THE INDIRECT JUSTIFICATION OF ENTELECHY 229 



Morpliogenetic Entelechy 



The organism, we know, is a system the single 

 constituents of which are inorganic in themselves ; only the 

 whole constituted by them in their typical order or arrange- 

 ment owes its specificity to entelechy. Therefore the single 

 constituents of an organism also stand in energetical or 

 mechanical possible relations to many external constituents 

 of the inorganic universe. These possible relations may 

 disturb the whole as governed by entelechy : by some such 

 disturbance entelechy, in the first place, may be possibly 

 affected, may be called into activity, so to say. 



We here meet the problem of the stimuli of restitution 

 and adaptation again. 



In order that adaptation may happen, the fundamental 

 state of the organism must be disturbed in its normality : 

 this fact affects or calls forth entelechy. 



In cases of restitution we were not able to state any- 

 thing in detail about the precise stimulus that sets this 

 process going : but, since in all restitutions the morpho- 

 genetic performance, though occurring on the basis of 

 indefinite possibilities, was always in the most typical and 

 specific relation to what had been disturbed, we were able 

 to say that the stimulus of restitutions is most probably 

 something connected with the specificity of the disturbance 

 of the normal whole. This " something " must be regarded 

 as affecting entelechy. 



In short, morphogeuetic entelechy in cases of adaptation 

 or restitution is affected whenever the state of normality, 

 based upon a specific suspension of possible inorganic 

 becoming on the part of entelechy, is changed by the effect 



