354 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



view of Nature." Clearly both the morphological and 

 the genetic views of nature remain incomplete unless 

 they embrace the forms and the processes of life. It 

 is the problem from which both started and to which 

 both lead. They, as it were, presuppose its possible 

 solution. Let us see what has been done in the course 

 of our century to effect it. 



Before we do this it is well to draw attention to 

 the great strengthening which the genetic or develop- 

 mental view of nature has received, since the time of 

 Darwin, from other quarters notably from that of 

 general physics and chemistry in their application to 

 geology and astrophysics. 1 



aud medicine duriug the last hun- 

 dred years has come from that 

 quarter. This large class of studies 

 can be carried on without facing 

 the problem of life at all ; and thus 

 it happens that we may have a very 

 large biological literature in which 

 the word life hardly occurs, and 

 in which we seek in vain for a 

 definition of life. We must, there- 

 fore, have a term which singles out 

 from the enormous mass of bio- 

 logical literature that smaller por- 

 tion which professedly deals with 

 those properties and phenomena 

 which are peculiar to the living as 

 distinguished from the lifeless crea- 

 tion. I have chosen for this purpose 

 the term vitalistic ; but I may 

 note that in using it I do not limit 

 myself to that class of thinkers 

 who are usually termed " Vitalists," 

 because they are led to, or start 

 with the assumption of, a special 

 vital principle. Even those who, 

 in studying the phenomena of life, 

 arrive at or start from the denial of 

 such a principle are included under 

 the vitalistic view, just as Kant is 

 rightly termed a metaphysician 



although the outcome of his phil- 

 osophy may be considered to be 

 the destruction of metaphysics in 

 the sense which was current in 

 his age. 



1 A general scheme of evolution, 

 or of development as it was more 

 frequently termed, which would 

 embrace equally cosmical and ter- 

 restrial processes, the lifeless and 

 living world, was clearly before the 

 mind of Schelling and his followers, 

 notably Oken and Steffens. The 

 vagueness and extravagancies of 

 this school brought the idea into 

 discredit, and the remedy applied 

 by Hegel, to put a logical process in 

 the place of fantastic suggestions, 

 ruined it utterly iu the eyes of the 

 cultivators of exact research. Only 

 very few of the great students of 

 organic development, but among 

 them the greatest, von Baer, re- 

 tained a just appreciation of the 

 great aims of Schelling. The study 

 of development abroad was almost 

 entirely limited to embryology. In 

 other sciences the "statical " aspect 

 ruled supreme. In the face of this 

 somewhat retrograde movement 



