physiological factors. It would therefore seem that the vital force, to use a rather questionable form of language, withdraws in a certain measure the organized being from the realm of physical forces—and this conclusion is one form of contemporary neo-vitalism.
§ 4. Philosophical Neo-Vitalism.
Contemporary neo-vitalism has assumed another form, more philosophical than scientific, by which it is brought closer to vitalism, properly so called. We should like to mention the experiment of Reinke,[1] in Germany. Reinke is a botanist of distinction, who distinguishes the speculative from the positive domain of science, and cultivates both with success.
His ideas are analogous to those of A. Gautier, of Chevreul, and of Claude Bernard himself. He thinks, with these masters, that the mystery of life is not to be found in the nature of the forces that it brings into play, but in the direction that it gives them. All these thinkers are struck by the order and the direction impressed upon the phenomena which take place in the living being, by their interconnection, by their apparent adaptation to an end, by the kind of impression that they give of a plan which is being carried out. All these reflections lead Reinke to attach great weight to the idea of a "directing force."
The physico-chemical energies are no doubt the only ones which are manifested in the organized being, but they are directed as a blind man is by his
- ↑ Reinke, Die Welt als That; Berlin, 1899.
