THE INDIRECT JUSTIFICATION OF ENTELECHY 241 



It is true that ordinary energetics has not a very good 

 opportunity to discover the proper equivalent of substance 

 in nature, but the fault is its own and does not lie with 

 the category of substance. As soon as the problems of the 

 " being material " are not neglected, the category of substance 

 would become applicable even in the realm of qualitative 

 energetics ; of course it becomes much clearer in mechanical 

 physics. In fact, might we not say that the irresistible 

 tendency to apply the category of substance has been one 

 of the fundamental sources of the mechanical view of 

 inorganic nature altogether ? 



INORGANIC SUBSTANCE OF ANY TYPE RELATES TO EXTENS1TY 



But enough at this place about the meaning of " sub- 

 stance ' in the inorganic world ; enough also about the 

 difficulties remaining still unsolved here. In what follows 

 we shall only use one fundamental result, common to all 

 the different theories of substance relating to the Inorganic. 

 Inorganic substance either is extensity itself, that is, space 

 as the bearer of phenomenological reality, or it is a some- 

 thing consisting of absolutely single elements which are 

 one beside the other in extensity. All extensities in the 

 Inorganic are built up out of such substantial elements. 

 That the substantial elements of inorganic nature relate to 

 extensities and to extensities alone also holds good, if the 

 substantial elements themselves are understood dynamically, 

 that is, if they are regarded as certain elemental " spheres >; 

 in space which are each the seat of forces going out from 

 a centre. Even in this case, though the centre of the force 



is a point and is not extensive in itself, the substantial 



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