The vitalistic and mechanistic view of life

Abstract

Life is something which we observe to be possessed in common by certain natural objects. To describe it we have to discover those qualities which are common to all animate things. It follows from this that no one object can be called "life". On the contrary, life is a phenomenon of which we become aware in various objects. We see animate things and we seek to know what all of them have in common. What have they that other bodies have not? Two solutions may be proposed. Living creatures might have their place within the material order and life then might simply represent a special case among the general laws governing material things. At most there might be certain combinations of forces common to all living creatures, which are in principle indistinguishable from the phenomena of inanimate matter. On the other hand it is conceivable that living creatures belong to an order of things quite distinct from that of inanimate things. The first of these explanations is that provided by the mechanistic theory. Vitalism, on the other hand, takes the view than in living being a radically different principle is operative. In living beings the most common element is the cell, recurring everywhere, and to a large extent in the same form always. But, however, fluids and colloids, the constituents of the cell, are familiar things in inanimate thing. One can therefore conclude that there is no single definite form which is characteristic of all living things [...].