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Show 408 THE VITAL FORCE. NOTE. I HAVE noticed, in the Preface to the Second and Third Editions (s. xiii. p. xii. English Trans.), the subject of the republication here of the preceding pages, which were first printed in Schiller's Horen (Jahrg. 1795, st. 5, s. 90-96). They contain the development of a physiological idea clothed in a semi-mythical garb. In the Latin "Aphorisms from the Chemical Physiology of Plants," appended to my "Subterranean Flora," in 1793-I had defined the" vital force" as "the unknown cause which prevents the elements from following their original affinities." The first of my aphorisms were as follows : " Rerum naturam si totam consideres, magnum atque durabile, quod inter elementa intercedit, discrimen perspicies, quorum altera affinitatum legibus obtemperantia, altera, vinculis solutis, varie juncta apparent. Quod quidem discrimen in elementis ipsis eorumque indole neutiquam positum, quum ex sola distributione singulorum petendum esse videatur. Materiam segnem, brutam, inanimam earn vocamus, cujus stamina secundum leges chymicre affinitatis mixta sunt. Animata atque organica ea potissimun corpora appellamus, qure, licet in novas mutari formas perpetuo tendant, vi interna quadam continentur, quominus priscam sibique insitam formam relinquant. "Vim internam, qure chymicre affinitatis vincula resolvit, atque obstat, quominus elementa corporum libere conjungantur, vitalem vocamus. Itaque nullum certius mortis criterium putredine datur, qua primre partes vel stamina rerum, antiquis juribus revocatis, affinitatum legibus parent. Corporum inanimorum nulla putredo esse potest." (Vide Aphorismi ex doctrina Physiologire chemicre Plantarum, in Humboldt, Flora Fribergensis subterranea, 1793, pp. 133-136.) I have placed in the mouth of Epicharmus the above propositions, which were disapproved by the acute Vicq d' Azyr, in his Traite d' Anatomie et de Physiologic, t. i. p. 5, but are now entertained by many distinguished persons among my friends. Reflection and continued study in the domains of physiology and chemistry have deeply shaken my earlier belief in a peculiar so-called vital force. In 1797, |