entelechy

noun

1. The complete realisation and final form of some potential concept or function; the conditions under which a potential thing becomes actualized.

   “[Pages 114–115] [H]e [Aristotle] tells us expressly, that that which we call the rational soul is […] 'separable from the body,' […] 'because it is not the entelech of any body.' […] [page 500] Wickedness is the form and entelech of all the wicked spirits: it is the difference of a name, rather than any proper difference of natures that is between the devil and wicked men.”

   “Act, as we have already emphasized, is also called by Aristotle an entelechy. […] [A]ct and entelechy bespeak something fulfilled, actualized perfection, or the actualized. The soul, hence, insofar as it is essence or form of the body, is the act and entelechy of the body; and in general all forms of sensible substances are act and entelechy. God, we will see, will be pure entelechy (and just as the other movent Intelligences of the celestial spheres).”

   “But while these forces of chance work both in organic and in inorganic nature, there is an additional principle in organic (living) nature: an organizing principle or entelechie.”

   “Aristotleians assumed that rest is the natural state of a body in the terrestrial sphere. If something moves, then this unnatural change in its state requires explanation. Something must be pushing on it, or its motions must derive from some internal teleological "drive" within it – a sort of simple consciousness motivating it. These internal drives were called "entelechies," and Aristotleians held that the entire universe is imbued with entelechies.”

2. (specifically)The complete realisation and final form of some potential concept or function; the conditions under which a potential thing becomes actualized.

   “Aristotle […] calleth it [the soul] Entelechy, or perfection moving of it selfe (as cold an invention as any other) for he neither speaketh of the essence, nor of the beginning, nor of the soules nature; but onely noteth the effects of it […].”

   “Both Aristotle's concept of the entelechy and its modified role in Leibnizian "monadology" use the term in ways that could be applied in any being or "substance," such as an amoeba or a tree, or even some one particular pebble viewed as being moved to fulfill the potentialities peculiar to its kind.”

   “Students of Aristotle are familiar with his thesis that soul is the form of the body. In the De Anima Aristotle explains this further by claiming that the soul is the perfection or entelechia of the body (414a26).”

   “[T]his first acting principle, this entelechia is a real life principle (principium vitale) which has a perceiving ability as well, and which is imperishable. And this is just what I consider as the soul of animals. [Leibniz, 1710.] […] A body belonging to a monas which is its entelechia or soul, comprises together with the entelechia what we call a living thing, and together with the soul what we call animal. [Leibniz, 1714.]”

3. A particular type of motivation, need for self-determination, and inner strength directing life and growth to become all one is capable of being; the need to actualize one's beliefs; having both a personal vision and the ability to actualize that vision from within.