2 LIFE AND DEATH. 



alive — dead bodies. The fact that we use these terms 

 impHes the idea of a common attribute, of a quid pro- 

 itriunty life, which exists in the first, has never existed 

 in the second, and has ceased to exist in the last. Is 

 this idea correct ? Suppose for a moment that this 

 is so, that this implicit supposition has a foundation, 

 and that there really is something which corresponds 

 to the word " life." Must we then wait for the last 

 days of physiology, and in a measure for its last 

 word before we know what is hidden behind this 

 word, " life " ? 



Yes, no doubt positive science should be precluded 

 from dealing with questions of this kind, which are 

 far too general. It should be limited to the study of 

 second causes. But, as a matter of fact, scientific 

 men in no age have entirely conformed to this pro- 

 visional or definitive antagonism. As the human 

 mind cannot rest satisfied with indefinite attempts, or 

 with ignorance pure and simple, it has always asked, 

 and even now asks, from the spirit of system the 

 solution which science refuses. It appeals to philo- 

 sophical speculation. Now, philosophy, in order to 

 explain life and death, offers us hypotheses. It offers 

 us the hypotheses of thirty, of a hundred, or two 

 thousand years ago. It offers us animism ; vitalism 

 in its two forms, unitary vitalism or the doctrine of 

 vital force, and dismembered vitalism or the doctrine 

 of vital properties ; and finally, materialism, a 

 mechanical theory, unicism or monism, — to give it 

 all its names — i.e., the physico-chemical doctrine of 

 life. There are, therefore, at the present day, in 

 biology, representatives of these three systems which 

 have never agreed on the explanation of vital 

 phenomena — namely, animists, vitalists, and monisLs. 



