



I 



248 



TI/i: BEGINNINGS OF II FE. 



'vitalists.' They all agree that pre-existing 'vital 

 force' of some kind— pre-existing Life, therefore 

 is necessary, and that without the agency of this no 



g thing can come into being. 



M 



not believe in what we term « Archebiosis,' and he 

 quite legitimately called himself a heterogenist ; be- 

 cause the molecules of the infused animal or vegetable 

 substances (with which alone he experimented) were 

 supposed by him to be possessed by some special ' vital 

 force,' or ' force plastique,' under whose directive agency 

 the new collocations arose 1. He says^: — 'I have always 

 thought that organized beings were animated by forces 

 which are in no way reducible to physical and chemical 



forces/ 



And 



M 



has 



tempted to show that living things might come into 



1 In this point of view he is indeed supported by the doctrines announced 

 quite recently by a celebrated French chemist, concerning ' corps hemi- 

 organises/ M. Fremy says (' Compt. Rend.' t. Ixvii. p. 1 165) :— ' Ces corps 

 sont les albumines, la fibrine, la cas^ine, les substances vitellines, &c. La 

 synthese chimique ne les reproduit pas. II est impossible selon moi deles 

 considerer comme des principes immddiats definis : je les designe, sous le 

 nom g^ndral de corps hemiorganises, parce qu'ils tiennent le milieu entre 



le principe immediat et le tissu organist lis ne sont pas encore 



organist mais cependant ils sont dou^s d'une veritable force vitale, car 

 sous rinfluence de lair humide ils entrent en decomposition comme des 

 corps vivants et r^ellement organises/ He says also : — ' en raison de 

 la force vitale quils possedent, ils ^prouvent alors des decompositions 

 successives, donnent naissance a des ddriv^s nouveaux, et engendrent des 

 ferments dont la production n'est pas due a une generation spontanee, 

 mais a une force vital preexistante dans les corps hdmiorganises et qui 

 s'est simplement continuee en se manifestant par les transformations 

 organiques les plus varides.* 



2 * Heterogenic; 1859, p. 428. 



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