254 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



question. In some respect our mind is satisfied by both 

 methods, though more by the second. For our present 

 purpose it is enough to know that there exists in our mind 

 a demand for some such satisfaction : newly arising 

 elemental agents must be conceived as already pre-existing 

 in some way. 



It will have become quite clear, I hope, from our 

 discussion, that any theory which tries to make entelechy 

 arise as a new elemental consequence of some constellation 

 must result in taking one of the constituents in the real 

 sense of a " living-substance." But the living-substance 

 theory has been already refuted. 



Entelecliy and Physiological Chemistry 



Entelechy cannot be regarded as arising from material 

 conditions of any sort. What follows from this result 

 for the facts of physiological chemistry, which formed one 

 of the earlier parts of this chapter ? It follows, so it seems 

 to me, that what physiological chemistry studies is only 

 results that are chemically characterised not results of 

 processes that are chemical processes. It is very important 

 to understand well what this means. Of course, chemical 

 potentials have formed the general basis of all physiological 

 chemical results, but these results, as we know, are 

 not due to the mere play of these potentials as such, but 

 to the intervention of entelechy : therefore something 

 purely chemical is found in the results only, but not in 

 the processes. Without entelechy there would be other 

 chemical results. 



Entelechy controls not only oxidation but "assimilation" 



