Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Modern Philosophical Conceptions of Life: An Address Delivered Before the Philosophical Society of Washington, December
Now please to understand that when I say I recognize all the chemical phases of these processes to be the results of the ordinary chemical laws, I do not entertain any mental reservation with regard to the unrestricted application of these laws. I cannot for a mo ment agree with those physiologists who have imagined the vital principle to thwart, or interfere with, or counteract these laws in any way. I know, indeed, that we are far from being as thoroughly acquainted, as we may by and by hope to be, with the chemical phenomena of living beings; that many of the questions are very difficult, so that as yet, with all our labor, we have obtained but partial or even contradictory results; but I find in this only a reason for further investigation - no logical difficulty of a radical kind. In a general way I recognize that the matter of which living beings are composed is built up of elementary substances belonging to the inorganic world, and that it consists of atoms possessed of the very same properties, and obedient to the very same laws as like atoms in inorganic bodies. Yet I confess I find in all this no reason for denying the existence of a vital principle; only I do not figure this principle in my mind as a hostile power interfering in any way with the chemical tendencies of the atoms present; I liken its operations rather to those of the chemist in his laboratory who obtains the results he needs only on the condition of most rigid obedience to chemical laws.
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