332 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



speaking, is called time in particular, scientific time is 

 nothing but a certain constituent of enlarged Givenness, 

 conceptually invented and " measured " on the analogy 

 of space, and by no means identical with immediately 

 given duration. In this respect Bergson's analysis is 

 fundamental. I may add to it a certain remark of Lotze's 

 that time, in the objectified or scientific sense, saves us 

 from assuming that instantaneous Givenness comes from 

 and passes into nothing. 



Would then duration be something absolute in the 

 strict sense, and would entelechy, at least my entelechy, 

 since it implies duration, be something absolute also ? 

 Then duration would really be a constituent of " ideal 

 nature." On a later occasion we shall see that memory 

 is indeed one of the few paths that tend to lead us 

 towards something like absoluteness though in another 

 form than we are now speaking of. At present let us 

 conclude these fragmental considerations by merely saying 

 that to introduce duration into ideal nature would not 

 be to introduce scientific time time as defined by 

 Kant in the same sense as duration. The " Temporal ' 

 implied by entelechy would be objectified duration ; 

 and this is " timeless ' in the scientific meaning of the 

 word. 



But let us regard the problem of " entelechy and time ' 

 from still another point of view. It certainly is one of the 

 most universally known facts in biology that the adult 

 organism is formed out of the egg by a consecutive series of 

 processes, by a consecutive line of stages. And because 

 this fact is known so universally and is observed almost 

 every day, people even scientific people hardly realise 



