THE DIRECT JUSTIFICATION OF ENTELECHY 305 



necessitated. We regard it perforce as if the natural 

 equivalent of my Ego, my psychoid, had contained the 

 sufficient reason for it, though, it is true, we only know 

 about this reason after its manifestation. And this holds 

 for all manifestations of psychoids in " others " : it is always 

 post factum that we know about the reason of any of their 

 manifestations ; we simply throw back the accomplished fact 

 upon a " faculty ' : of the psychoid and then say it is 

 " necessitated "' by a something that was by no means known 

 to us before. There can be no doubt that our reason is 

 limited in this way. 1 



Freedom thus escapes analysis altogether, 2 for " analysis ' 

 would mean subjection to necessity. 



7. THE CATEGORIES OF RELATION 



Our proper and final conception of vitalism will be 

 based upon a study of the categories of relation, and thus 



1 I refer to Bergson's profound reflections on "liberte." I doubt whether 

 he has solved the problem. "Intuition" is not a legitimate solution. As 

 he says himself, we are all born Platonists ! Even the " elan vital " must be 

 conceived categorically if clearly conceived. 



2 In no other field may the antinomy of the concept of necessity be better 

 understood than in the field of morality. I know that my past actions have 

 been univocally determined, and yet I feel free whilst acting and may judge 

 about my past actions that they "ought not to have been " ; in short, I feel 

 responsible. And I make other people responsible for their actions in spite 

 of my knowing that their actions were necessitated. It is true, with regard 

 to others, "pardoning " on account of inevitability is generally regarded as a 

 sign of a high moral level, and thus the antinomy may seem to be solved 

 here. But is pardoning myself an act of morality ? 



Almost all moral philosophers have searched for a solution of this 

 antinomy on metaphysical grounds. No other solutions indeed seem 

 possible. Personally we must confess that the solution offered by 

 Schopenhauer appears to us better than any other. To a certain extent but 

 only with regard to the starting-point this "solution" is identical with the 

 Kantian one. 



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