explains it. In this
lies the relative justification of the ever-recurring reactions to
"vitalism."

This theory of Albrecht's has all the charms and difficulties, or
impossibilities, of parallelistic interpretations in general. Its validity
might be discussed with reference to the particular case of
psycho-physical parallelism.(104)

To make a sound basis for itself it would require first to clear up the
causality problem, and to answer, or at least definitely formulate the
great question whether causing (Bewirkung) is to be replaced by mere
necessary sequence--for this is where it ends. The conclusion which, with
regard to biological methods and ideals, seems to make all concessions to
the purely mechanical mode of interpretation, is not sufficiently obvious
from the premisses. If the vital series be a "real" one, we should expect
that a "vitalistic" mode of interpretation, with methods and aims of its
own, would be required, just as a special science of psychology is
required. The assumption that each series is complete without a break, and
that an all-including analysis of vital processes in terms of mechanical
processes must ultimately be possible, is a _petitio principii_, and
breaks down before the objections raised by the vitalists. The most
central problem in the whole matter, namely, the relation of the causal to
the teleological, has not been touched. These two concepts would, of
course, not yield "parallels," but would be different points of view,
which could eventually be applied to each series.

K. Camillo Schneider,(105) Privatdozent in Vienna, uses the soul, the
psychical in the true sense, as the explanation of the vital. What had
been thought secretly and individually by some of the vitalists already
mentioned, but had, so to speak, cropped up only as the incidentally
revealed reverse side of their negations of mechanism, Schneider attempts
definitely to formulate into a theory. The chief merit of his book on
"Vitalism" is to be found, in Chapters II. to X., in his thorough
discussion of the chemical, physical, and mechanical theories along the
special lines of each.

The list of critics might be added to, and the number of standpoints in
opposition to mechanism greatly increased. This diversity of standpoint,
and the individual way in which each independent thinker reacts from the
mechanical theory shows that here, as also in regard to Darwin's theory of
selection, we have to do with a dogmatic t