VITALISM AND 

 SCHOLASTICISM 



CHAPTER I 



CHANGES IN SCIENTIFIC OPINION 



Alchemists and Chemists Vitalists, Mechanists and Neo- 

 vitalists 



SCIENTIFIC opinion regarding any particular 

 point is apt to waver from view to view as new 

 facts swim into one's ken; it swings from one 

 side to another like a pendulum and is some- 

 times found, after a long interval of time, to 

 have returned to a position which it might have 

 been supposed had been abandoned for ever. 

 That such must necessarily be the case will not 

 require much demonstration when one remem- 

 bers the vast number of undiscovered facts 

 which lie all around us and the potent and 

 corroding effect which the discoveries of to- 

 morrow may consequently have upon the most 

 cherished theories of to-day. 



In the pre-scientific period, as some would Alchemy 

 call it, at any rate a period when science was 

 13 



