Life and death / by A. Dastre.

  • Albert Dastre
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Life and death / by A. Dastre. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    20/394 (page 6)
    tween life and thought, animists identify them. * In the opposite camp mechanicians, materialists, or monists make the same mistake as the animists, but to that mistake they add another : they assimilate the forces at play in animais and plants to the general forces of the universe ; they confuse ail three—soûl, life, inanimate nature. These problems belong on many sides to meta- physical spéculation. They hâve been discussed by philosophers ; they hâve been solved from time im- mémorial in different ways, for reasons and by argu- ments which it is not our purpose to examine here, and which, moreover, hâve not changed. But on some sides they belong to science, and must be tested in the light of its progress. Cuvier and Bichat, for example, considered that the forces in action in living beings were not only different from physico- mechanical forces, but were utterly opposed to them. \Ve now know that this antagonism does not exist. The preceding doctrines, therefore, dépend up to a certain point on experiment and observation. They are subject to the test of experiment and observation in proportion as the latter can give us information on the degree of différence or analogy presented by psychic, vital, and physico-chemical facts. Now, scientific investigations hâve thrown light on these points. There is no doubt that the analogies and the resemblances of these three orders of manifesta- tions hâve appeared more and more numerous and striking as our knowledge has advanced. Hence it is that animism can count to-day but very few advocates in biological science. Vitalism in its different forms counts more supporters, but the great majority hâve adopted the physico-chemical theory.