230 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE OPvGANISM 



of external becoming. Entelechy then at least tries to 

 modify its suspension in such a way as to reduce that 

 external becoming to normality. 



But such a view fails in the face of normal development. 

 Here, we know, fertilisation or some substitute for it is 

 necessary in order that entelechy may come into action. 

 What does that mean ? It seems to me that we shall 

 meet the point if we assume that fertilisation or its 

 substitute affords here some necessary means, some 

 necessary specific potential differences, as it were, without 

 which entelechy is condemned to inactivity, just as it is 

 in the absence of oxygen. Artificial parthenogenesis, 

 as analysed by Loeb, lends strong support to such an 

 hypothesis. But this would mean that even in the case 

 of normal development entelechy is called into activity 

 in the proper sense "by missing its normal result where it 

 might exist potentially, and thus normal development would 

 be regarded as a mere example of all restitution. Fertilisa- 

 tion or its substitute would thus play a rather secondary 

 part. It would not call forth entelechy by itself, but 

 would only allow entelechy to act after it had been called 

 into activity already by the mere existence of a living 

 fragment of an organism. 



Of course, this is no answer to the problem why 

 the organism does actively form " fragments " in the ser- 

 vice of " reproduction " ; but this problem leads beyond 

 the theory of " personal ' entelechy as the subject of 

 embryology, and will shortly be mentioned again on a later 

 occasion. 



Any restitution, like normal morphogenesis, is accomplished 

 by a great number of consecutive single performances, or, in 



