378 LIGHT AND THE BEHAVIOR OF ORGANISMS 



experimental investigation it will be possible to learn some- 

 thing concerning its nature, just as we have learned, at 

 least in part, the character and manifestation of electricity, 

 gravity and other similar concepts. 



It is however highly essential in all investigation and 

 discussion bearing on such concepts to differentiate clearly 

 the two points of view from which they may be considered, 

 the scientific and the metaphysical. From a scientific 

 point of view entelechy and psychoid, like gravity, electri- 

 city and chemical affinity, can be used only to indicate the 

 facts observed, not the cause of the phenomena. From this 

 point of view gravity indicates merely the fact that bodies 

 tend to approach each other, not the cause of this tendency. 

 It is only in the realm of metaphysics that all of these con- 

 cepts, psychoid and entelechy, as well as gravity, electricity 

 and chemical affinity, are looked upon as causal agents. 



Entelechy, then, from a scientific point of view, merely 

 indicates certain facts concerning regulation which ap- 

 parently do not fit into any of our physical or chemical 

 concepts. It has no more to do with the cause of these 

 acts than chemical affinity has with the cause of chemical 

 reactions. It is a name for certain phenomena just as is 

 electricity. Whether or not there are any such phenomena 

 is the question at issue, and our only hope of agreement 

 in an answer lies in further investigations. But until this 

 question is settled it must be said that those who maintain 

 that there are no factors functional, no phenomena, in liv- 

 ing matter that are not also found in irorganic matter, that 

 there are no entelechies, are certainly no more scientific 

 than those who maintain the opposite, for the fundamental 

 phenomena, the distinguishing characteristics of living 

 matter, have not as yet been accounted for mechanically. 

 To say that they can be is prejudging the future quite as 

 much as to say that they cannot be. Convictions are 

 valuable, but dogmatic statements as to what can or cannot 

 be done in the future have no place in science, a.s has 

 been repeatedly demonstrated. 



