In this sense is to be understood the frequently recurring formula: “In dependence upon individuality (_nāma-rūpa_) arises consciousness (_viññāṇa_); in dependence upon consciousness arises individuality.” For _in-force_, in contradistinction to a transcendent universal force, is something that only exists in dependence upon its material. The understanding of this point will be rendered much easier by a comparison with a flame. In a flame each moment of its existence represents a specific degree of heat which, as such, _is the power_ to set up a succeeding moment of ignition. This power is actualized wherever and for as long as inflammable matter, fuel, is present. The inflammable matter, so to say, is the liberating provocation that causes this power, this potential energy which the flame every moment represents in virtue of its heat to enter into life, and shows it the way into living energy. But with this conversion into living energy, _i.e._ with the fact that a new ignition moment is called into life, a new degree of heat, a new value in potential energy also is produced, which, as the succeeding ignition moment, anew passes over into living energy, thus forming a repetition of the whole proceeding. It is a process which may be briefly designated as a self-charging. The self-discharging, the act of the passage of potential into living energy, is simultaneously the charging anew with potential energy. Precisely in this consists the nature of the self-active. The self-active is that which possesses the faculty, the power to sustain itself; and this self-sustaining, when analyzed, exhibits itself in the form of self-charging. If potential energy has passed over into living energy, there is here no need of an accession of foreign energy to fashion a new store of potential energy. This new store is implied in the discharge itself. Energy, actual energy, is not something that must receive an impetus from without in order to come into activity, it is activity, action itself, and proves itself such by itself; and all that is necessary is to comprehend, to comprise it in this its characteristic quality.