LIFE 



granted the possibility of a full explanation of one part 

 of the vital phenomena by mechanical causes, or the 

 physical and chemical forces of lifeless nature, he rejected 

 it for the other half, especially for psychic activities. 

 He insists that the latter cannot be explained mechani- 

 cally, and that there is nothing analogous to them in 

 inorganic nature; only a supra-mechanical vital force 

 can produce them, and this is transcendental and 

 beyond the range of scientific inquiry. Much the same 

 was said later by Rindfieisch (1888), more recently by 

 Richard Neumeister in his Studies of the Nature of 

 Vital Phenomena (1903), and by Oscar Hertwig in the 

 lecture on "The Development of Biology in the Nine- 

 teenth Century," which he delivered at Aachen in 

 1900. 



This sceptical Neovitalism is far surpassed by the 

 dogmatic system, the chief actual representatives of 

 which are the botanist Johannes Reinke and the meta- 

 physician Hans Driesch. The vitalist writings of 

 the latter, which are devoid of any grasp of historical 

 development, have gained a certain vogue through the 

 extraordinary arrogance of their author and the obscurity 

 of his mystic and contradictory speculations. Reinke, on 

 the other hand, has presented his transcendental dualism 

 in clever and attractive form in two works which deserve 

 notice on account of their consistent dualism. In the 

 first of these, The World as Reality (1899), Reinke gives 

 us "the outline of a scientific theory of the universe." 

 The second work (1901) has the title. Introduction to 

 Theoretical Biolof^y. The two works have the same 

 relation to each other as my Riddle of the Universe and the 

 present supplementary volume. As our philosophic 

 convictions are diametrically opposed in the main 

 issues, and as we both think ourselves consistent in 

 developing them, the comparison of them is not without 

 interest in the great struggle of beliefs. Reinke is an 



51 



