THE INDIRECT JUSTIFICATION OF ENTELECHY 223 



non-energetical ? Hartinann tries to avoid this difficulty 

 by assuming that entelechy or, as he calls it, the " Uncon- 

 scious " may transport energy from one axis of space into 

 the other. The energy it needs for the process of turning 

 as such is taken from the one axis and placed at the other : 

 the sum of all the energies remains unaltered, there only are 

 energetical changes with regard to the three chief co-ordinates 

 x, y, and z, and thus the action of the vital principle would 

 pass the boundaries of mechanics, i.e. of inertia, but not of 

 energetics in general. But I can hardly agree that this 

 complication is necessary. Entelechy is a natural agent per 

 se ; why not assume that its action in changing the direction 

 of force and energy is an action "per se " that is implied in 

 its intensive manifoldness ? The true laws of mechanics 

 are broken in any case, and entelechy must by no means be 

 imagined as a mechanical apparatus : it is just the negation 

 of that. We must free ourselves from all the conventional 

 images as completely as possible. You may say if you like 

 that entelechy, when turning a mass particle, acts upon it 

 at right angles to its path this kind of action requiring no 

 energy but even thus there would only be a pseudo- 

 obedience to the laws of real mechanics, since entelechy 

 must be regarded here as non-energetical, and as interfering 

 with inertia at the same time. 



The Suspending and the Transporting Action of Entelechy 



Discussed Together 



If now we consider the theoretical probability of the two 

 possible ways in which entelechy or anything non-mechanical 

 whatever may influence mechanical systems, it seems to me 



