ESSAYS 305 



VITALISM OR MECHANISM ?— VIA MEDIA (J. E. Turner). 



To bring Life into true relation with the other primary categories of the Universe 

 has long been the aim of Science ; and I shall endeavour to show that Vitality 

 is but one form, conditioned by the special nature of its physical substratum, 

 of the Individuality which characterises the Whole — that there is therefore 

 nothing absolutely and exclusively peculiar to it ; further, to examine the scientific 

 grounds for the belief that Development, which has so far attained to the Social 

 Mind, will be continued, without fatal interruption from the future physical con- 

 dition of the Universe. 



I. 



(1) Recent discussion of the problem of Vitalism 1 has two radical defects — 



(a) Undue isolation of the subject matter from allied phenomena — perhaps an 

 inevitable result of specialisation ; 



(b) Failure to seize the essential nature of the problem as a whole ; so that the 

 facts constitute a mere barren summation whose real significance is ignored, and 

 in whose place we are offered (Dr. Haldane) a dubious metaphysics, or (Driesch) 

 an unknown god in the guise of an entelechy neither physical nor psychical ; so 

 that the result is the creation of a wholly false antithesis between the conceptions 

 of Mechanism and Vitalism, these ideas becoming opposed to each other abso- 

 lutely, and each school insisting on the total failure of the contrary theory 

 adequately to explain the phenomena. 2 



Is, then, any solution of this impasse possible ? I think only in realising that the 

 current absolute opposition between these two concepts, when properly under- 

 stood, becomes groundless and misleading, and arises from failure to apprehend 

 the essential character of "Mechanism" — to see that this category actually 

 contains within its very nature the inevitable necessity to develop into "Vitalism' 

 once proper conditions are established ; — to trace, in short, the logical continuity 

 of development from " Mechanism" to "Vitalism." 



(2) For, so far as the essentials of Life are concerned, it is obvious that the 

 absolute repudiation of all Mechanism is the denial of any real evolution, which 

 postulates an unbroken transition, however opposed in character the various 

 stages seem to be ; and to assume, at any stage whatever, the operation of an 

 agency whose full potentiality did not already exist in previous actual conditions 

 is plainly the negation of efficient causation. But while this universal postulate 

 cannot logically be rejected, it remains true that the actual continuous transition 

 implied cannot yet be traced in concrete detail ; still, this factual ignorance need 

 not prevent its complete acceptance, if it be but supplemented by (a) the con- 

 sideration of the essential nature of Individuality in general, and (b) of the 

 gradations which this must necessarily exhibit. The illegitimate antithesis 

 between Mechanism and Vitalism then disappears, and is replaced by the con- 

 ception of a logically necessary gradation or transition from one to the other, 



1 I define Vitalism as any hypothesis that Life (excluding consciousness) is 

 determined by some non-physical agency. Life really should include conscious- 

 ness, which, however, I refer to only incidentally ; although I think its con- 

 sideration would lend further support to my main argument. 



1 E.g. : " the phenomena of life are such that no physical or chemical ex- 

 planation of them is remotely conceivable . . . Vitalism raises no objection to 

 physical and chemical explanations applied outside the intimate vital processes of 

 living organisms." (Haldane, Mechanism, Life and Personality, pp. 64, 22.) 



