We now shall leave entelechy where it stands: next summer we shall turn back to it and shall make its full logical and ontological analysis our chief study. At present we are satisfied with having proved its existence in nature, with having laid some of the foundations of a doctrine to be based upon it. I hope that these foundations will evince themselves strong: that is all-important.[65] It indeed has been the fault of all vitalism in the past that it rested on weak foundations. Therefore the discussion of the basis underlying our doctrine of the autonomy of life is to occupy us still a considerable time. We shall devote to it two more of this year’s lectures and three of the next; we shall examine all sorts of phenomena of life in order to find out if there are any further proofs of vitalism, independent perhaps, of what we way call our *first proof*, which is based upon the analysis of the *differentiation of harmonious-equipotential systems*. We shall find some more independent proofs; and besides that we shall find many kinds of phenomena upon which future times perhaps may erect more of such independent proofs. [65] My “first proof of vitalism” was first developed in the paper, “Die Localisation morphogenetischer Vorgänge,” Leipzig, 1899. (See additional remarks in *Organische Regulationem*, Leipzig, 1901, and in *Archiv für Entwickelungsmechanik*, 14, 1902.) I cannot admit that any really serious objection has been brought forward against it. (See my articles in *Biologisches Centralblatt*, 22, 23, 27, and in *Ergebnisse d. Anat. u. Entwickelungsgesch*. 11, 14.) An historical sketch of vitalism will be found in my book, *Der Vitalismus als Geschichte und als Lehre*, Leipzig, 1905. For we shall be chary of bestowing the name “proof” except on what is a proof indeed, of course according to our critical conviction. Vitalistic views in biology have arisen in rather numerous forms during the last fifteen years, especially in Germany--though in very strong contrast to the so-called official German biology--but I can only admit that one of all the arguments of “neo-vitalism” has proved its statements. I refer to the theory of “morphaesthesia” as developed by Noll, which we shall study briefly in the next lecture. I cannot concede that Reinke or Schneider or Pauly have really proved what they believe, and I cannot even allow to the most original thinker in this field, Gustav Wolff, that he has given a real demonstration of his views. He states that the existence of so-called “primary purposefulness,” that is, the existence of adaptive processes, which cannot be imagined to have arisen on Darwinian principles, is able to prove vitalism; but I say that it only proves teleology, which is a broader concept than vitalism.