ON THE VITALISTIC VIKW OF NATURE. 37l* 



tilt' purely scientific or exact method to the study of 

 the organism. 



But biology is not only a subject of purely scientific 7. 

 interest. There is a second and larger class of students ""'''«''"=• 

 — those wlio study liiology as the basis of the art of 

 healing, the medical profession. To them the question 

 of life and death, of the normal or abnormal co-opera- 

 tion of many processes in tlie preservation of liealth 

 or the phenomena of disease, is of prime interest : the 

 knowledge of the mechanical, physical, and chemical 

 properties and reactions of living matter, of the con- 

 struction of the organs and their functions, is only the 

 means to an cml. Before the time of Lavoisier, with the 

 solitary exception of Descartes, biology was studied only 

 l)y medical men ; indeed to them both the existence and 

 the progress of the science were entirely due. For them 

 the paramount questions must always be, " What is life ? 

 What is its origin ? What is death ? What are its 

 causes ? What is disease ? " To this class of students we 

 are indebted for again and again l)ringing forward and try- 

 ing to answer these fundamental, these central questions.^ 



By the other, the smaller yet increasing class of purely 

 scientific biologists, we are being continually told that 

 these questions are premature or metaphysical," and 



from what we know, tlie internal 

 world, to explain wliat we do not 

 know, the external world " (p. 12). 

 ' See, for example, the two very 

 interesting and suggestive addresses 

 by Prof. Ed. von llindHeisch of 

 Wiirzburg, ' Arztliche Philoso- 

 phie' (Wiirzburg, 1888), and ' Neo- 

 Vitalisinus ' (Verhandl. d. ,Ges. 

 deutscher Naturforscher und Arzte 

 zu Liibeck, 1895, vol. i. \>. 111). 



- See Claude Bernard, ' La Science 

 Expdriinentale,' 3""' ed., p. 211 : 

 " La vie est I'idce directrice ou la 

 force evolutive de I'l'tre ; . . . niais 

 I'erreur serait de croire que cette 

 force niotaphj'sique est active h la 

 fa(;on d'une force physique. . . . 

 La force mdtai)hysi(iue evolutive i)ar 

 laquelle nous pouvons caractt^riser 

 la vie e.st inutile h. la science, 

 parce qu'<?tant en dehoi"3 des forces 



