  Along with Virchow, we must name another of the older generation, the physiologist William Preyer, who combated “vitalism,” “dualism,” and “mechanism” with equal vehemence, and issued a manifesto, already somewhat solemn and official, against “vital force.” And yet he must undoubtedly be regarded as a vitalist by mechanists and vitalists alike.79 He is more definite than Virchow, for he does not content himself with general statements as to the “origin” of vital force, and of the “swinging over” of the merely mechanical energies into the domain of the vital, but holds decidedly to the proposition omne vivum e vivo. He therefore maintains that life has always existed in the cosmos, and entirely rejects spontaneous generation. The fallacy, he says, of the mechanistic claims was due to the increasing number of physical explanations of isolated vital phenomena, and of imitations of the chemical products of organic metabolism. A wrong conclusion was drawn from these. “Any one who hopes to deduce from the chemical and physical properties of the fertilised egg the necessity that an animal, tormented by hunger and love must, after a [pg 240] As Preyer accepts the Kant-Laplace theory of the origin of our earth from the sun, he reaches ideas which have points of contact with the “cosmo-organic” ideas of Fechner. Life was present even when the earth was a fiery fluid sphere, and was possibly more general and more abundant then than it is now. And life as we know it may only be a smaller and isolated expression of that more general life.80 [pg 241]Among the younger generation of specialists, those most often quoted as opponents of the mechanical theory are probably Bunge, Rindfleisch, Kerner von Marilaun, Neumeister and Wolff. A special group among them, not very easy to classify, may be called the Tectonists. Associated with them is Reinke's “Theory of Dominants.” Driesch started from their ranks, and is a most interesting example of consistent development from a recognition of the impossibilities of the mechanistic position to an individually thought-out vitalistic theory. Hertwig, too, takes a very definite position of his own in regard to these matters. Perhaps the most original contribution in the whole field is Albrecht's “Theory of Different Modes of Regarding Things.” We may close the list with the name of K. C. Schneider, who has carried these modern ideas on into metaphysical speculation. Several others might be mentioned along with and connecting these representative names.81 |
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