Abstract
DR. KLEINSCHROD is a vitalist of the order of his celebrated countryman, Dr. Hans Driesch. He holds that life is not explicable from a mechanistic point of view. It has its own laws, beyond all physical and chemical formularies. Moreover, as we know life better—at closer quarters, so to speak—than inorganic nature, it is absurd to explain the former by the latter. “All our ideas of nature are obtained directly from the law of life; are vitalisms, as Prof. Lipps, the psychologist, so aptly terms them. Force, energy, gravitation, pressure, &c., are ideas derived from life and transferred to the lifeless world.” It is more sensible to interpret the inanimate from the standpoint of the living than conversely.
The Inherent Law of Life: A New Theory of Life and of Disease.
By Dr. Franz Kleinschrod. Translated from the German and edited by Louise C. Appel. Pp. vii + 214. (London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1910.) Price 3s. 6d. net.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
The Inherent Law of Life: A New Theory of Life and of Disease . Nature 84, 493 (1910). https://doi.org/10.1038/084493c0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/084493c0