force as distinguished from the general attractive 

 and repulsive / forces of all the other bodies. It 

 should be characteristic only for developing bodies, 

 including, as we know, only plants and animals. This 

 force acquires the property of attraction as well as 

 repulsion. It must, therefore, get a particular 

 definition, i.e. must represent special kinds of 

 attractive and repulsive forces. ($ 79, p. 42) 



Then Wolff considered in detail the character of the 

 actual force. He considered it to be established that the 

 plant substance attracts the homologous substance and 

 replaces the heterologous substance ($ 81 - 82) , on which 

 property is based, in both plants and animals, the capability 

 of producing the plant and animal substances ($ 83 - 84) . 

 According to Wolff, the main vegetative functions of the 

 animal organism are connected with the essential force: 

 the digestion and formation of the milky juice (5 85), blood 

 formation ($ 86 - 87), and finally the secretions. This 

 latter function he particularly reviewed in detail C$ 89 - 

 105) . Wolff subsequently mentioned another feature of the 

 essential force on which the plant substance depends, not 

 only to attract to itself the homologous substances, but 

 also to mix with them ($ 110) . This feature Wolff considered 

 important and indicative that the attractive force of the 

 plants and animals becomes a nourishing force C$ HI - 115) . 

 Comparing the appearance of the essential force in plants and 

 animals led Wolff to a conclusion that "Therefore, in plants 

 and animals there is only one essential force" (p. 65). 



Reaching the conclusion that the essential force is 

 single, Wolff again turned to the question about the nature 

 of this force. "It was possible," he wrote, 



to call it the spirit of the plant and the vegetative 

 part of animals, but not, of course, in the philosophi- 

 cal meaning of this word, but only in a general sense 

 of force which determines all features which taken 

 together constitute the life of things. If I am not 

 mistaken this is the same spirit which was acutely 

 observed by Stahl and the defenders of his opinion 

 in the vegetative functions, but which they mixed, 

 without basis, with the spirit of animals .... 



Ill 



