180 University of California Publications in Zoology. [Vol. 4 



There are certainly enough dark places in biology to make any 

 doctrine welcome that can clear them up. But to many it appears 

 that to assume the existence of an entelechy of the sort that 

 Driesch sets forth does not help in our understanding of matters 

 in the least. It seems to be merely a way of collecting all the diffi- 

 culties together and giving the bundle a name. The difficulti&s 

 continue to exist as before. Thus, suppose that we attribute the 

 co-ordination of action of all parts of the starfish in the righting 

 impulse to an Entelechy. Then we still have the question : How 

 does there happen to be in the startish this something that can 

 produce precisely the complex harmonious action that we are en- 

 deavoring to understand ? We have merely transferred the com- 

 plexity and harmony to this something, — the Entelechy. The 

 question remains: How does the Entelechy get it? Surely if a 

 complex harmonious action leading to a definite end is something 

 requiring analysis and explanation, or implying a development, it 

 is equally so whether it is found in a physico-chemical complex or 

 in an Entelechy ! To many investigator's the mind that requires 

 analysis and explanation of these things when they are found in 

 an animal or in a physico-chemical complex, but can swallow them 

 whole when presented under the name of an Entelechy, presents 

 a curious contradiction in requirements. To accept the Entelechy 

 unanalyzed and unexplained is merely to give up the problem as 

 insoluble. But if we refuse to admit for the Entelechy what we 

 can not admit for the physico-chemical complex, and are to pro- 

 ceed to a study of the comparative development of entelechies, 

 tracing their origin and accounting for their complexities by de- 

 velopment from simpler conditions in accordance with known 

 laws, — then surely we are merely transferring our problem from 

 the complex that we actuallj^ find in time and space to a sort of 

 manufactured copy of this problem, presenting the same diffi- 

 culties, with the additional one that it is impalpable and can not 

 be directly dealt with at all. The entelechy simply adds to our 

 difficulties. 



Again, suppose we leave aside all question as to the origin of 

 the complex powers of the Entelechy, merely admitting its exist- 

 ence as something "Letztes, Naturgegebenes, " and believing that 

 it determines the harmonious movements of the starfish in riyht- 



