Stalh's Vitalism. Prigogine & Stengers. Order out of Chaos / La Nouvelle Alliance

by Corry Shores
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[The following is quotation.]

Stalh's Vitalism

in

Prigogine & Stengers

Order out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature

La Nouvelle Alliance: Métamorphose de la science

According to Stahl, universal laws apply to the living only in the sense that these laws condemn them to death and corruption; the matter of which living beings are composed is so frail, so easily decomposed, that if it were governed solely by the common laws of matter, it would not withstand decay or dissolution for a moment. If a living creature is to survive in spite of the general laws of physics, however short its life when it is compared to that of a stone or another inanimate object, it has to possess in itself a "principle of conservation" that maintains the harmonious equilibrium of the texture and structure of its body. The astonishing longevity of a living body in view of the extreme corruptibility of its constitutive matter is thus indicative of the action of a "natural, permanent, immanent principle," of a particular cause that is alien to the laws of inanimate matter and that constantly struggles against the constantly active corruption whose inevitability these laws imply [83-84]

Prigogine, Ilya, and Isabelle Stengers. Order out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature. London: Heinemann, 1984.

Prigogine, Ilya, and Isabelle Stengers. La Nouvelle Alliance: Métamorphose de la science. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1979.