But there is a scientific
vitalism also, which it is well to distinguish from the metaphysical
sort. The point at issue between vitalism and mechanism in biology is
whether the living processes in nature can be resolved into a
combination of the material. The material processes will always remain
vital, if we take this word in a descriptive and poetic sense; for
they will contain a movement having a certain idiosyncrasy and taking
a certain time, like the fall of an apple. The movement of nature is
never dialectical; the first part of any event does not logically
imply the last part of it. Physics is descriptive, historical,
reporting after the fact what are found to be the habits of matter.
But if these habits are constant and calculable we call the vitality
of them mechanical. Thus the larger processes of nature, no matter how
vital they may be and whatever consciousness may accompany them, will
always be mechanical if they can be calculated and predicted, being a
combination of the more minute and widespread processes which they
contain. The only question therefore is: Do processes such as
nutrition and reproduction arise by a combination of such events as
the fall of apples? Or are they irreducible events, and units of
mechanism by themselves? That is the dilemma as it appears in science.
Pages:
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96