282 Hermann Lotze and the Mechanical Philosophy 



much influence on such scientific discovery. Experience 

 confirms this anticipation. The progress of physiological 

 and medical science has been in fact due not to any theory 

 of 'vitalism' (or other conceptions not to be verified by 

 experiment and observation), but to investigations conducted 

 in harmony with mechanical conceptions. No wonder, then, 

 that physiologists are inclined to favour views which have 

 been found of such practical utility. In the next place it is 

 a law of the mind that not even the most abstract thoughts 

 can take place except by the help of the imagination, and 

 nothing can be imagined by us which has not been the sub- 

 ject of sense-perception. But this is by no means alL The 

 imagination is most easily affected by objects which can be 

 distinctly seen and definitely felt, as is shown by the terms 

 we spontaneously employ to denote various bodily and mental 

 affections. Thus people speak of a 'sharp pain,' 'like a 

 knife,' a * light character,' a * hard heart,' a ' bright disposi- 

 tion,' and say that ill tidings have given them ' a heavy 

 blow.' Therefore a mechanical conception of nature, which 

 imagines natural processes in terms of motion, must naturally 

 and readily find acceptance amongst men, whether or not it 

 be approved by reason on mature reflection. Lastly, the idea 

 of a ' force ' which is common to all living things, and to 

 them only, is an idea which not only troubles the imagina- 

 tion but is repugnant to reason. Either such an energy is 

 conceived of as being absolutely one with a hving creature 

 manifesting itself, in which case it must be an individual 

 energy in each living thing, and not one common to them 

 all, or it is conceived of as being distinct and a substance in 

 itself — a grotesque conception, in support of which no valid 

 reason can be adduced. 



Yitalism, therefore, is in his last work, as in his first, 

 consistently opposed by Lotze, and we agree with him in not 

 only admitting, but in affirming, that men of science are fully 



