The Science and Philosophy of the Organism

I propose to give the name of individuality or constructivity l to the new category we are studying here. This name would seem perhaps to require some justification and explanation. It was chosen in order to render the aspect of the category as little psychological and anthropo morphic as possible. In fact, by saying that " individuality " leads to individual construction and is elemental in itself the role of this category seems better expressed than in any other way. Some special category we must have in order to acquire any systematised experience about specific and typical constructions at all ; there would not be any such experience without it.2 The construction itself may be spatial or temporal or both ; that is to say, the whole of the construction may be a typical order of elements in space or in time or in both ; no matter, its logical aspect remains construction of individual wholeness in spite of its being composed of parts.

1 At the end of the "Beweis" of his "Dritte Analogic der Erfahrung" Kant uses the word "Composition" instead of his " Gemeinschaft " or " Wechselwirkung. " Does it not look as if he had here perceived the true third category of relation ? 2 This is not the place for a real "deduction" of the category of in dividuality. I only say here that it might easily be discovered as an analogy to a certain class of judgments, or rather of the logical elementalities con cerned in judgments, just as Kant discovered his "table of categories." But judgments would have to be studied completely for this purpose. Strange to say, this has never been done either by Kant or by Kantians : the final judgment ("in order that," "damit," "afiuque") has always been overlooked. And yet it is irreducible ! The disjunctive judgment, which belongs to another main group altogether, has wrongly taken its place.

The categorical concept of causality, at first awaked in the form of the faculty of pushing and pulling, needs a great deal of refining, so to say, in order to become useful for natural science ; in the end pushing and pulling appear only as sz^classes of causality. So it must be with the category of individuality : it needs sifting scientifically, anthropomorphisms must be eliminated, and at the end of this process the special kind of " constructivity " known to myself by introspection will only appear as a s?^5class, as in causality. This subclass of constructive individuality, apparent in my acting, alone deserves the names of finality in the proper sense, or purposefulness or teleology: here alone is the "finis " consciously anticipated in a clear and distinct manner, and here alone does it account for the special type of each single phase of what the " individual " factor performs. In a certain sense we even might apply the name of finality to each single performance of such a totality of occurrences as acting is.1 You will remember in this connexion that with regard to morphogenetic entelechy it was only by descriptive analogy that we applied the words " willing," " judging," and " knowing."

1 Bergson (IS Evolution creatrice) denies "finalisme radical," the term being understood, as far as I can see, in the sense of a general plan of the universe in every detail. At the end of this book we shall do the same. But Bergson also objects to " finalit6" as a principle of life; he puts his 11 elan vital" in its place — granting that it resembles "finalism" more than mechanism. I think that our "individuality" meets the point — but I consider it as a category and believe that Bergson also found nothing but a new category by his "intuition." Individuality, in fact, rests upon a sort of "intuition" as far as all categories rest upon it. Bergson only analyses phylogeny ; in ontogeny le tout est donne — and yet there is "vitalism." Compare my article on Bergson in Zeitschr. f. d. Ausbau d. Entw.-lehrc, ii. 1908.

Well-known difficulties crop up in the ontological concept of causality. Of course, it cannot be our task here to mention them all, and so it may be enough to remind you of such problems as the actio in distans, the " seat " of a force, the time between cause and effect, the boundaries between two bodies in pushing, and so on. The infinitesimal calculus was invented in order to overcome these difficulties, which to a great extent are difficulties of space-analysis ; for causality always relates to changes in space exclusively ; both cause and effect are spatial changes.

We therefore must not be astonished, it seems to me, if now, whilst entering upon the scientific refining of the category of individuality, we meet with quite a number of difficulties at once, though almost all of them are quite different from those which appear in the analysis of causality. If we were satisfied with a mere functional conception of nature — as certain modern authors pretend to be — that is, with a conception of nature which simply states on what elemental natural factors any being or happening univocally depends, without distinguishing different kinds and degrees of necessary dependence, the difficulties we should meet would not be very numerous. We then might simply reason as follows : —

The whole process by which individuality manifests itself may be called the process of individualisation. We study the question : What are the factors determining the precise events at a given moment t of the process ? Let </> (E) be the psychoidal or entelechian factor itself, E denoting the " end," and the function </>(...) denoting that not " the end " itself but something depending thereon is at work. Let s be the state, i.e. the amount of the whole constructive individualisation already accomplished, and let a be some specific alteration of this state coming from without. Then the events B at the moment t would be expressed by the formula : 1

If it can be shown that (f> (E) cannot be resolved into other elements it follows that some factor based upon the category of individuality is at work. But all this would not amount to very much; it would be far too summary, so to say. Let us begin our further analysis by referring once more to our formula. We have written <f> (E) and not E\ this implies a very important statement indeed. We know already that our entelechy is no kind of causality, though it resembles causality. A cause is only a change in space which univocally determines another change in space ; entelechy therefore is not a cause. But what then of the famous " causa finalis " ? Simply this, that the term is completely absurd without further explanation. In the first place, as we know, there is no proper " causa " ;

1 This formula will be found discussed at full length in my Localisation morphogcnetischer Vorgunge (1899) and in my Organische Regulationen (1901), p. 172. and in the second, how could the end, which is not yet reached but is to be reached, be an acting factor at all ? The " end " determines entelechy to be what it is : for instance, it determines a psychoid in its specificity by socalled imagination ; but " the end " does not act : the " having the end in one's imagination " acts !

But is it really true that neither entelechy nor any factor similar to it is causality ? It simply is true by reason of definitions, and the defini tions correspond to irreducibilities : causality relates to singularities only, but entelechy has to do with the construc tion of complexes which are unities. And besides this : a caiisa is spatial like its effect, but entelechy is not spatial, though its effects are. We thus may say that with reference to spatial effects the category of individuality implies causality in a certain sense, just as causality implies substance. But there is no identity at all ; and, on the other hand, entelechy is by no means " causality seen from behind," as is occasionally asserted by those philosophers who have not realised that individuality or teleology is as true a category as causality, able to establish really elemental and irreducible natural agents.

We shall get a still more explicit idea of the relation between individuality and causality, if we remember that all factors created on the basis of individuality — such as entelechy, for instance — are intensive manifoldnesses. That is to say, they are composite, though not in space, and their single — but merely conceptual — constituents, qua single, act into space. In so far as the single manifestations of the single constituents of the intensive manifoldness entelechy are concerned, there is something like a " cause," though an extra-spatial cause. Now the principle " no effect without a cause " remains true : there indeed is some thing single responsible for this single spatial effect in all spatial manifestations of entelechy, but it is the manifesta tion of an element of a composite intensive unity. And the converse is also true : every single change in space may be a " cause " and have its " effect " : but this effect will not always be in turn a spatial change. It may also be a sort of affection of a single constituent of entelechy, which then will lead to some kind of manifestation of it. Thus the chain of causes and effects is unbroken — but part of it is unspatial. We have proposed to apply the name of finality to those singlenesses in a manifestation of individu ality that take the place of causes in the manner described, though they are not " causes " pure and simple. In this way individuality " implies " causality.

As entelechy is unspatial, the question " where " entelechy is, is meaningless. Entelechy is the individualising agent, but it would be just the reverse of truth to assume that there are in space as many enteleclw'es as there are individuals, or so many kinds of enteleclu'gs as there are different forms or types of individual entelechian manifestations.1 This would be wrong, for the simple reason — besides many others — that in many cases there might be formed two or

1 If, in spite of this, the word entelechtw occurs in the text on many occasions, this is only for the sake of terminological simplicity. For instance, the phrase "forces and entelechies" means, strictly speaking, "forces and acts of manifestation of entelechy." more individuals out of one by an artificial separation of parts. In this sense entelechy, though individualising, is supra-individual itself — as E. von Hartniann pointed out most clearly — or may rather be said to be " supra-personal." *

Before turning to our most important task, namely, to show how the category of individuality may serve to establish a clear and distinct class of agents or factors in nature, the concept of " nature " with special relation to the categories requires a general analysis. All the elemental constituents that science operates with are modelled and formed according to the categorical system, each of them corresponding to a special ontological category of relation. Specificities with regard to quantity, quality, space, and time serve to give the definite character to each constituent, and the general notions of actuality and possibility complete the picture. Thus the constituents of nature, which are known as " mass," " force," " potential energy of distance," " constant," etc., are created.

All these instances are such as occur in the sciences of the Inorganic ; only the two categories of substance and of causality are at work here, as far as ontological relation is concerned. 1 Bergson also has seen this point. He adds that, considered as "finaliU" the organic finality would be " extcrnc," as even in ontogeny the whole is formed by the self-limitation of totipotent parts. I believe that these difficulties disappear from our new categorical point of view. Comp. p. 313, note 1.

in general is " ideal inorganic nature " in the scientific meaning of the word. Ideal inorganic nature as a whole corresponds to the totality of possible relations which may be established from the point of view of pure ontology or " transcendental logic " in the sense of Kant, always in combination with the simple categories of quantity, quality, space, time, actuality, and possibility. On the basis of all the categories just named a certain number of irreducible principles of relation, a certain number of " ontological prototypes" as they might properly be called, are established, and the task of science is to co ordinate natural Givenness with these ontological prototypes.1 Natural Givenness can only claim to be " understood " so far as this co-ordination has been successful.

Now all inorganic nature, as the total system of all the constituents at work in it, is in space ; and all potentialities, such as potentials, potential energies, constants, have their proper spatial locality. " Causality " then means that one spatial change is univocally followed by another. The category of individuality quite certainly allows of creating elemental constituents with regard to spatial nature, 1 Kant maintained, as is generally known, that his "transcendental logic" rests upon the faculty of "synthetic judgments a priori." It may appear questionable whether in fact this concept meets the point, and whether it would not be more advisable to speak of the faculty of establishing a certain system of irreducible concepts as the fundamental faculty of reason ing, all proper "judging" a priori being analytical. But I agree that this would only be another explanation of the same fundamental fad of conscious ness. Poincare, in his Science et Hypothese, advocates the view that a good deal of so-called synthetic apriorism is analytical, since it simply rests upon definitions. This assumption, it seems to me, though not wrong, is certainly incomplete. The question arises: "Why are there just these definitions and no others ? "

but not " in " spatial nature. This is the most important characteristic of this category. Therefore all constituents of external nature created on the basis of individuality, such as entelechies and psychoids, are completely and abso lutely unimaginable. All that is imaginable must have spatial characteristics, and it is quite impossible to form an imaginable idea of something that is manifold but not in space. All constituents of nature the ontological prototype of which is based upon individuality can only be conceived but never imagined, though their effects are realised in imaginable nature. All entelechies and psychoids are voov/jieva in this sense, but they are not voovpeva in the transcendent sense of Kant, for they are constituents of the world of (fraivofjieva, as far as the " world " they relate to is given to the Ego. Thus entelechies, though transcending the realm of the Imaginable, do not by reason of their logical character as sitch form constituents of metaphysics in the sense of something absolute and independent of a subject1 Even morality, if there were need to assume yet another new kind of category to be at work here, would not depart from phenomeuality in the widest sense.

Thus, whilst we conceive " nature " as the totality of wJiat may be related to spatiality in any way, and include in nature vitalistic principles, acting, and morality, all of which indeed relate to spatiality, the whole analysis of so - called objective Givenness acquires a far more 1 Once more I repeat, that entelechy is not identical with "consciousness" or "the Psychical." Even if we were to proceed from our methodological critical idealism ("solipsism") to metaphysics, entelechy and psyche would not be identical, though they might then be nothing but two forms under which one and the same reality is expressed. Com]), also p. 294.

coherent aspect than it does under the views of orthodox Kautians. With Kant, as with a Cartesian in this respect, nature is only in space ; the " moral world " is a world by itself, and life receives a very ambiguous position altogether. The whole of Givenness is broken into two or even three parts, and this is the more regrettable, because one part of it, morality, is transferred to the sphere of voov^eva, or intelligible things in the transcendent sense, the absolute intellectual inaccessibility of which had been affirmed just before ; and because a second part, life, is at least said to be inaccessible to " science." Thus the three parts of Giveimess appear quite irreconcilable.

In opposition to this Kantian doctrine it seems to me that the concept of nature must be enlarged, so that " nature," always in the sense of objectified Givenness, consists of one completely spatial and one only partly spatial portion.1 The logical process, in fact, on the basis of which the concept of a " force " as an irreducible 1 Only in this way, it seems to me, do the chapter of Kant's Kritik, "Moglichkeit der Causalitat durch Freiheit, in Verbindung mit deni allgcineinen Gesetze der Naturnotwendigkeit " and the " Erliiuterung " following this chapter, acquire a really clear meaning, even from the point of view of the "analytical" part of the Kritik itself. Kant's "Freiheit" only has an understandable sense if conceived as a non-mechanical and nonspatial form of determinated and natural happening — just like our eutelechy. Nothing metaphysical comes into account here as long as acting is studied as an element in Givenness. As to "my" acting and "my" thinking see page 304. That the so-called "antinomies" of Kant's " Dialektik " are not really such, has often been noticed. All of them are capable of being solved within the range of Givenness and do not touch at all the problem of the "Absolute." Mind within the range of Givenness is more perfect than Kant allowed it to be. Also the problem of the finiteness cr intiniteuess of the universe is very understandable and soluble within Givenness, and does not perforce relate to something else. It was a mistake of Kant to connect his " thing-in-itself " with all sorts of problems about pure Givenness.

constituent of ideal nature, and the concept of an " entelechy " as an irreducible constituent of ideal nature are formed, the first with the aid of causality, the second with the aid of individuality, is exactly the same so far as spatiality is excluded the second time. Let us not forget that even a force or a potential energy or a constant, though they are in space, are not immediately imaginable but only conceivable ; they are " realities " in the sphere of the conceptual world, but only express possibilities with regard to the real in the sense of immediately imaginable Givenness. The sphere of reality has to be enlarged in order to embrace them. It is just the same with entelechy, except that entelechy has no spatial localisation.

If we may be permitted to say a few words about our concept of morality in this place, we find the Kantian conception of " nature " untenable once more. How could morality have any meaning whatever to a human being, if it were to relate to something not only quite inaccessible to science, but even, as Kant claims, absolutely unknowable and undiscussable, and not to a something that forms a part of Givenness in the widest sense ? It seems to me that morality is Givenness itself — if it were not, it would be undiscussable. Morality, i.e. the application of a categorical concept of a special and elemental kind to the actions of other men and oneself, relates to " nature " in our enlarged meaning of the word. Therefore, moral acting is natural acting, at least part of it, and it is very misleading to oppose morality to nature : morality is part of nature itself.

Thus we may finally say that entelechies and psychoids are as truly as are potentials and constants — they all are not immediately, but only in an enlarged meaning of the word. They all are as products of the intellectual elaboration of Givenness : all of them, and morality too, are parts of one system, which some day may be revealed to humanity in its completeness, and may then receive its metaphysical interpretation.1 Nature is one, whether it be merely " natura naturata " or also " natura naturans," to speak in the terminology of the scholastics. And Life is " understood " by the concept of entelechy just as well as is inorganic nature by the concepts of energy, force, mass, etc. There is no need of further " explanation."

In a certain sense we may say that all conceptual constituents of nature are created in order to understand logically the singularities of Givenness as being subsumed to generalities : in this sense also there is no difference between the natural agents which only " relate to " and those which " are in " space. 1 It seems to me that many modern philosophers, exaggerating certain mistakes of Kant, tend to subdivide philosophy, that is "knowing," into a number of branches, entirely lacking in connexion. Psychology and logic, logic and ethics, nature and the "intelligible world," science and history, are regarded as being respectively quite apart. It seems to me that nothing can be farther from the truth than this. Experience is one, and Givenness is one, and philosophy as the understanding of Givenness by '; experience " must be one also, whether the different branches of " experience " follow their separate methodological path for a while or not. But this is not the place for a system of philosophy. The reader will note, I hope, from various remarks, that we regard as very nearly related psychology and epistemology and logic, science and history, nature and morality.

Though a theory of epistemology is not the theme of these lectures, yet the connexion of constituents of nature, based upon categories, with immediate Givenness, requires a few words of explanation. All science that goes beyond mere description and empirical classification deserves the predicate " rational," for it is " science " only so far as it is based upon the character istics of reason. These characteristics of reason are the faculty of forming categorical statements that may be concepts or propositions, and the faculty of concluding from premises. The raw material of science, of course, is immediate per ceptible Givenness in space and in time. This raw material is transformed by " science " into the concept of ideal nature in so far as categorical statements, say ontological proto types, are connected with mere spatio-temporal inductive generalisations. Whether this connexion is possible at all and within what limits — that is a problem of a special kind, which we shall briefly discuss later on.

It is very far from the truth to regard rational and causal science as one and the same. But rational and causal science are in fact very often confused, and it seems to me that this logical error is due to the ambiguous word explaining. In its legitimate use this word denotes the relation of the general to the singular. A single event in Givenness, say the fall of a certain stone with a certain acceleration, is explained by a generality resting upon a categorical principle — in this case by the law of gravitation. The generality as such is a " causal " one in this instance, and may be formulated by the use of the term " force," or " potential," or whatever you prefer.

But people also speak of " explaining " when they apply the category of causality — which has nothing to do with explaining singularities by categorically formulated generalities — to immediate givenness with regard to its temporal sequence. In this case the falling of the stone is explained if you know that it was pushed from a table by a child. In a logical sense there would not be a whit of explanation in this case, unless you were in possession of Newton's, or at least Galilei's law.

In short, the law resting upon a categorical principle explains falling in general, in the real sense of the word " explaining " ; knowledge of the child's act explains a particular case of falling in quite a secondary meaning of the word. Causal " explaining " is always simply historical. It ought rather to be called " causal reference." It seems to me that the confusion of rational explanation and causal reference — so common nowadays — is almost always due to the following reasons : — Wherever laws of nature resting upon the principle of causality are the generalities which " explain," they do so not merely in their property of general statements in the sphere of mere ideal concepts, not merely as constituents of " ideal nature," but more

particularly in so far as they have served to create typical agents or factors in immediately given nature. Thus the law of Newton is not only an expression of the generality of attraction, formulated with respect to quantity, but by the law of Newton we are entitled to endow the bodies here before us with potential energies and forces as parts of the given world in its contingent specificity. Though remaining in the domain of concepts we here proceed from a Platonic to an Aristotelian point of view. Thus, in our instance of the child pushing a stone from the table so that it falls, the constituents of the general law of Newton are concerned in any factor concerned in the causal series of events inaugurated by the child. The child not only pushes " a stone," but a stone endowed with a definite amount of potential energy with regard to the earth : it is for this reason that the stone will fall when in its course it leaves the surface of the table. But explaining and causal reference remain two very different kinds of necessary connexion all the same — one of them logical, the other ontological.