THE SPECTRE OF VITALISM 445 



Driesch defines it: he says it is an "intensive manifoldness." 

 But since he omits to mention what an " intensive manifold- 

 ness " is, we do not seem to be much advanced by the definition ; 

 I shall therefore use the word " entelechy " as being shorter 

 and not more incomprehensible than its definition. But I wish 

 to ask what we have learned by this explanation. At the outset 

 we started in ignorance of the etiological factors in develop- 

 ment ; we finish in an ignorance precisely as dense as that in 

 which we started. We have invoked entelechy but it is no more 

 than a rather pretentious name for our ignorance. Biologists 

 who talk about entelechy are animated by the same spirit that 

 led savage races to ascribe all unexplained phenomena to the 

 act of gods. To say that an event is caused by a god is not 

 in the least an explanation of the event ; for our knowledge is 

 then no greater than if we said we did not know how the event 

 was caused : nor is our knowledge of development any greater 

 when we talk about entelechy, about " intensive manifoldness " 

 or about "a true element of nature." 



And yet this doctrine, if it be not over-full of meaning, is 

 none the less a dangerous one. The three rejected possibilities 

 of Driesch were mechanistic explanations : the one survivor, 

 "entelechy," is vitalistic. Since it is no more than a name for 

 the unknown truth that we seek, I see no reason why it should 

 be ranked as vitalistic. But it is so : that is the connotation 

 attached to it. Driesch, then, explains morphogenesis by 

 reference to certain known material factors acting in conjunc- 

 tion with a known vitalistic factor called entelechy. He 

 differs from other biologists in that they regard morpho- 

 genesis as due to the operation of certain known material 

 factors acting in conjunction with other material factors not 

 yet known nor furnished with a name. It would be interesting 

 to hear how the theory of cancer would be expressed in 

 terms of entelechy. Cancer is now regarded as due to the 

 failure of the organising power in an individual ; that is, to 

 the failure of entelechy. Certain cells break loose from the 

 control of the organism and proceed to multiply riotously oh 

 their own account, without the slightest reference to the needs 

 of the organism to which they are subjected in a healthy state. 

 Why they should thus break loose is hitherto quite unexplained. 

 But the conception of entelechy here calls up a horrible night- 

 mare. If individual development or morphogenesis be due to 



