Hermann Lotze and the Mechanical Philosophy 281 



the modes in which he advocates them. Nevertheless, as a 

 very distinguished thinker and teacher, and one who has had 

 Qo inconsiderable following, we gladly avail ourselves of the 

 opportunity of introducing him to such readers as may 

 QOt yet know him, as an occasion for saying a few supple- 

 mentary words on that question which seems to us one of 

 the most important of our own day — the question as to which 

 of our conceptions concerning nature is nearest the truth. 



Now the common-sense of mankind has always recognised 

 \ fundamental distinction between living things and things 

 ievoid of life, and common-sense we should remember en- 

 shrines something more than the opinion of any one man, 

 tiowever distinguished, and demands respectful consideration 

 [though not slavish subjection) as an expression of the judg- 

 ment of many generations of men. The conception of living 

 creatures being permeated by a special force distinguished 

 Tom the merely physical forces as ' vital,' was invented by a 

 jchool of physiologists who were no doubt under the influence 

 )f this dictate of common-sense. But this conception, known 

 IS ' Vitalism,' has found less and less favour with scientific 

 nen, and almost all the most advanced physiologists now 

 Favour and seek mechanical explanations of vital phenomena. 

 Such a change must be due to some good reasons. It is 

 mpossible to suppose that leading men of science can have 

 ranged themselves in opposition to vitalism through any 

 Here prejudice of whatever kind. There are at least three 

 reasons for the course they have pursued : (1) the exigencies 

 )f scientific progress ; (2) the necessary conditions of human 

 Hental activity; and (3) the nature of all forces, whether 

 physical' or 'vital.' Science, in the popular sense of the 

 kvord, progresses by the discovery of uniformities in the co- 

 existences and sequences of phenomena, and conceptions 

 iv'hich relate not to phenomena, but to existences supposed to 

 inderHe phenomena, cannot be expected a 'priori to have 



