44 ETERNITY OF LIFE 



The works of St. Augustine of Hippo may be taken as 

 an example. He held that the earth is full of hidden life- 

 engendering forces, occulta semina, invisible, mysterious 

 seeds of spiritual origin, which become active under favour- 

 able circumstances and produce plants, frogs, birds and 

 insects from water, air and earth. The ' spirit of growth ', 

 anima vegetativa of the later scholasts, the arche of Para- 

 celsus and van Helmont, the ' life force ' of a number of 

 other authors, etc., were also of this nature. 



In the middle of the seventeenth century Athanasius 

 Kircher^ developed his theory of panspermia, according to 

 which the germs of life are scattered in chaos and in all the 

 elements, and the various animals and plants arise as a result 

 of their activity. A principle similar to that of panspermia 

 forms the foundation for Leibnitz' teaching concerning the 

 immortal, ubiquitous germs of life which, in the course of 

 their later development, form all living things. According 

 to Needham, the vivifying principle ' life force ' is inherent 

 in every particle of organic matter and only under its for- 

 mative influence can micro-organisms develop in decaying 

 materials. 



Pouchet took up an analogous position. He considered 

 that spontaneous generation was only possible as a result of 

 the action of the ' life force ' which had previously entered 

 the molecules of organic substances. 



When the theory of spontaneous generation was exploded 

 towards the end of the nineteenth century the vitalists and 

 neovitalists quietly abandoned it, bringing to the fore the 

 principle of the eternity of life and emphasising the impossi- 

 bility that the human mind could ever solve the problem 

 of its origin. 



The position was different for those natural philosophers 

 who were working on a materialistic basis. They were trying 

 to use the theory of the eternity of life as a way out from 

 what seemed to be the impasse which had been created by 

 Pasteur's experiments. It is clear that the theory of the 

 eternity of life as something which has a separate existence, 

 divorced from matter, is foreign and hostile to materialism. 

 Mechanistic materialism and, in particular, hylozoism, 

 assume the eternity of life, and regard it as merely a constant 



