature were one day proved to be essentially electro- 

 dynamical, or if rational mechanics were shown to be actually 

 at work in nature. In the first case, as is well understood, 

 natural mass would not be the "mass" of analytical mechanics, 

 whilst in the second case analytical and empirical mass 

 would be identical. 



Mere Movement and the Causation of Movement 



The problem of the relation between entelechy and 

 mechanics has to deal not with movement as such, but with 

 a certain possible kind of causation of movement that is 

 irreconcilable with the causations of movement occurring in 

 the inorganic field. It will soon become apparent what 

 that means. 



Hertz remarks, in his famous posthumous treatise on 

 mechanics, that his most general principle of movement, 

 which is a combination in some way of Galilei's principle 

 of inertia and the Gaussian principle of the least action that 

 this most general principle, though only stated for inorganic 

 systems, would also hold for systems in which life-processes 

 are concerned, as the effect of every vital process always 

 could be imagined as being the effect of a system of the 

 inorganic class. From this statement and, indeed, from the 

 whole of Hertz's analysis, it is clear without further discussion 

 that his principle only deals with the character of motion, 

 as far as it has been caused in some way and is now existing, 

 but not with the causation of motion. Be that causation 



