336 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



Entelechy in a certain sense implies causality and 

 substance; it may counteract true or inorganic or material 

 causality, but it acts. Its chief performance is the augmenta- 

 tion of the degree of diversity of distribution among given 

 elements ; this action may also be formulated with regard 

 to mechanics. 



Entelechy uses matter and material causality for its 

 " purposes." A material system in space left to itself will 

 behave differently from what it would do if controlled by 

 entelechy. In other words, spatial conditions form only a 

 part of the sum of all conditions on which organic becoming 

 depends. It is for this reason that all vital becoming strikes 

 us as something that is new and primordial, though in fact 

 the part played by entelechy does not imply creation but 

 implies regulatory admission of pre-established possibilities 

 only. This final statement implies that entelechy is alien 

 not only to matter but also to its own material purposes. 

 This, in fact, is a point of great importance : the concept of 

 a " self-purpose " is contradictory in itself, even formally ; a 

 "purpose," as we know from a former discussion, is always 

 a certain state of the surroundings that " ought to be ' : 

 with regard to a subject external to it. 



Therefore, at the end of all, the often mentioned difference 

 between organisms and things made by art, with regard to 

 the relation between the " material " and its " user," dis- 

 appears : material and user are two entities not only with 

 regard to objects of art and handicraft, but also with regard 

 to organisms. For entelechy when at work in the organism 

 -leading its morphogenesis or governing its motor organs 

 is also not " in " the material organism but only manifests 

 itself in this material. The only difference then that 



