No. 559] DOCTRINES HELD AS VITALISM 



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any of the actions of which men are capable, this agent 

 could determine which actions would occur. 



47. In such suspension of action entelechy transforms 

 kinetic energy into potential energy; stopping a move- 

 ment, the energy of the latter becomes potential (instead 

 of being dissipated as heat, as is usual in stoppages that 

 occur through other agencies). Later the movement can 

 continue again, the potential energy being reconverted 

 into kinetic. 32 Thus there is no offense to the principle 

 of the conservation of energy ; this is the reason why the 

 action of entelechy is to be conceived in this precise way. 

 Driesch takes up the case of a moving element having a 

 mass m, and shows just how the process would work; 

 the kinetic energy "is transformed into an equivalent 

 amount of 'potential' energy located at the place of m 

 and kept there till it is set free, that is, transformed into 

 kinetic energy" 33 again. 



48. Xow. this portrays clearly the situation that in- 

 volves experimental indeterminism. Consider this mass 

 m, moving at a certain speed. It is stopped in a certain 

 position by entelechy ; its kinetic energy is converted into 

 potential. Another body of the same mass lies in the 

 same relative position; it has not been stopped by en- 

 telechy. The two masses are alike in all respects, but 

 one contains a great amount of potential energy, the 

 other none. There is no way of calculating from the 

 position and the mass the amount of energy contained. 

 If we studied one and determined its potential energy 

 experimentally, we could tell nothing as to the potential 

 energy of the other, though the two were perceptually 

 alike in all respects. One would lie quiet; the other, on 

 being released by entelechy, would proceed on its way 

 with all the energy that it had before possessed. 



This situation would be striking in the case of chem- 

 ical reactions. Two substances, a and b, are in juxtapo- 

 sition, under given external conditions. They do not 



