to separate completely the domain of facts from the domain of hypotheses.
Excessive Use of Hypothetical Agents in Physiological Explanations.—It may be said that in the early part of the nineteenth century, in spite of the efforts of a few real experimenters from Harvey to Spallanzani, Hales, Laplace, Lavoisier, and Magendie, the science of the phenomena of life had not followed the progress of the other natural sciences. It remained in the fog of scholasticism. Hypotheses were mingled with facts, and imaginary agents carried out real acts, in inexpressible confusion. The soul (animism), the vital force (vitalism), and the final cause (finalism, teleology) served to explain everything.
In truth, it was also at this time that physical agents, electric and magnetic fluids, or, again, chemical affinity, played an analogous part in the science of inanimate nature. But there was at least this difference in favour of physicists and chemists, that when they had attributed some new property or aptitude to their hypothetical agents they respected what they attributed. The physiological physicians respected no law, they were subject to no restraint. Their vital force was capricious; its spontaneity made anticipation impossible; it acted arbitrarily in the healthy body; it acted more arbitrarily still in the diseased body. All the subtlety of medical genius was called into play to divine the fantastic behaviour of the spirit of disease. If we speak here of physiologists and doctors alone and do not quote biologists, it is because the latter had not yet made their appearance as authorities; their science had remained purely descriptive, and they had not yet begun to explain phenomena.
