372 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



organisms ; and there probably is more reason than we 

 know decidedly, viz. the harmony, or, to speak in most 

 general terms, the distribution of primordial matter and 

 velocity. 



Certainly, the " primary entelechy '' that natural science 

 allows us to assume hypothetically, and epistemology allows 

 us to refer by analogy to absoluteness, remains far behind 

 any conception of a perfect absolute Being that man is able 

 to form in his mind. But it does not contradict x the con- 

 cept of God as formed by the reasoning imagination. 







e. METALOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS 



On a former occasion we made a short excursion into 

 the theory of knowledge, showing how, on the basis of the 

 categorical system, the concept of an " ideal nature ' is 

 created, and how " natural factors or agents " are established 

 with regard to the single actual and possible events in 

 conceived Givenness. Our former discussion related to 

 inorganic nature as well as to the domain of life. 



In the face of our present metaphysical considerations, 

 the concepts " ideal nature ' and " natural factors ' acquire 

 a somewhat different aspect. The whole system of " ideal 

 nature," including the relations of individuality and morality, 

 would appear as a description by analogy of what is 

 absolute : in any case the Absolute is such that it may be 

 described by analogy in this way. But " natural agents ' 

 with regard to single events in Givenness, say the fall of a 

 particular stone or the morphogenesis of a particular animal, 



1 But science, and the doctrine of entelechy in particular, most strongly 

 contradicts any form of so-called "Pantheism." Entelechy and matter are 

 different and external to one another throughout. 



