MECHANISM AND VITALISM. The Newtonian mechanics has long constituted an ideal for all the natural sciences on account of the elegance of its form and the clearness of its definitions. There has consequently been a tend ency to reduce biology as well as chemistry, astronomy, optics, etc., to a mechanical basis and to explain all biological phenomena in terms of motions of particles. This tendency is known as mechanism, and those who follow it are called mechanists. Now, a living ogan ism, even from the purely mechanical side, is of the greatest complexity and intricacy of structure. Practically all organic tissues are colloidal in nature, and the physics and chemis try of even a simple colloid are as yet very im perfectly understood. Furthermore, the most minute observable portion of living tissue is far from being a simple colloid, but manifests a dis tinct and highly complicated structure. As a consequence, all mechanical explanations of liv ing processes are bound to be of an extremely sketchy nature. Now, the actions of animals and plants are subject to fairly simple descrip tions in terms derived from our own conscious ness. When a spider catches a fly, we seem to render that fact intelligible to ourselves by say ing that it wants to eat the fly. As a conse quence, our biology as it exists is permeated through and through by anthropomorphic con cepts, such as purpose, desire, sensation, etc. While the mechanists claim that, as far as the scientist is concerned, all the facts ordinarily described through the mediation of these con cepts are susceptible to a correlation in a fash ion which, though purely mechanical, is too complicated for our own human faculties to grasp, there are others, the so-called vitalist:, who deny this possibility.
The vitalists may either discover a peculiar purposive, anthropomorphic force active in bio logical matters alone, as does Driesch, or they may, like Bergson, regard the purposive ac count of the world as eve ere prior to the mechanical account. They everywhere their argumentsfrom certain processes which, like the regenera tion of lost parts, or the adaptation of the indi vidual to the environment by mutation, appear peculiarly fitted for purposive explanations in volving some prevision of the future. These processes they regard as not merely non-me chanical, but counter to the current of mechan ism, involving either indeterminism, or deter mination through factors which have no me chanical correlates.
The paucity of the fruits of purely mechan ical research in biology is obvious; on the other hand, the methods of the vitalist are generally so crude and his definitions so vague that there is no great body of biological knowledge which has been gained from the vitalistic standpoint. The terminology of vitalism abounds in such expressions as élan vital, or which are only defined per ignotius. In short, whether a complete mechanization of biology be possible or not, biological investigation has been fertile precisely in so far as it has sub jected itself to the norms, if not to the con cepts, of physical science. It would conse quently seem that mechanism is methodologically correct, even if it be metaphysically wrong. See also MATERIALISM ; MECHANISM.
Consult Bergson, Henri, 'Creative Evolu tion' (New York 1911) ; Driesch, Hans, 'The History and Theory of Vitalism' (London 1914); Mack, Ernst, 'Popular Scientific Lec tures' (Eng. trans., Chicago 1895).