406 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



24. 

 Darwin. 



in France, where a modified kind of vitalism still pre- 

 vails. 1 It is the far-reaching influence of the reasoning 

 which sprang out of Darwin's theory of descent. 



1 The older ideas of vital forces 

 have in all the three countries been 

 combated by authorities of the very 

 first order, but, characteristically, 

 in a very different manner the 

 phenomena of living bodies having 

 been attacked from different sides. 

 In Germany the mechanico-physical 

 school was for a time the dominant 

 one. In France the dominant school 

 was the so-called experimental, also 

 termed the vivisectional, school, 

 founded by Magendie. Between 

 these two extreme positions, both 

 equally opposed to the older 

 vitalism, there stood in the middle, 

 with a less strongly pronounced 

 antagonism to earlier conceptions, 

 those who, like Liebig in Germany, 

 Dumas and Boussingault in France, 

 approached the phenomena of life 

 mainly by the methods and reason- 

 ing of the new science of chemistry. 

 This school had a profoundly modify- 

 ing influence on the extreme views of 

 the experimental school in France. 

 It made itself felt mainly through 

 Claude Bernard. In Germany this 

 influence was felt later, after that of 

 Darwinism had somewhat subsided. 

 In England it was the doctrine of 

 descent pure and simple which com- 

 bated the older vitalism : the ques- 

 tion became one of origins, and vital- 

 ism, as such, could be temporarily 

 ignored. The facts of variation, 

 overcrowding, natural selection, and 

 inheritance, presented such a mass 

 of material, waiting to be sifted and 

 arranged by exact methods, that 

 the problem of the essence of life 

 and its beginnings was set aside. 

 Accordingly, the attempts both of 

 Darwin and Huxley to grapple with 

 the central and final problem of 

 vitalism are very few ; the latter 

 only repeating what had been said 



long before him by thinkers of a 

 very different school. The question 

 was not answered, because, for the 

 progress of the sciences and for their 

 successful application in medicine, 

 it did not require to be answered. 

 It became a purely philosophical 

 question, and the only English 

 writer of authority who seriously 

 grappled with it was Mr Herbert 

 Spencer in his ' Principles of 

 Biology.' Darwin in 1863 wrote to 

 Hooker (' Life,' vol. iii. p. 18) : " It 

 is mere rubbish thinking at present 

 of the origin of life ; one might as 

 well think of the origin of matter." 

 Huxley, in a letter from the year 

 1884 (' Life,' vol. ii. p. 67), compares 

 life with a whirlpool, a favourite 

 simile of Cuvier's (see supra, vol. i. 

 p. 129), but is doubtful as to compar- 

 ing it with a machine. M. Delage 

 names Chevreul (' Considerations 

 generates sur 1'analyse organique et 

 ses applications,' 1824) : "II a eu le 

 merite d'ecrire que la Force vitale 

 n'explique rien, qu'elle aurait besoin 

 elle-meme d'etre explique"e avant de 

 pre'tendre expliquer autre chose, et 

 que les phenomenes de la vie ont 

 leur cause directe dans les principes 

 imme'diats constitutifs de la matiere 

 organisee. II n'etablit cependant 

 sur cette donne"e une theorie de la 

 vie, car il conclut, au contraire, 

 que, eut-on ramen^ les phenomenes 

 vitaux a leurs causes prochaines et 

 aux forces qui re'gissent la matiere 

 inorganique, on ne serait pas encore 

 en etat de comprendre comment 

 1'etre organise en se reproduisant 

 repete avec une Constance si re- 

 marquable les caracteres de son 

 espece. " Even Fra^ois Magendie, 

 the great founder of the purely 

 experimental school of physiology, 

 says of Bichat's celebrated ' Recher- 



