The Metaphysics of Life

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The Metaphysics of Life

From Leons de Psychologie et de Mtaphysique
given at Clermont-Ferrand, 1887-88 Henri Bergson

Lesson 11 Various Conceptions of Life Lets now rise now above matter per se, and lets inquire into what characterizes the living being. There are many theories on the nature, origin and essence of life; we will begin with the most simple, which denies that life is something sui generis, and which claims to reduce vital phenomena to physical and chemical facts like any others. First, there is one point upon which everyone agrees: vital phenomena present characteristics that seem so distinct from those of inert matter that we have invented a new name to distinguish them; thus nobody questions the appearance of phenomena sui generis. What are these phenomena? At first glance, what distinguishes the living body from brute matter is the presence of an apparent capacity to react against physical and chemical forcesa kind of initiative. A mere body [corps brut], left to itself, necessarily suffers the inevitable action of gravity, of heat, or of any other physical force. The phenomenon is entirely and absolutely determined in each identical situation by the conditions to which it is exposed; this can be foreseen with mathematical certainty and precision. But when we consider life itself in its imperfect, rudimentary stateeven in those vegetables about which it cannot be said precisely if they are living or not livingnew characteristics appear. Here we cannot foresee mathematically what will happen. Two seeds placed in the same ground and that present the same aspect to scientific observation will not behave in the same way. Even setting aside this point (which could in fact be contested), we will maintain that if two organized beings, although identical in appearance, do not develop in the same way, that is because certain conditions, which we cannot perceive with our means of observation, exist.
translation Board of Regents, University of Wisconsin System, 2007

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Let us set aside this first point and simply look at the growth or development of the living organism; we see a truly marvellous coordination of elements that together seem to tend toward a single goal, like the diverse functions of digestion, circulation and respiration that harmonize among themselves, each being a condition of the others. Not only is there harmony among them, but each of them is complex and presupposes the interplay of an endless number of organs that also agree among themselves. What complexity there is in a lung, for example, in the circulatory and digestive systemsand note that every organ is itself composed of tissues, every tissue of cells, and that while all these elements grow and multiply independently, they nevertheless harmonize in such a way as to constitute a single whole, a single organized being. The word [organized] is indicative of the thing, even if we descend into the depths of the tissues to consider the cell. Here is a being capable of developing, of nourishing itself and reproducing itselfa truly marvellous thing in the world of brute matter. Thus, only considering appearances, there is here a real initiative, a capacity opposed to the fatal and disorganizing action of physical and chemical laws. It is in this sense that the physiologist Bichat has said of life: It is the assemblage [lensemble] of the forces that resist death. He means by this that no doubt the elements that enter into the human body are the same as those found in organic matter: O, H, C, AZ. Without doubt the simple elements are the same, and the proof of this is that after death, the body decomposes and liberates the simple elements that it has in common with non-organic matter. But during life, a special force is necessary, that fights against disorganization, and the proof of this is that when this force is no more, everything dissolves. Thus the definition given by Bichat corresponds to a spiritualist conception of matter. Our life is a separate force, profoundly distinct from the so-called physical forces, which it continually resists, just as they always struggle against life. Our daily life is a struggle against the disorganization and dissolution that threatens us, since the usual forces of matter tend and exert themselves to include us again in their domain. Hence the necessity to continually nourish and repair; Bichats living machine, although it is very spiritualist, has exactly this appearance. No one can question that life appears this way; the question is whether the reality corresponds to the appearance. Materialists who, as we will see, claim to suppress all spontaneity and all initiative from matter, and who imagine a universal mechanism, have never been able to admit that life is anything other than physical

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force, or that organic matter differs from inert matter, to the point that they despair of explaining life from physical matter. Already in Antiquity, philosophers had arrived at a similar view. Thus Lucretius, following Epicurus, developed the idea of the organized body as a combination of atoms more complex than others. In modern times, other thinkers, without being in the least bit materialist (often to the contrary, because of idealist tendencies), have relegated the phenomena of life to the ranks of purely physical phenomena, in order to establish a place apart for thought, the only spiritual being, the only free power. We are speaking of Cartesians and Spinozists. For Descartes, the phenomena of life are explainable, like the phenomena of physics, by the simple play of mechanistic forces. It is only in our century that the mechanistic theory of life has claimed to be based on scientific documents, with Bucher and Moleschott, and above all, Haeckel. It has been claimed that life was only a particular example of combustion, and this theory was solemnly proclaimed by the English physician Tyndall who, at a famous conference in Belfort, declared that in the inert matter studied by chemistry, he perceived everything necessary to make a living being. The arguments of materialists are numerous on this point. The rely first of all on the fact that todays sophisticated chemical analysis has been unable to find in even the most complex living bodies any elements other than those studied in inorganic chemistry: O, H, C, AZ. Likewise, chemists have been able to fabricate certain organic substances. Thus Berthelot made a certain number of organic compounds, and probably in the near future we will be able to make them all. In the second place, every time that a physiological phenomenona vital phenomenonhas been explicable, this had been by considering it as a phenomenon of heat or electricityin other words by considering it as a physico-chemical phenomenon. Finally, according to materialists, nowhere do we encounter a force endowed with initiative or spontaneity. If this force existed, why would it wait until we were ill and had taken a remedy, to cure us? Obviously such a force wouldbe very superior to physical forcespoor beings subjected to the fatality of natural laws. Why then would it allow them to act as they please? From whence comes our sensitivity to the cold, to damp? In other words, when by chance disorder is produced in living matter, this disorder does not correct itself; we are obliged to appeal to physical and chemical forces: electricity, etc., and it seems that here as in the physical world we are dealing with phenomena whose nature is necessarily determined by the conditions under which they are produced.

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In the third place, say the materialists, today it is no doubt difficult to claim that we can make a living cell; yet nothing proves the contrary, and if we have not yet succeeded, that is no doubt due to the complexity of physical and chemical things that must be brought together for such an object to be produced. Nevertheless there is nothing absurd in supposing that one day a living being will be produced thanks to the meeting of necessary conditions in the chemists beaker. These conditions must have come together at least once in the past. Chance that was perhaps unique brought together in one point in space exactly the molecules and the conditions of temperature, light, etc., necessary for the hatching of an organized and living germ. Pasteurs experiments, concerning cases where a living being seemed to have been produced spontaneously, do not prove much, according to the materialists, because the production of life presupposes such a multiplicity of diverse conditions, all chemical, that no doubt chance will not again produce a similar combination. Thanks to the theory of evolution, materialists claim to explain even the admirable perfection and order that they encounter in the higher animalsin man, for example. Posit the first organized germ capable of reproducing itself, that first organized germ will give birth to other beings of its species, but who will always be continually more complex, because they will be more and more modified by the superior forces that act upon them. Only those capable of adapting to more difficult, more complicated conditions of existence will develop. Hence a gradual perfecting of the organism, with the functions dividing or specializing. It is thus that the very complicated apparatus of the retina was at its origin no more than a simple sensitivity to light, a physical sensitivity, comparable to a photographic plate, and in fact we find in lower animals (in infusorians, for example) a light-sensitive point that constitutes their optical apparatus. Why not admit, they [the materialists] say, that by imperceptible transitions in the gradual perfecting, the visual apparatus has become what it is, with heredity and natural selection ensuring that the advantages are conserved and superimposed? Lesson 12 Diverse Conceptions of Life (continued) To evaluate the materialist conception of life, it will suffice to examine summarily each of the arguments on which it rests. 1) We find in the organized body the same chemical elements as in brute matter, this is certain; it is also equally certain that today we make

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organic matter. But will we ever make organized matter?it is not plausible. We can make parts of a cell, but will we ever make a cellthat is, a being capable of developing, of reproducing, of coming together with another being of its species?nothing permits us to believe this. 2) A lot of organic phenomena is explained physically or chemically; artificial digestion can be produced in a beakerthere is nothing amazing in this. There is a special principle that governs operations of the spirit and functions of life; it is not plausible that it is in opposition to physical and chemical laws, as Bichat claimed; rather, it is probable that it uses them, and it would be strange that we would find in the human body other elements than in brute matter. It is not plausible that there are special physical and chemical forces for the human body. The question is to know if the physical and chemical laws function alone, without a superior principle for making or conserving anything that resembles an organized being. 3) The alleged vital force, were told, is at the mercy of physical and chemical forces, and always bends to their requirements. In the first place, this is not totally correct. In fact, if you take two bars of copper of the same length, the same change in temperature will always cause them to expand or contract by the same amount; in different beings, the same change in temperature would produce different effects. Therefore, to date, science has not proved that the influence of physico-chemical forces on organisms is a determining influence whose result can be calculated mathematically. It seems, on the contrary, that the living being possesses a capacity for reaction, an activity of its own that allows it to resist brutal, purely physical forces. By this we do not want to say, like Bichat, that the soul is truly in a struggle with the forces of inorganic nature, but we maintain that forces do not behave totally the same in the presence of brute matter, and living matter. Up to a certain point, the effect is indeterminate. 4) Its said that nothing proves that the living cell is not a chemical compound formed under special conditions. Doubtless nothing proves this mathematically, but it is up to the materialist to prove the contrary, for note that we are dealing with a completely new mechanism, which in no way resembles a known one. The only scientific hypothesis is the one that supposes a new organizing cause, and when it maintains that the forces involved are none other than those already known to us, it must prove its claimat least show the possibility of a similar result. This is what materialism is incapable of doing. All the experiments sparked by the work of Pasteur have led to this conclusionthat a living

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being can only come from a living being, and that an organization always presupposes another, anterior one. This view was defended even in remotest Antiquity, when people believed in spontaneous generation. 5) Finally, the arrangement and coordination of organs is explained by the interplay of heredity and natural selection, but the hypothesis has not been confirmed by the facts; if it were, it would be very difficult to explain by simple mechanism the marvellous adaptation of the living being or animal to its environment. The fact that differences that are advantageous to the species are always increasing instead of waning cannot be explained without the intervention of a special principle. Try as one may, one always falls back on the idea of a principle that somehow protects the individual and the species, and watches over their preservation. In other words, the system that distinguishes a special principle of life, that does not confuse it with physical or chemical forces, is eminently scientific, because it limits itself to stating the actual state of human knowledge; at the present time nothing provesand nothing will provethat physical and chemical forces alone can ever explain life and organization. Materialism, on the contrary, is an arbitrary hypothesis since it identifies without proof phenomena that present different, distinct aspects. Then let us conclude, until proved otherwise, that the spiritualist conception of a vital principle (distinct or not from a principle of thought, but certainly distinct from the forces that govern brute matter), is established. We leave aside the different theories of life that are nothing but thinly disguised forms of materialism and mechanism; one such is the system called organicism, according to which life is the result of organization. Each one of the organs is constituted in its own fashion, exercising certain determined functions in the whole, and life is none other than the result of this organization of matter. But where does this organization come from? Is it explained by the interplay of physical and chemical forces alone? This brings us back to materialism or mechanism. If, on the contrary, it supposes the intervention of a special principle, then we are led to one of the two theories that we will examine. In fact, organicism is merely a form of materialism. But if one supposes, contrary to the materialist hypothesis, that the organization of life requires the intervention of a particular principle, two hypotheses are possible, according to whether one attributes life per se and thought to a single principle, or to two different principles. Those who believe in two distinct principles have been called vitalists or duodynamists.

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Those who consider thought and life as attached to one unique principle are called animists.

Lesson 13 Vitalism In its simplest form, vitalism holds that man understands two spiritual principles, each nevertheless distinct from the other. The first governs the functions of the organism; it dictates the organization of matter in cells, cells in tissues, tissues in organs, and the marvellous harmony among the organs. It is what takes care of repairing the tissues, what intervenes when we are ill, what is continually surveying and coordinating. It is what governs the movements of the organism, the heartbeat for example. It is what resists the forces of inorganic nature that continual struggle that Bichat calls a struggle against death. It is also what explains the permanence and persistence of forms. Everyone knows that the matter of which our body is made renews itself continually. Yet how can we explain that the general appearance of the body does not change? It is because this force continually intervenes, playing the role of organizer, maintaining in a definite and persistent mould the ever-fugitive matter. Vitalists call this principle the vital principle. And alongside this vital principle there is a spiritual principle, also immaterial, but differentof a superior nature, more refined, one might say. It is this latter principle that would be the domain of the operations of thought, perception, decision-making, willin short, all psychological phenomena. This would be the soul, properly speaking the principle of thought. This doctrine was defended brilliantly by Jouffroy, and one could say that the vitalists are foundedwhatever their philosophical tendencies are on other pointson two different categories of arguments. a) According to them, effects that differ in aspect must be attributed to different causes. Where phenomena are distinct, they say, one cannot suppose the same principles. Now, according to them, the functions of the organism are very different from those of thought; there is no analogy between a heartbeat and the construction of an instructive or deductive argument. Consequently, since there are vital phenomena that present a very determined appearance, and psychological phenomena that whose characteristics do not resemble those of the phenomena of life, it must be said that there is on the one hand a vital principle that governs organic functions, and on the other hand, a principle of thought that is the basis of our whole psychological life.

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b) What really proves that our organic life and our psychological life are radically different, say these philosophers, is that one is conscious and the other is not. What do we know about what takes place inside the body? We are only aware of the presence of a mechanism when it is disrupted, when we are ill. These phenomena do not depend on us; they elude our will, and our consciousness. On the contrary, a psychological phenomena is conscious by its very definition. At the same time that it is produced, I become aware of a self within that is the theater for this psychological phenomenon, as well as, to a certain degree, its cause. Usually I have a certain influence over the production and duration of a phenomenon, which can prevail. Thus it seems that there is an abyss between unconscious vital phenomena and psychological events whose essence is perceived by consciousness. Hence two principles: the one that acts without consciousness of itself and blindly pursues an aim that the Creator has set, and on the other hand, a principle that is fully conscious of what it is doing, a conscious principle. translated by Michael Vaughan

Note
This is a translation of lectures 11, 12 and 13 of Bergsons 1887-88 course at Clermont-Ferrand in metaphysics, the sections that deal with life. The complete text was published by Presses Universitaires de France: (Bergson, Henri. Cours I: Leons de psychologie et de mtaphysique, Paris: PUF, 1992). We thank Presses Universitaires de France for permission to publish this translation. I would also like to thank Meave Haughey for her many helpful comments on this translation.

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