18 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM 



Philo- 

 sophers 

 and 

 Biologists 



the scholastic period, for Petrus Pomponatus 

 (1464-1524) otherwise Pomponazzi, whom some 

 have called the last of the schoolmen,* whilst 

 he held that Aristotle believed the human soul 

 to be mortal and seems to have upheld that 

 opinion himself, was fully vitalistic in his 

 views. 



During this period the discussion was carried 

 on, as indeed it continued to be later, by those 

 who would be more fitly described as philo- 

 sophers than as biologists : perhaps, however, 

 it is fairer to say by the learned men of the 

 time, for much of the time it was possible for 

 intellectual giants like Aquinas to be masters 

 of all the learning of the day. Nowadays the 

 difficulty is to know all that can be known 

 about any one specialty and the result is that 

 few scientific men can fairly be described as 

 philosophically learned nor have philosophers 

 with very rare exceptions such as Driesch 

 endured a practical scientific discipline. After 

 the period of which I have been writing, Vital- 

 ism passed into what Driesch calls its second 



* Even if one subscribes to the opinion that the schoolmen 

 came to an end about this period a highly disputable 

 thesis it is hard to see why Cardinal Cajetan, a much more 

 important writer than Pomponazzi from the scholastic point 

 of view, should be denied the title claimed for the other 

 writer. Thomas de Vio, otherwise Cajetan, was born in 

 1468 and died in 1534, so that he covers practically the 

 same period as Pomponazzi. 



