CHAPTER III. 



VITALISM, 



Its Extreme Forms — Early Vitalism, and Modern Neo-vitalism 

 — Advantage of distinguishing between Soul and Life — 

 § I. The Vitalisvi of Ba7-t}icz — Its Extension — The Seat of 

 the Vital Principle— The Vital Knot— The Vital Tripod- 

 Decentralisation of the Vital Principle — § 2. The Doctrine 

 of Vital Properties — Galen, Van Helmont, Xavier Bichat, 

 and Cuvier — Vital and Physical Properties antagonistic — 

 § 3. Scientific iV(ffl-7///a//j;«— Heidenhain — § 4. Philo- 

 sophical Neo-vitalism— 'Rtxnkc. 



Extreme Forms: Early Vitalism and Modern Neo- 

 vitalism. — Contemporary neo-vitalism has weakened 

 primitive vitalism in some important points. The 

 latter made of the vital fact something quite specific, 

 irreducible either to the phenomena of general physics 

 or to those of thought. It absolutely isolated life, 

 separating it above from the soul, and below from in- 

 animate matter. This sequestration is nowadays 

 much less rigorous. On the psychical side the barrier 

 remains, but it is lowered on the material side. The 

 neo-vitalists of to-day recognize that the laws of 

 physics and chemistry are observed within, as well as 

 without, the living body; the same natural forces 

 intervene in both, only they are "otherwise directed." 



The vital principle of early times was a kind of 

 anthromorphic, pagan divinity. To Aristotle, this 

 force, the anima, the Psyche, worked, so to speak, with 



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