THE DIRECT JUSTIFICATION OF ENTELECHY 267 



what is " given ' to my consciousness whilst I am acting 

 is to form the subject of our analysis, and only at the 

 end of it will one part of that whole be considered as 

 " nature." Thus our method will not be biological, nor 

 even strictly " scientific," so to speak ; it will analyse 

 Givenness in its completeness, not only so-called " natural ' 

 Givenness. The consecutive series of the phenomena 

 which present themselves to my consciousness whilst 

 I am acting will be formulated. In the second place 

 only shall we try to separate what properly may belong 

 to " nature " and what does not belong to it. We thus 

 shall find out, I hope, how nature and natural factors 

 may be most elementally conceived in their relation to life- 

 processes. 



I am sitting in my chair and want to write ; a lamp 

 recently bought and not yet quite known to me in its 

 construction stands on the table ; the lamp begins to 

 smoke it is here that our analysis is to begin. 



This analysis will not relate to "given" phenomena 

 in their mere passivity, i.e. not to mere " sensations," 

 but to those objects of consciousness exclusively in which 

 some sort of activity or " apperception ' on the part of 

 the Ego is concerned. True " perceptions," of course, belong 

 to this domain of mental activity. 



a. A CASE FROM COMMON LIFE 



TJie Case 



My having an optical perception of the smoking lamp, 

 in short, my optical lamp is followed by the desire to 

 stop the smoking ; in order to do that my attention is 



