248 REPORT ON THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE SOCIETY OF 



pretending to reproduce what would far exceed the necessary limits 

 of this report. 



M. Claparede, who first directly entered on the subject, which an 

 incidental remark by M. De la Rive had thus introduced, maintained 

 that there is an impossibility of pronouncing positively in the actual 

 state of physiology, on the existence of vital forces, and that there is 

 a necessity, if we admit their existence hypothetic-ally, of considering 

 them as general forces of nature, manifesting themselves only under 

 certain circumstances, the result of which is organization. 



Dr. D'Espine and M. Thury, in written memoirs, pronounced 

 strongly in favor of the existence of special vital forces, proper only 

 to organized beings — forces to which M. Thury assigns a peculiar 

 character, distinct from that of inorganic forces, considering them as 

 schematic forces, that is, producing the type and needing for their 

 manifestation the concurrence of the organic forces from which they 

 borrow the law of their operation. 



MM. De la Rive, Pictet, Marignac, and Colladon gave in succession 

 their ideas on this subject, and while agreeing as to the necessity of 

 admitting that there are in organized bodies phenomena which known 

 physical forces do not suffice to explain, they yet differed both as 

 regards the nature of their arguments in favor of the existence of a 

 vital force, and as to the importance of the part fulfilled by this force 

 in physiological phenomena. 



After having taken part myself in this discussion, as just stated, 

 and having followed with care its different phases, there have re- 

 mained on my mind some personal impressions which I may be allowed 

 here to reproduce. A first impression is that whatever may be said, 

 there is an abyss between the ordinary forces of inorganic matter and 

 those which produce life, with the phenomena which accompany it; 

 it appears to me, then, impossible not to admit a force, or, if one 

 chooses, a special principle of activity in living beings, the absence of 

 which constitutes the state of death. A second impression is that 

 the notion of a vital force has been often abused by supposing it to 

 intervene directly where the intervention of ordinary forces is 

 perfectly sufficient, and that in this respect vitalism badly understood 

 may have injured the progress of physiology. A third impression is 

 that the principal objections urged to the existence of the vital force 

 themselves rest on hypotheses still more improbable than the 

 hypothesis which they are designed to combat. Thus resort is had 

 to the hypothesis of one unique matter and a unity of force, whereas 

 nothing rests on less proof; and as to the unity of force in particular, 

 they found it on the principle of the transformation of forces one into 

 another, without considering that the principle is only true of the 

 mechanical effect produced by those forces and not of the forces them- 

 selves, and that it is besides impossible not to acknowledge that there 

 must be forces or principles of activity not subjected to the law of the 

 mechanical effect. 



But enough of this subject. As we have seen, our Society, though it 

 is essentially a reunion of men of specialities, does by no means disdain 

 general questions. Doubtless it ought not to surrender itself to them, 



