260 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



" substance " must remain as open as the previous question 

 about the relation of entelechy to causality. Entelechy 

 was a kind of " quasi " causality, and now may be said to be 

 an enduring " quasi " substance. But still we feel that our 

 reason craves more than this. 



6. INSOLUBLE PROBLEMS 



At the end of this chapter you probably will expect the 

 discussion of a few questions which interest you more than 

 any others, and the answering of which perhaps you have 

 hoped would be the final result of all our analysis. But 

 such remarks as I am able to offer about the origin and end 

 of individual life, and the origin of life in general, can claim 

 merely a subjective value. Materialists profess to know a 

 good deal about all these eternal problems, but I confess 

 that I know nothing at all about any of them. 



The Origin and the End of Individual Life 



In the face of these fundamental questions let us 

 remember, firstly, that our present task is neither a truly 

 psychological nor a metaphysical one. We therefore have 

 nothing to do with the problems of immortality as relating 

 to the Ego ; we are only studying phenomena in respect to 

 the Ego. In fact, even if a " principle of the conservation of 

 entelechy " could be established, and if we were able to speak 

 about what might be called a phenomenological metem- 

 psychosis, it would all relate to phenomena in the first 

 place, and it is well worth noticing that without further 

 discussion spiritualistic phenomena, if proved some day, 



