THE DIRECT JUSTIFICATION OF ENTELECHY 269 



stated that only one of them is presented to the Ego in each 

 element of time ; on the contrary, my seeing the smoking 

 lamp continues during the whole of the series, and some 

 remembrances of past cases of smoking lamps and of lamps 

 of different construction may also continue during the 

 whole. But what may be called the active role l of the Ego 

 only relates to one of the constituents of the continuous 2 

 series in one element of time. I only am conscious that 

 it is " I ' who experience the phenomena with regard to 

 one, and only one, of their constituents ; the permanency 

 of other parts of the series, though existing, is of no more 

 consequence to me than the seeing of the room in which 

 I am sitting during the whole of the process to be analysed. 



What Common Life Learns from the Case 



Taken in a quite immediate and unprejudiced manner, 

 there cannot be the smallest doubt that the Ego, as far as 

 it is " willing," is an active factor in the whole that happens 

 in our example. The willing Ego is influenced and is 

 influencing. It is a real link in the whole chain of events, 

 and this whole chain in other terms, the whole of the 

 consecutive series of constituents which forms the process 

 in question must be regarded as univocally determined so 

 far as it is an object of reflection at all. It is for this very 



1 If only one phenomenon were passively presented to consciousness 

 altogether at a certain time differential, the acts of identification and of 

 comparison would be impossible. We cannot enter here into the important 

 psychological and epistemological question that arises in this connexion. 

 Compare the remarkable discussion of these problems (and of association also) 

 by M. Palagyi in Philosophische JVockenschrift, 1907, vols. vii. and viii. 



2 The word "continuous" therefore must be understood here in a rather 

 wide sense. Space is continuous, but so may also be called the series of 

 cardinal numbers. 



