52 THE CELL-SOUL 



1849: "Life is only a peculiar sort of mechanics, 

 though it is indeed the most complex form of me- 

 chanics ; that in which the usual mechanical laws fall 

 under the most unusual and manifold conditions. Thus 

 life, compared with the universal processes of motion 

 in nature, is a thing peculiar in itself; but it does not 

 constitute a diametrical, dualistic opposition to those 

 laws ; it is only a peculiar species of motion. The 

 motion itself is a mechanical one, for how should we 

 become cognisant of it if it were not based on the 

 sensible properties of bodies ? The media of the 

 motion are certain chemical matters, for we recognise 

 none but chemical matter in bodies. The individual acts 

 of motion reduce themselves to mechanical, or physico- 

 chemical, modifications of the constituent elements of 

 the organic unities, the cells and their equivalents." 

 These and many similar utterances in Virchow's earlier 

 writings, and especially in the essay I have mentioned, 

 " On the Mechanical Conception of Life," leave no 

 doubt that he formerly supported, with a clear con- 

 science and his utmost energy, in psychology as in 

 the other collected departments of physiology, that 

 very mechanical standpoint which we to-day accept 

 as the essential basis of our monism, and which stands 

 in irreconcilable antagonism to the dualism of the 

 vitalistic doctrine. To none of my teachers am I so 

 deeply indebted for my emancipation from all the 



