millennium essay A victim of truth Vitalism was an attempt to reconcile rationality with a sense of wonder.

Sunetra Gupta onvictions, said Nietzsche, are more he life of Jons dangerous enemies of truth than lies. Jacob Berzelius EVANS MARY CAmong the catalogue of convictions T that the human race has challenged and traced the tensions eventually relinquished is the fascinating notion that living organisms are distinct between materialism from nonliving entities by possessing a and idealism in dramatic ‘vital force’. The philosophy of ‘vitalism’ has its roots in the original distinction between detail. organic and inorganic compounds, dating from around 1600, which was based on their reaction to heat. Although both types remaining tenets of vitalism — that although of substance changed form when heated, organic chemicals could be modified in the inorganic compounds could be recovered laboratory, they could only be produced upon removing the heat source, whereas the through the agency of a vital force present in organic compounds appeared to undergo a living plants and animals. mysterious and irrevocable alteration. Berzelius apparently tried to downplay The implication that the latter were Wohler’s discovery by exiling urea to a hin- imbued with a vital force gave birth to an terland between organic and inorganic com- idea that eventually came to occupy a very pounds. An alternative school of thought tricky position between materialism and proposes that his lack of enthusiasm had idealism by endorsing the viewpoint that, more to do with the problems it posed for his although organic material might obey the own theory of inorganic compound forma- same physical and chemical laws as inorgan- tion. At any rate, the event struck many, ic material, life could not be governed by including Wohler himself, as being more these laws alone. remarkable in demonstrating how a salt Vitalism’s singular place in history rests (ammonium cyanate) could reconstitute on its attempt to reconcile two opposing itself into an organic substance with the same needs — the need for analytical reasoning empirical formula. and the need to celebrate the mystery of By deflecting the issue towards the struc- human experience. The life of the Swedish tural implications, Berzelius was able to chemist Jons Jacob Berzelius (pictured on maintain a dignified silence on the question the right) traced the tensions between these of vitalism, leaving us with room to speculate concerns in dramatic detail. about what the discovery might really have We are accustomed to thinking of the meant to him personally. During his long defining event in Berzelius’s life as the letter encounter with chemistry he vacillated from his student that declared: “I must tell between stances that are clearly supportive of you that I can make urea without the use a mystical vitalist force and others that are another set of circumstances — namely, the of kidneys, either man or dog.” The year more accommodating of an atheistic materi- development of an organism. Known as was 1828 and Friedrich Wohler, in setting alism, which he generally abhorred. It entelechy, the concept that a vital force out to synthesize ammonium cyanate, had appears that much of his energies as a accounts not only for the maintenance of life obtained a white crystalline material which chemist were engaged in the honest negotia- but also for its development was used by the proved identical to urea. It was the first tion of a compromise between these two vitalist Hans Driesch to explain the astonish- organic compound to be synthesized from poles. ing process of embryonic differentiation. inorganic starting materials, and the Vitalism did not die with the synthesis of Are where are we today in this process of achievement knocked down one of the few urea, but its boundaries were pushed back a gradual erosion? We now have a ‘working little further. Vitalists now began to contend draft’ of the human genome and still the that it was an organism’s functioning rather engineers of such a feat are anxious to t seems that we are than its constituent substances that lay out- emphasize “the imponderables of the side the boundaries of human comprehen- human spirit”. It seems that we are still — Istill trapped in a state sion. Berzelius, in his final analysis, acknowl- perhaps happily so — trapped in a state of of poetic ambivalence edged that the notion of a vital force as dis- poetic ambivalence towards the question of tinct from normal inorganic forces was whether life is greater than the sum of its as to whether life is invalid; instead, organisms were to be distin- parts. Like Berzelius, we remain inclined to guished by a mysterious arrangement of “cir- believe that the analysis of life does not greater than the sum cumstances” dictated by the (divine) pur- detract from its ultimate mystery. I pose of producing life. By the early twentieth Sunetra Gupta is in the Department of Zoology, of its parts. century, the focus of vitalism had shifted to University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK.

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