Entelechy

one of the central concepts of Aristotelian philosophy, expressing the unity of the four causes, or fundamental principles, of existence—matter, form, efficient cause, and final cause.

The various definitions of entelechy encountered in Aristotle may be reduced to the transition from potentiality, or possibility, to the organized manifestation of energy—such energy containing within itself its own material substance, its own cause, and the end of its own motion, or development. In modern times the concept has been used by G. von Leibniz, who used the term “entelechy” to designate his monads. Entelechy was given a particular interpretation in the vitalism of the German biologist H. Driesch.