Chapter 7

The struggle seen to exist between life instinct and attractive forces
is consistent with conciliation because the opposing actions
can be reduced to the same principle

1844. The reasons which led me to accept the animation of the first elements of matter have already been set out. It now seems to me that this cause alone is fully sufficient of itself to explain all the phenomena proper to different attractions

.

1845. One of the greatest difficulties which renders this opinion so unreal to a great part of mankind is the fact that there is no immediately apparent reason why, if elements are animated, all bodies should not manifest phenomena proper to animals. But careful consideration of the law according to which life instinct operates shows without difficulty that, even granted the animation of elements, the appearance of animal phenomena is completely impossible if bodies do not receive a suitable organisation.

It is in fact clear that the increase of motion which I have attributed to both vital and sensuous motor spontaneity, and which is one of the principal animal phenomena, could never take place in an inorganic body. Such spontaneity needs continuous stimuli which cannot be present constantly except in a machine so constructed that movement itself always produces new stimuli, the cause of new motion.

1846. To explain, I appeal to what we see in more perfect animal bodies where it is very easy to observe the perpetual motion of which we were speaking. In these bodies stimuli generate motion, motion generates new stimuli, and so on. Let us consider the reciprocal connection and action of the three principal internal organs of the human machine, that is, the lungs, heart and brain.

The movements of each of the three produce as many stimuli or excitations on the other two as they do on it. The lungs, when in movement, receive a portion of vital air through inhalation, and exude a portion of carbonic acid with exhalation. This in turn, reddens the blood, which is the principal stimulus of the heart and also of the brain, to which the blood is propelled by movements of the heart. These movements, by impelling the red blood to the brain and nerves, arouse the brain and excite the nerves. The blood then blackens and is replaced in the arteries and veins of the lungs from the right ventricle of the heart. This provides constant new matter suitable for the action of the lungs which oxygenates the black blood. Finally, the movements of the brain and its excitation are the cause of the mechanical movements of the lungs themselves. If these movements were to cease, the chemical operation which reddens the blood and stimulates and makes it a very powerful stimulus and excitant of the heart, brain and all the nerves, would also cease.

The three principal internal organs are, therefore, so wonderfully connected that the movements of each contribute to the movements of the other two in such a way that the movement, properly speaking, does not have its source in any of them. The lungs do not move without movement on the part of the brain, nor can the brain move without being excited and stimulated by red blood which, in its turn, cannot excite the brain if the heart does not impel it there. But the heart itself cannot give any impulse to the blood without receiving it reddened by the lungs and moved in such a way(20) that it must be a stimulus for the heart itself where it produces the necessary contraction for moving the blood through the arteries to the brain.(21)

1847. Consequently, none of the three movements can begin of itself. This is another proof that the animal is not formed portion by portion but is given in nature, or at least that its stamp is formed with a single action of a single principle which completes its operation in one extended, multiple term. Here again, we have a proof that nature is everywhere subject to the ontological law of synthesis.

1848. Organisation is necessary, therefore, if animal phenomena conditioned by continual excitation are to be manifested. This excitation requires that 'new stimuli be continually applied to the parts which have to be kept in movement.' The example I have given (and physiology is full of such examples) proves without doubt that only a given organisation makes possible the continual renewal of stimuli, which applied to sensitive organs, produce in them movements suitable for providing excitation in feeling which result in sense-experiences and spontaneous movements.

Note also that the fact I have described is not only mechanical motion, but mechanical motion excited by chemical and physical actions, and above all by the motor spontaneity of feeling. In fact, the brain does not produce alternating movements of the lungs as a result of a simple, mechanical impulse of blood flowing into the brain, nor from the chemical action which is exercised on the brain by red blood. All this could happen in a corpse without any resultant expansion or contraction of the lungs. Such movement in the lungs, therefore, comes from life. In other words, the internal feeling, which at every instant adapts and orders itself spontaneously in the least discomforting or most comfortable way, is precisely the very thing that thus determines the alternating movements of the organ of respiration. In fact, the living creature feels unwell if it does not breathe; its feeling, which suffers as a result, endeavours to avoid this discomfort. To do this, it produces movements raising it above this disturbance and placing it in the natural state pleasing to it.

1849. This law of sensuous instinct that 'feeling orders itself in the least disagreeable way or in the most agreeable way possible,' explains all involuntary, animal motion, that is, all motion which, according to Bichat's way of speaking, belongs to organic life.

1850. Another example throws new light on the subject. Let us consider the reciprocal movements of lungs and diaphragm. According to Magendie, the lungs

This shows how each of these two organs has its natural position according to the mechanical laws with which they are built. These positions, however, in which the organs would remain if their site were determined solely by mechanical laws, become uncomfortable to feeling, the activity of which then tends to compose and fashion itself in the least displeasing and most pleasing way possible. It does this by alternately moving one of the organs from its position so that each becomes a motor of the other. As a result, they spend most of their time outside the position which mechanical forces would assign to them, and instead hold the position assigned to them by feeling. This position is changeable at every moment and explains the incessant change of place to which these organs are tenderly stimulated.

1851. We have eliminated the difficulty arising from the absence of animal phenomena in inorganic bodies, and have shown that these phenomena cannot appear in them because such bodies lack opportune organisation. Consequently, this difficulty no longer presents any obstacle to acceptance of the opinion of animation of the first elements.
On the other hand, this animation is the simplest way to explain the number of attractive phenomena. It alone offers a known, non-chimerical cause of motion in contradistinction to those causes which hypothetically one would like to suppose.

1852. The vital principle is not only the definite cause of motion, as experience and awareness assure us. It is also without doubt the cause of attractive motion, as we see from the different functions I have listed of the life and sensuous instincts.

1853. The difference lies in the lack of organisation without which the vital principle cannot produce continuous or complicated movements but has to reduce itself to simple attractions in a straight line. Circular movements, and others resulting from the composition of innumerable simple motions which require repeated stimuli for continuous reproduction, are impossible.

1854. We notice again how the effects produced by the vital principle in inorganic bodies and those produced by the vital principle in suitably organated bodies must be very different. As a result, they appear to be directed by another law and hence dependent on another cause, although this is not the case. Nor would another law be sufficient to explain how these effects come into collision. But this is explained as soon as we consider the teaching on the individuation of feeling. We saw 1. that if a felt continuum is divided into several continua, sensitive principles (in which animal activity consists) are multiplied and thus 2. the sensitive principles are individuated according to the centres of greater excitation. In this case, the sensitive principle is no longer a single principle; several principles appear, each with its own life instinct, each endowed with various degrees of distinct activity. The sensitive principles, therefore, which are connected to inorganic matter are not the same as those connected with an organism, do not have the same activity, and are unsuitable for producing the same effects. Once a sensitive principle has been constituted with its own individuation, it operates on its own account alone, tending to conquer and increase its dominion by profiting on every occasion, and wanting this domination for itself alone. Hence the struggle, which takes place between variously individuated, different principles, is present not only between animal and attractive forces, but even between the forces of one animal and another. We see this not only in the fact of certain living things which, introduced into the bodies of others, sicken or even kill them (cf. Essence of the Human Soul, 585-602), but in the clear fact of the implacable, lethal war which all beings of an irrational nature carry on amongst themselves.

1855. But if this theory is true, an organism's vital principle should be more powerful than purely attractive forces (physical and chemical), whose vital principles would have both less extended dominion and little or no excitation. Experience, which shows that this is the case, is a new proof of the theory I have indicated. In every animal, its own proper forces, that is, those which are recognised by all as animal forces, are dominant. This dominion, exercised over physical and chemical elements as animal forces conquer, eliminate, modify and make them subservient, is properly speaking their essential characteristic, the only condition on which an animal can live.

1856. In fact, when the action of animal life has ceased, cadavers immediately show signs of chemical dissolution and composition. The molecules making up the living body are, therefore, in a different situation and condition; they have movements different from those resulting from obedience to chemical laws alone; life forces contrast with chemical forces and impede their effects. From this fact, Brown concluded that life consists in a forced, violent state. He did not notice that chemical forces are outside dominant animal life, and that vital activity, which impedes extrasubjective effects, is not only unforced in its action, but possesses in this very action its natural, spontaneous state. The forced state is simply diseased or uncomfortable life in which life does not succeed in completely dominating chemical phenomena. This dominion, therefore, is the natural, normal state of animal life; only when this dominion is impeded does a forced, unnatural state of life begin.

1857. How does the vital force impede the effect of chemical forces and make the elements of matter obey other laws? - This takes place through the two functions that we have distinguished as causes of extrasubjective phenomena: the organising function and the function of sensuous motor spontaneity. We noticed three moments in the first function: retention, through which the organising function holds the living molecules within the sphere of life; assimilation, through which the organising function composes from the first elements the molecules in the form, mixture and reciprocal situation which they must share in the life of the dominant individual; vital motor spontaneity, through which the organising function assists both the intestine movement of the molecules and the organs themselves made up of the molecules.

1858. The first of these three moments of the organising function produces no movement, but endeavours to impede it. This is the effort made by the life instinct which tends to impede movements, contrary to life, of elements, molecules and organs. The second and third moments produce the motions desired and longed for by the instinct. The first of these two moments is called assimilation and is the cause of movements produced in elements still not animated by the individual life of the active animal. These elements tend to break up and join together, to be configured, to choose, to mix and to combine in order to form molecules suitable for sharing the life of the whole entity in which they are inserted at their proper places. The second is the cause of vital movements in already living molecules, that is, of the living mixture. These molecules are moved in such a way that their fundamental feeling may be perpetuated and remain in the whole, which has been excited as it desires.

1859. If we consider these two moments of the organising function, we will easily understand that the effects of chemical forces must remain suspended and appear as effects different from the movements we have described, provided we grant the principle, 'Feeling, adapting itself to the way which it considers good, draws in its wake the extrasubjective movements we have described; feeling is inherent to the elements, and its changes bring about corresponding motions in these things which are its necessary term'. We can simplify this argument by considering how vital motor spontaneity, the function through which life instinct tends to maintain or produce incessant, intestine movement, is a necessary condition of the excited fundamental feeling. It is clear that if the molecules must be kept in intestine movement and the activity of feeling has to concur to facilitate such a movement, this activity will have to exercise an action over the molecules which brings them into a reciprocal position where they touch at the least number of points. This is the only way of facilitating and assisting the movement through which some molecules rub against others without remaining unmovably attached to them. It easily explains why molecules making up an animal present a round, rather than an angled shape. With fewer points of contact, they enjoy greater mobility, brushing against one another continually by touching in any part, yet without breaking off or hardening the part. This also explains the globules observed under the microscope in various animal liquids, and especially in the blood.

1860. Formation of these spherical molecules must be principally attributed to the moment of the organising function called assimilation.
Life instinct brings the elements together in those small spheres precisely because feeling enjoys and helps that shape with which alone it obtains the excitation perfecting it.(23) It is not at all difficult in fact to understand the mechanism through which these molecules become round.
Granted that the fundamental feeling's tendency to be excited helps and facilitates the movements of the organic molecules at the first level of formation when one is in contact with another, rotary movement must come about to produce friction in all directions. It is the rotary movement which blunts the angles and consequently rounds off the molecules.

1861. This appears to me probable enough to enable us to see in the spherical shape of the molecules the proof of intestine movements with which one molecule rubs up against others on all sides.(24)

1862. The round shape of the molecules also offers an easy explanation of the vascular system. There is no doubt, after observations on the part of so many great physiologists, that the vessels originate from the small, empty spaces which molecules leave between one another. Now, granted that the molecules are round, it is clear that they leave a greater space when in contact than that left by molecules of some other shape. This occurs because those little spheres can touch only at a single point. If, then, we suppose the existence of other, much smaller, spherical molecules which, when moving in the spaces of which we have spoken, force and enlarge them at the same time as many of the molecules, held in the greater spaces, consolidate to render the canal more regular and continuous, it will be easy to understand the formation of the innumerable vessels which, as we said, run through the animal body or tissue and form it.

1863. It is also clear how tiny spheres grouped in this way provide greater ease for the introduction of other particles which separate the spheres slightly. This must happen when a foreign particle is assimilated and feeling communicated. Although the particles of the animal body tend to preserve their mutual contact as a result of the moment of the organising function which I called 'retention', the foreign particle in conquering their retention places itself forcefully between them, and in the power of this same retention receives the continuity proper to feeling. Having become a middle way between the other spheres (provided it is as small and homogeneous as it should be), the particle does not cause the feelings of forceably divided molecules to become discontinuous. On the contrary, the particle itself, with its feeling, continues them in a pleasing way.

There is no doubt that intestine movements take place in every part of the animal. All physiologists agree in granting this. Cuvier describes life as a continual vortex which, while drawing new particles within its movements, expels others. Friedrich Hoffman had already written:

Luigi Buzoni in his Saggio di alcune riflessioni mediche- teoretico-pratiche says the same (chap. 5):

Professor Medici writes:

Much earlier, Alfonso Borelli had written:

Notes

(20) The blood is not only impelled by the heart, but receives in its course continual impulses from contractions of the blood vessels. These contractions cannot be caused except by muscular fibres which, in their turn, receive contra-distentive mobility only from the small arteries which bring the powerful stimulus of red blood.

(21) Although the lungs remain inoperative in the foetus, we have to remember that the mother's lungs supply this need. The mother communicates her own red blood to the foetus. The same must be said about some hydatids and intestinal worms which seem to receive excitation from contact with the blood of the animals in which they are.

(22) Prcis lmentaire de Physiologie, Des poumons.

(23) It is not surprising if I introduce here the action of feeling when I speak about the life instinct which posits feeling itself. As I have said, we ought not to believe that the life instinct first exists in chronological order without feeling, and then produces feeling. I think that the animal, or at least the animated element, is given in nature. The Creator has made it in an indivisible instant; there can be no succession in its formation. It is, therefore, in the animal given in nature that I distinguish mentally (in the fundamental feeling which constitutes the animal) the first activity called life instinct. But this activity, existing in feeling itself, is anterior to the communication of feeling relative to foreign bodies assimilated to the whole animal. Life instinct, therefore, in facing up to foreign activity, does not act in the power of feeling which it still does not possess, but in the power of the animal feeling itself.

(24) It seems indubitable that feeling tends to be excited and possess the spontaneity which seconds the operation of the stimuli, and that the excitation of feeling comes about through certain movements of molecules composing the animal and in particular the nerves. All this seems to follow from the undoubted existence of the instinct to feel, and from the undoubted fact that special, accidental sensations arise as a result of intestine movements of the marrow substance of the nerves.

(25) Commentario intorno alla vita (Opusc. Scient. Di Bologna, tom. 3, p. 234).

(26) De motu animalium, chap. 8, prop. 116.