Dr Partha P Ray
A journey through history,religion and literature
What is life, what really differentiates the dead from living one, is a long-standing question. Is the life is an expression of the physiochemical reactions constantly occurring inside or it is ‘a concourse of simultaneous successive action of forces’—remains unclear till to day. Theories were been postulated & nullified but the problem could not find its way out. So, even such advent of science, one part of population are still believing on the existence of an immaterial, spirit like entity that rules & governs this material body in a very harmonious way. What ever might be the name of this entity and who ever may be the exponents, this theory became an integral part of science.
The conception of such immaterial spirit like power governing the human economy both its sensational and functional level was included in the fifth edition of Organon of medicine with the name of Vital Force. Though we found Hahnemann to speak about such an entity in the preface of forth edition☼ for the first time. It seems that Hahnemann was not satisfied upon himself in question of explaining disease and health paradox in proper scientific terms so the Vital Force theory became inevitable in fifth edition. So we can consider the forth edition preface was the preamble and fifth became the summit.
Hahnemanian concept of Vital Force is the out come of his long continued search of such philosophy that can be able to explain the life and its different parameters. Hahnemann found that this complex mechanism could never be explained by conventional available chemico-physical reaction theory of modern school and it will produce much confusion. So he tried to explain the life process by the very old immaterial force theory believed as well as supported by the Vitalists.
The Greco-Roman school discarded the essential role of the healing powers of the vital force and replaced it with a mechanistic model in which only radical intervention and physical treatments are employed. The mechanistic schools discarded the teachings Physis, the use of similars, and the maxim of moderation in practice. The Galenic theory “opposites cure opposites” replaced the teachings of the ancient Asclepiads and allopathic medicine was born.
The Vitalist schools became the opposition throughout the years were Aristotle and Galen’s teaching were the only sanctioned teachings in Europe. Driven underground by the church and state the Vitalists upheld the tradition of the vital force and continued to view the human body as a dynamic microcosm of the universal energies. The next great revolution came with Paracelsus who burned Galen’s books in public and demanded that medical teachings return to the Hippocratic tradition. The physicians of the Hippocratic view rejected the new iatrophysical and iatrochemical schools demanded that the human organism should be seen as a machine. Their wish was to integrate the contemporary sciences of anatomy, physiology, and pathology into the Hippocratic teachings on dynamism.
By the time of Hahnemann’s birth in the mid 18 Th. Century, the medical practice has divided under two major schools — the materialists and Vitalists. Materialism can be defined as a belief that says nothing can exist but matters and its different manifestations. This theory got its strong foot in the Greco-Roman school. They discarded the long belief of vital force proposed by Hippocrates and few of his contemporaries and started employing only radical intervention and physical treatment. This new storm of neo-science depresses the Vitalists. They remained but their sound became much diminished. Galen became the new Hippocrates of young generation physicians. Allopathy, the name coined by Hahnemann for Galenians, started to rule the medical practice.
Vitalism is a philosophical doctrine that says that the life process possess a unique character radically different from physio-chemical phenomenon and therefore cannot be explained in empirical terms.
In proper sense this theory says that a single force from with in controls an organism. This is self-powered (autocracy), automatic, dynamic, unintelligent, spirit like & dynamic in nature. This cannot be seen from outside neither its technical know-how can be known but it will be felt through its function. This is a matter of perception. It unifies all the differentiation lies at this material body — in terms of function and structuralization to a whole entity — a massive whole. The parts (units) derive their form and function from that massive whole which envelopes and sustain the parts as its organs. This state of continuous involvement of some thing as a governing force (substance, as per Kent) is named as the force of life, the Vital Force.
Though Hahnemann gave Hippocrates the credit of discovery of law of Similia, single remedy, minimum dose, conception of temperament, constitution and even the healing power of Vital Force but the old religious scriptures carries the conception of such supernatural force as a pivot for attribute of life. The long days tag of war is been summarized below.
Trace of Vital Force in Religious Scriptures:
All most every religion carries the idea of such force as a power as a controlling power of human economy. So much they were concerned about how the dead body should be buried. The oldest known burials can be attributed to the Middle Paleolithic Period. The corpses, accompanied by stone tools and parts of animals, were laid in holes in the ground and sometimes the corpses were especially protected. In some cases, the findings give the impression that the dead were to be “held onto.” Whether or not that meant that the dead were to be cared for lovingly or that their return was to be feared, it implies, in any case, a belief in life after death in some form. But it is not necessary to infer a belief in separate souls; rather, it could also indicate the concept of a “living corpse.”
An especially noteworthy kind of burial is that of the megalithic (huge stone) graves that appear in various areas from the Neolithic Period on. It is probable that in this practice there was also a vital believed link between the living and the dead, and that occasionally sacred areas and gathering places were connected with such graves. The practices of the megalith builders were probably rooted, to a considerable extent, in ideas about the dead and in ancestor cults to which their stones gave a particular durability and a monumental form. It is more difficult to explain the individual erect stones (menhirs), which, of course, could be the symbol or seat of ancestors, especially where they show indications of being sculpted in human form. It surely would be a mistake, however, to look for a uniform interpretation of all megalithic monuments or even to speak of a distinct megalithic religion. The megalithic monuments are rather to be understood as a complex of grandiose manifestations of ideas that could well have been diverse, but among which the cult of the dead, nevertheless, played an important role.
In finds belonging to the Paleolithic Period, pieces of human bodies as well as the bones of other animals are found scattered throughout the archaeological layers and are sometimes broken or charred. This is often taken as evidence for cannibalism, but other interpretations are just as likely (e.g., the action of carrion-eating animals [such as hyenas] turning up the bones to the surface and thus causing their burning by later fires at the same place). To be sure, the finds allow the interpretation of cannibalism; however, they do not necessarily or intrinsically require it but rather permit that explanation if one proceeds from the prior conviction that cannibalism already existed at that time. This obsolete conception, still held by some scholars today—i.e., that cannibalism is an especially “primitive” phenomenon and therefore very ancient—must be abandoned.
Sacrifices (i.e., the presentation of offerings to higher beings or to the dead) appear as early as the Middle Paleolithic Period. Pits with some animal bones have been found in the vicinity of burial sites; thus, it is a likely possibility that they represent offerings to the dead. There is a dispute over the interpretation of the arrangement of the skulls and long bones of bears, since they are deposited in such a manner that it is hardly possible to discern a profane explanation. It is assumed that they had a cultic or magical significance. Most likely, certain parts of the prey, such as the head and the meaty shanks, or at least the bones with brain and marrow, were sacrificed. Even if it cannot be definitely stated who the recipient of these sacrifices was, analogies with present-day “primitive” phenomena make it likely that a part of the prey was offered to a higher being who was believed to dispense nourishment. It could also, however, have been a matter of preserving parts of animals in order to resurrect the entire animal and preserve the species. Furthermore, finds of bones and drawings show that the preservation of skulls with still attached vertebrae, ribs, and front legs of oxen and reindeer played a certain religious or magical role. The sinking of whole reindeer into lakes is hard to explain other than as a sacrifice. This might be traced to the idea that what occupies the centre of attention is not the individual hunted animal but the whole herd; no longer only a part of an animal but a whole animal as part of a herd is sacrificed. The custom also existed in recent times among hunters and herders of central and north Asia. As such finds become more numerous, it seems evident that certain specific animals and parts of their bodies are selected for sacrifice.
The question of human sacrifice is of special significance here. Human sacrifices often were related to cannibalism and to the sacrifice of animals. With conspicuous frequency victims discerned in ceremonial remains are females and children, sometimes along with young pigs. This practice is similar to fertility and agricultural rites that are known to have been practiced in the early Mediterranean civilizations. It is also similar to beliefs and practices observed among present-day “primitive” agrarian peoples (in which pigs are often substituted for humans), such as in ceremonies of secret societies, initiation rites, sacrifices, celebrations of feasts of the dead, and notions about fertility, especially in connection with the growing and ripening of cultivated plants.
Hindu philosophy is most advanced in this respect. As per Hindu conception this living body is nothing but a mere structure of an abstract whole. This whole is said to be soul or spirit (atman). Life is a constant illusion and due to this soul one is enjoying this so called life. This material body destroys and goes back to its formative elements say soil, water, sun or heat, air and sky (Pancha bhoot) from where once it was originated but the spirit is endless. It is indestructible. It exists even after death. It gets either a state of salvation (Mukti*) or again it enters to another body, comes back again and again until it achieves that much virtue (Punnayal) to be equalized to the God.
Sanskrit Ātman, one of the most basic concepts in Hindu philosophy, describing that eternal core of the personality that survives after death and that transmigrates to a new life or is released from the bonds of existence. While in the early Vedic texts it occurred mostly as a reflexive pronoun (oneself), in the later Upanishads© it comes more and more to the fore as a philosophic topic: atman is that which makes the other organs and faculties function and for which indeed they function; atman underlies all the activities of a person, as Brahman (the absolute) underlies the workings of the universe; to know it brings bliss; it is part of the universal Brahman, with which it can commune or even fuse. So fundamental was the atman deemed to be that certain circles identified it with Brahman. Of the various systems (darshans) of Hindu philosophy, the schools of Sāṃkhya and Yoga (which use the term purusha to convey the idea of atman) and the orthodox school of Vedānta particularly concern themselves with the atman, though the interpretation varies in accordance with each system’s general worldviews.
Shri Bhawat Gita in many areas gave hints to this. As hymn 20 of chapter ll says this soul never can be borne, never dies. It was not there, is not there & will not be there. This is old, the oldest, and never dies with the death of mortal man. Hymn 22 of the same chapter says as one change his old shirt with a new, like this atman changes the body. We are getting from hymn 23 that no weapons can piers it, no fire can burn it and it cannot be absorbed by air too.
Vedanta The three fundamental Vedānta texts are: the Upanishads (the most favoured being the longer and older ones such as the Bṛhadāraṇyaka, the Chāndogya, the Taittiriya, and the Kaṭha); the Brahma-sūtras (also called Vedānta-sūtras), which are very brief, even one-word interpretations of the doctrine of the Upanishads; and the famous poetic dialogue, the Bhagavadgītā (“Song of the Lord”), which, because of its immense popularity, was drawn upon for support of the doctrines found in the Upanishads.
No single interpretation of the texts emerged, and several schools of Vedānta developed, differentiated by their conceptions of the nature of the relationship and the degree of identity between the individual self (atman) and the absolute (brahma). These range from the nondualism (Advaita; q.v.) of the 8th-century philosopher Śaṅkara to the theism (Viśiṣṭādvaita; q.v.) of the 11th–12th-century thinker Rāmānuja and the dualism (Dvaita; q.v.) of the 13th-century thinker Madhva.
Vedanta describes it in a very nice fashion. It says that: nothing can be formed nothing can be destroyed. What exists that exists from the beginning, what does not exist – that was never in before. Development is a process of metamorphosis of those things what already is inside.
When Brahma (the Hindu lord of creation) wished to multiply himself and take the form of Jiva, He reflected: By whose sojourn in the body, shall I stay there and by whose going out shall I depart (Prashna Upanishad: 6 & 3). Now he created Prana (Vital Force?), and from Prana came out consistency, ether (in the sense of clear sky), air, water, earth, the sense and sense organs, food, from food came vigor, meditation, the Vedas, the hymns, the words & words were placed the names (Prashna Upanishad: 6&4).
Brihadarankyaka Upanishad (6, 1:1) and in Mundaka Upanishad 2, 1, and 3 we get the mention of Prana as an eternal self.
Upanishad also says; the universe is one vast pulsating life (a concept of Dynamism at least nonmaterial existence). The manifestation of life is not all alike or in one grade. It sleeps in mental. It is awake in plant and moves and knows in animal. It knows what it knows in man and beyond this man there is metaphysical – the spirit. Therefore at one end is pure matter in which spirit is dormant and opposite end there is pure spirit where the matter is dormant. It also says the grading starts from organs ascends through mind (Manas), intellect, cosmic intelligence (Mahat), un-manifested causal state of universe (Avyukta) and then the infinite begins. So when the man is died, that which carried away is primary and which is left behind is ultimate. Here we can quote the great scientists Sir Jagadish chandra Bose. He is writing, “in pursuing investigation on the border region of physis and physiology, I amazed to find boundary lines vanishing and points of contact emerge between realms of living and nonliving”.
The Vital Principal is called the Chief Prana because it functions prior to all other life action and senses. This is due to its presence the paternal seed (sperms) when falls in the maternal soil (ova), it fertilizes, develops, gets its shape & forms the full Jiva. This Jiva completes its full cycle and at maturity it goes out of the body and mix with the eternal life (Brahama Sutra 2,4,8).
Though Chandogoponished and Prashna Upanishad allegorically describe the whole phenomenon but the intension of the writers seems to be very clear. It again says: from what limb the Prana goes right there it ends. At death the mind merges with Prana and Prana i.e. the Jivatmaµ now merges with Prarmatma.
The Jewish conception (Genesis ii, 2) is based upon the legend of the origin of man from the ancient fore father Adam, who himself was the Son of God. But they have considered the soul and Vital Force identically.
The Bible declares that the God created this world. On the first day He divided the light with darkness. The second day was for division of land with water. Like this the great six days were passed away and on seventh day He created Adam, the forefather of the whole human race, and from the rib of Adam, Eve, the mother of human race was begotten. Christian community believes that the God had breathed in to Jesus to make him alive.
Buddhism came into being in northeastern India during the period from the late 6th century to the early 4th century BC, a period of great social change and intense religious activity. There is disagreement among scholars about the dates of the Buddha’s birth and death. Most scholars in Europe, the United States, and India believe that the historical Buddha lived from about 563 to about 483 BC. Many others, especially in Japan, believe that he lived about 100 years later (from about 448 to 368 BC).
Despite the bewildering variety of religious communities, many shared the same vocabulary—nirvana (transcendent freedom), atman (“self,” or “soul”), yoga (“union”), karma (“causality”), Tathāgata (“Thus-Gone,” or “He Who Has Thus Attained”), buddha (“enlightened one”), samsara (“eternal recurrence,” “becoming”), and dhamma (“rule,” or “law”)—and most were based on the practice of yoga. According to tradition, the Buddha himself was a yogi—that is, a miracle-working ascetic.
Buddhist philosophy never tells any thing about this super power theory. As per Buddhism the Nirvana can be achieved in one life if the person follows the rules & regulations prescribed by Goutam Buddha and there is no question of such returning back.
Chinese philosophy also believes such life force in the name of Chi (Vital matter/ breath of life). This was about 2000 B.C., when we are getting this. They believe on two opposite principles like Yang and Yin as life and death, male & female, Sun & Moon, ebbs & flow. They also believe on five elements responsible for formation of the body. This philosophy goes hand-to-hand to our Pancha Bhoot theory. These elements are earthy, fire, water, wood and metal instead of air and sky of ours. They believe on five figures as heart, liver, spleen, lungs and kidney as most vital organs and also various other objects like colour, climate and Heavenly Bodies.
In Chinese Taoism, the heavenly (superior, spiritual) soul of man, as distinguished from p’o, the earthly (inferior, material) soul. Following the cosmological principles of yin–yang, the union of which opposites is said to explain all reality, the Chinese attributed breathing and superior functions to the hun (yang) soul. Separation of the two souls brings death. If prescribed burial rituals and sacrifices are then properly observed, the hun soul will send blessings to the bereaved family from its abode in heaven.
Muslim philosophy believes the existence of such extra human force, which releases from the body after the death of a person. They have named is as Rhu. Islam says that this Rhu when releases from the body it remains. There is one imagination of the day of final judgment called Kayamat. At this very day every buried dead body will be exhumed and they will be judged as per the Iman (Punnaya) he had done in the mortal life. The day will be very disastrous. There will be no trees, no buildings. The volcanoes will start regurgitation of fire and ashes. Then the Allah (God) will send the good souls to the haven (Jannat) and bad souls to the hale (Jahannaum). One thing very is striking that this philosophy does not believe on the returning back of the souls again and again to this world, as Hindu philosophy believes.
There is, however, a significant exception to this general rule: the human rational soul. Man can affirm the existence of his soul from direct consciousness of his self (what he means when he says “I”); and he can imagine this happening even in the absence of external objects and bodily organs. This proves, according to Avicenna, that the soul is indivisible, immaterial, and incorruptible substance, not imprinted in matter, but created with the body, which it uses as an instrument. Unlike other immaterial substances (the intelligences and souls of the spheres), it is not pre-eternal but is generated, or made to exist, at the same time as the individual body, which can receive it, is formed. The composition, shape, and disposition of its body and the soul’s success or failure in managing and controlling it, the formation of moral habits, and the acquisition of knowledge all contribute to its individuality and difference from other souls. Though the body is not resurrected after its corruption, the soul survives and retains all the individual characteristics, perfections or imperfections, that it achieved in its earthly existence and in this sense is rewarded or punished for its past deeds. Avicenna’s claim that he has presented a philosophic proof for the immortality of generated (“created”) individual souls no doubt constitutes the high point of his effort to harmonize philosophy and religious beliefs.
In Christian theology, St. Augustine spoke of the soul as a “rider” on the body, making clear the split between the material and the immaterial, with the soul representing the “true” person. However, although body and soul were separate, it was not possible to conceive of a soul without its body. In the European Middle Ages, St. Thomas Aquinas returned to the Greek philosophers’ concept of the soul as a motivating principle of the body, independent but requiring the substance of the body to make an individual.
3000 years back to the Christian era, we are getting the hints of Atman theory in Egyptian belief. As per this philosophy the living contains divine spark, Ka (Chu), which is enveloped in the soul – Ba. After death this Chu becomes free from Ba (soul) and as it is immortal so immediately it is converted to a demon.
Ka, also spelled Koi, in ancient Egyptian religion, with ba and akh, a principal aspect of the soul of a human being or of a god. The exact significance of ka remains a matter of controversy, chiefly for lack of an Egyptian definition; the usual translation “double” is incorrect. Written by a hieroglyph of uplifted arms, it seemed originally to have designated the protecting divine spirit of a person, and later the personified sum of physical and intellectual qualities constituting “individuality.” The ka survived the death of the body and could reside in a picture or statue of a person.
This conception of soul changing to a demon or getting the ‘Prêt Joni’ is present in Hindu philosophy also but the thing remarkable is that as per belief of Egypt, the vital spirit is not identical to the soul and it is meant to give life to the body. Not only that they used to accept as true that this soul comes to visit his own tomb and so they used to put the favorite things of that Atman in the tomb, called pyramid, of his use in mortal life.
There is no such available literature regarding soul in Persian & Phoenician philosophy.
St. Gregory of Nyssa of Asia Minor was primarily a scholar, whose chief contribution lay in his writings. Besides controversial replies to heretics, particularly the Arians—in which he formulated the doctrine of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) that emerged as a clear and cogent answer to Arian questioning—he completed Basil’s Hexaëmeron (“Six Days”), sermons on the days of the Creation, with The Creation of Man, and he produced a classic outline of orthodox theology in his Great Catechesis (or Address on Religious Instruction). The latter work is especially notable for developing systematically the place of the sacraments in the Christian view of restoration of the image of God in human nature—lost through sin in the fall of Adam. His brief treatise On Not Three Gods relates the Cappadocian Fathers’ theology of three Persons in the Godhead (i.e., the Trinity) to Plato’s teachings of the One and the Many. As a Christian Platonist, Gregory followed the great Alexandrian theologian Origen, though not slavishly; most notably, he shared Origen’s conviction that man’s material nature is a result of the fall and also Origen’s hope for ultimate universal salvation. In imitation of Plato’s Phaedo, Gregory presented his teaching on resurrection in the form of a deathbed conversation with his sister, the abbess Macrina.
The Greek consider Psyche (Soul) as a life giving principle. Pnuma was conceptualized with the spirit. There is no clear distinction between Psyche and Pnuma but it seems that they have taken psyche to be the life giving principle and this psyche is nothing but a portion of the great ultimate life giving principle of cosmos.
Ancient Greek concepts of the soul varied considerably according to the particular era and philosophical school. The Epicureans§ considered the soul to be made up of atoms like the rest of the body. For the Platonists, the soul was an immaterial and incorporeal substance, akin to the gods yet part of the world of change and becoming. Aristotle’s conception of the soul was obscure, though he did state that it was a form inseparable from the body.
Several fundamental concepts characterize the philosophy of Epicurus. In physics, these are atomism, a mechanical conception of causality, limited, however, by the idea of a spontaneous motion, or “swerve,” of the atoms, which interrupts the necessary effect of a cause; the infinity of the universe and the equilibrium of all forces that circularly enclose its phenomena; the existence of gods conceived as beatified and immortal natures completely extraneous to happenings in the world. In ethics, the basic concepts are the identification of good with pleasure and of the supreme good and ultimate end with the absence of pain from the body and the soul—a limit beyond which pleasure does not grow but changes; the reduction of every human relation to the principle of utility, which finds its highest expression in friendship, in which it is at the same time surmounted; and, in accordance with this end, the limitation of all desire and the practice of the virtues, from which pleasure is inseparable, and a withdrawn and quiet life.
Red Indian culture and Maya« (Mountain element represented by the Mayan culture in pyramidal stone temples. Temple of Inscriptions, Palenque, Mexico. ) civilization used to believe the life is the material expression of an in visible whole. The body destroys but never the soul but there is no hint of their returning to the mortal world.
Trace of Vital Force in Old Literature:
Though the philosophy can be hardly be differentiated from the religion but still few scripts always persist containing some scientific out look in them. These were written by few rational people who could put themselves away from religious fanaticism. But there are evidences where these persons also supported the existence of so-called vital force in their valuable works.
The Old Greek literature seems to be very much fond to this conception. Anaxagores conceptualized that all objects were matters converted into their form by spirit and this spirit is immaterial and intangible. By virtue of this spirit the life is said to be life.
Pythagoras said, “Soul is consist of intellect, the soul proper and the reason. This soul comes from Anima Mandi that is from the world soul.
Herodotus, in his writing clearly mentioned that the soul, what is a part of the great eternal soul gives meaning to the life. Plato cannot be highly differentiated from Pythagoras but his terminology is different.
Aristotle mentioned soul as vital principle with very few changes here and there. He believes that the body is composed of ‘Humors’ say blood, phlegm, yellow & black bile. Empedocies, who lived in Sicily was another follower of Pythagoras school said that every matter of the universe is composed of four elements namely fire, air, earth and water. Asclepiads, told this health is a balance between tension and relaxation and every thing are further balanced by some invisible force.
Erasistratus, the founder of Physiology, concepted that the nerves are hollow tubes filled with fluid, air enters into the lung the to the heart and then changed into Vital Spirit to be carried to the different parts of the body by arteries.
Galen describes the vital principle as Pneuma, derived from Anima Mandi, which enters in lungs at the act of breathing and this then is mingled with blood. The blood was formed in the liver. From the foodstuff of chyle brought thence from intestine by portal vain. In the liver blood endowed with natural spirit passed in to right ventricle then spread to the whole body and the impurities expelled out by the process of expatriation.
Evidence of Vital Force concept in Medieval and Post-Renascence literature:
Every scientific experiment has got its foundation on Hippocrates. But after Hippocrates so many schools were formed as Dogmatic, Empirical, Herophysis, Erasistrates, Methodists and Pneumaitists. As it has been mentioned that Greco Roman School discarded the theory and method of teaching of Hippocrates as well as of Asclepiads. Galen reintroduced the “Opposite cures opposite” theory and Vitalist school took the bench for opposition. The religious and church mediated state however afterwards provided some ground for them and they again tried to up hold the tradition of Vital Force. On this occasion we must name of Lord Francis Becon who incurred displeasure against churches and was imprisoned for 14 years. He was the forerunner of Inductive and experimental logic. But he appreciated astrology and other modes of superstitions on account of their psycho – therapeutic effect. He was against the churches but cannot be free from the realm of Vitalism.
These Materialists got René Descartes who told that the soul (Deity) lies in the penal body. As pre him man is nothing but a machine made by God. Animal did not possess mind and soul. Man, although a machine but possess mind, which act upon him. His concept attracted Iatro – Physicists. These so many factors lead them to start viewing the human body as a dynamic micro-some of the universal agencies. Libnitz told it as force. William Crookes said it as an ethereal vibration of electrical energy.
This revolution reached to the summit when Paracelsus (Luther of Medicine), burnt the book of Galen in public. The old medical college of Montpellier of France continued to educate its pupil in traditional Hippocratic model. This college is very important, as it had given birth of so many Vitalists as Stahl, Hoffman, Barthez, Bechamp and so many others who challenged Galenian principle.
The centuries old medical college at Montpellier, well-known school would lead the way in the European Vitalist revolution against the one-sided chemical-mechanical theories of the mechanists. The first in this line of teachers is Georg Ernst Stahl (1660-1734). He reintroduced the ancient theory of the Physis in the form of the Anima Sensitiva, which is derived from the Greek term for the Sensitive Soul. Stahl proposed that the immaterial spirit is the creative power that animates the human body, and therefore, it is the source of an individual’s vitality. Stahl’s theory is called mono-dynamism because he postulates that the Anima is the sole force behind all the activities of the organism in the state of health and disease. Not only was Stahl a great theorist, he was also an astute clinical observer and an innovative chemist. The 1977 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, Dr. Ilya Prigogine, a leader of the new science movement, remarked that Stahl was the father of modern Vitalism, as well as the inventor of the first consistent chemical systematics. He introduced the modern theory of ‘Force Vitalae’ and placed its seat in brain and solar plexus. He thought that the vital force was transmitted through the nervous system to different corners of the body.
Another influential physician was Dr. Friedich Hoffman (1660-1742), a classmate of Dr. Stahl’s with whom he remained a life-long friend. His medical theory was based on the belief that a vital substance that is finer than all matter pervades the universe. He postulated that the inflow and outflow of the vital substance was responsible for maintaining the body in a “tonic” state of balance in health. Therefore, it is an excess or deficiency of this vital tonus that produces the various signs and symptoms known as disease. Hoffman’s work inspired further development of the concept of hyper and hypoactive biological states in relationship to the excess or deficiency of the vital energy.
Stahl’s theories were developed further at Montpellier by Joseph Barthez (1734-1806) whose principal works were published in 1798. Barthez maintained that the vital force was not the same as the conscious soul (anima) because its functions are automatic, instinctive, and subconscious.
Barthez’s theory is called duo-dynamism because he separated the activity of the conscious mind and free will from the subconscious autonomic instinctive functioning of the vital force. He observed the human organism from the viewpoint of synergism and sympathy he called “a concourse of simultaneous successive actions of forces”. According to Barthez it is the synergistic activity of all the bodies dynamic systems that make up a complete human being. Barthez’s balanced his view of synergetic Vitalism with careful clinical observations in the spirit of Hippocrates and the Greek naturalists.
Another important figure from Montpellier was Professor Bechamp, from whom Pasteur got many of his ideas. Bechamp was a pioneer in the study of the world of the microbes and we find reference his “zymotic diseases” in homoeopathic repertories. Montpelier was at the center of reforming medicine in Europe and helping to bring it out of the Dark Ages. It is no wonder that France offered Samuel Melanie as his second wife and provided him the cultural refuge he needed finish his advanced works.
Berzelius (1815) told organic compounds are produced from their elements by laws different from those governing the formation of inorganic compounds. This led him to believe that the organic compounds were produced under the influence of Vital Force and that cannot be prepared artificially.
John Brown (1735 – 88) postulated life depends upon continues stimulation. These are warmth, food, muscular movement, internal energy and emotion. Cullen vs. Brown pen and paper war in this respect is another history.
Friedrich Anton Mesmer (1734 – 1815), the founder of ‘Mesmerism’ also thought that the seat of sensible spirit is in the brain while the emotional disposition is felt in heart and Vital Force is centered in the abdomen. Like Barthez, Mesmer also thought that the most powerful polls of Vital Energy were in the brain & in solar plexus. Mesmer uses their linnet healing power to transfer Vital Force to the patient and harmonize their circulation of energy. Hahnemann supported this.
We are getting many other Vitalists as Pare, Barissot, Linacre, Laye and many others. They fully supported the existence of such extra human force as a governing force of life. But among them most prominent was Theopharastua Bombast Von Hohenhein commonly known as Paracelsus. He almost is equal to Hahnemann regarding the conception of Vital Force. As per Paracelsus the ‘Archaeus’ is present in all living bodies and this is this gives life to a man. This ‘Archaeus’ is from the God and is spiritual in nature.
Von Helmot, who can be said one from Paracelsus school, first recognized that due to the influence of various factors this ‘Archaeus’ produces some kind of disease. This idea is some thing new and over the naturals of Hippocratic and the Vis- medicatrix- nature (nature’s self healing capacity) of Paracelsus too.
Sylvious, the founder of chemical school, brought the idea of a dynamic, immaterial principle and called it Vital Spirit. Gaul elaborated the idea of separate and independent Vital Principle possesses energy and reactivity. Rell, who was a contemporary to Barthez, founded the Vital Force is inherent in matter and separable from it. Borden also supported the idea of Vital Force.
Henery Wardsworth Longfellow} (1807 – 1882), the famous American poet said,
“As to the bow the cord is
So, to the body is the vital force”.
The soul–body relationship
As well as believing in the reality of Forms, Plato believed in the immortality of the human soul. The soul was, he thought, an entity that was fundamentally distinct£ from the body although it could be and often was affected by its association with the body, being dragged down by what he called in one passage “the leaden weights of becoming.” The soul was simple, not composite, and thus not liable to dissolution as were material things; further, it had the power of self-movement, again in contrast to material things. Ideally the soul should rule and guide the body, and it could ensure that this situation persisted by seeing that the bodily appetites were indulged to the minimum extent necessary for the continuance of life. The true philosopher, as Plato put it in the Phaedo, made his life a practice for death because he knew that after death the soul would be free of bodily ties and would return to its native element. He also thought that the soul was “akin” to the Forms; it was through the intellect, the purest element in the soul, that the Forms were discovered.
Plato mentioned and attempted to refute alternative accounts of the relationship of soul and body, including a Pythagorean view that described the soul as an “attunement” of the body and thus tried to explicate it as a form or structure rather than an independently existing thing. A theory of this kind was worked out but not taken to its logical conclusion by Aristotle in his treatise De anima (On the Soul). Aristotle defined soul in terms of functions. The soul of a plant was concerned with nutrition and reproduction, that of an animal with these and with sensation and independent movement, that of a man with all these and with rational activity. The soul was, in each case, the form of some body, and the clear implication of this was that it would disappear as the body in question dissolved. To be more accurate, the soul was the principle of life in something material; it needed the material element to exist, although it was not itself either material or immaterial but, to put it crudely, an abstraction. Even though Aristotle wasclearly committed by everything he said in the earlier parts of the De anima to the view that the soul is not anything substantial, he nevertheless distinguished toward the end of this work between what he called the active and the passive intellects and spoke of the former in Platonic terms. The active intellect was, it appears, separate from the rest of the soul; it came “from outside” and was in fact immortal. It was, moreover, essential to the soul considered as rational, for “without this nothing thinks.” Aristotle thus showed the Platonic side of his thought in the very act of trying to emancipate himself from this aspect of Platonism.
The mind–body relationship
In more recent metaphysics less has been heard of the soul and more of the mind; the old problem of the relationship of soul and body is now that of the relationship of mind and body. Most, if not all, subsequent discussion of this subject has been affected by the thinking of Descartes. In his Meditationes de Prima Philosophia (1641; Meditations on First Philosophy), he argued that there was a total and absolute distinction between mental and material substance. The defining characteristic of matter was to occupy space; the defining characteristic of mind was to be conscious or, in a broad sense of the term, to think. Material substance was, so to speak, all one, although packets of it were more or less persistent; mental substance existed in the form of individual minds, with God as the supreme example. The mental and the material orders were each complete in themselves, under God; it was this fact that made it appropriate for him to use the technical term substance in this context: mental substance and material substance. The logical consequence of this view, drawn by some later Cartesians, was that there can be no interaction between mind and body; all causality is immanent, within one order or the other, and any appearance of mind affecting body or of body affecting mind must be explained as the result of a special intervention by God, who, on the occasion of changes in one substance, brings it about that there are corresponding changes in the other. Descartes himself, however, had no sympathy with this view, which was called occasionalism. On the contrary, he stated explicitly that he was not in his body as a pilot is in a ship but was “more intimately” bound up with it. Mind could affect body and vice versa because mind and body had a specially close relationship, which was particularly evident in the aspects of conscious life that have to do with sensation, imagination, and emotion as opposed to pure thought.
Descartes’s conviction that, despite their intimate union in this life, mind is really distinct from body sprang from his confidence in the cogito argument. It was possible, he believed, to doubt the existence of his body (what was certain was only that he had the experience of having a body, and this might be illusory) but not the existence of his mind, for the very act of doubting was itself mental. That mind existed was evident from the immediate testimony of consciousness; that body existed was something that needed an elaborate proof, involving his doctrine of clear and distinct ideas and his attempt to establish the existence of a God who is no deceiver. Apart from this, Descartes appealed to arguments of a broadly Platonic type to bring out what was truly distinctive about mind. He admitted that sensation and imagination could be understood only if referred to the mind–body complex but contended that acts of the pure intellect and of will (here his thought was influenced by that of St. Augustine, the great 5th-century Christian thinker) belonged to the mind as it was in itself. Descartes did not claim to have a philosophical proof of the immortality of the soul—that, in his view, required the assurance of revelation—but he did think that his theory prepared the way for that doctrine by establishing the separate existence of mind.
The Cartesian account of mind and body had many critics even in Descartes’s own day. Hobbes argued that nothing existed but matter in motion; there was no such thing as mental substance, only material substance. Materialism of a sort was also supported by Descartes’s correspondent Pierre Gassendi, a scientist and Epicurean philosopher. A generation later Spinoza was to refashion the whole Cartesian metaphysics on bold lines. In place of the two distinct substances, each complete in itself yet each liable to external interference should God will it, Spinoza posited a single substance, God or Nature, possessed of infinite attributes, of which the mental and the material alone are known to men. The “modes,” or manifestations, of this substance were what they were as a result of the necessities of its nature; arbitrary will neither did nor could play any part in its activities. Whatever manifested itself under one attribute had its counterpart in all the others. It followed from this that to every mental event there was a precisely corresponding physical event, and vice versa. A man was thus not a mysterious union of two different elements but a part of the one substance that, like all other parts, manifested itself in different ways under different attributes. Spinoza did not explain why it was that physical events could be correlated with mental events in the case of a human being but not in that of, for example, a stone. His theory of psycho-physical parallelism, however, has persisted independently of his general metaphysics and has found supporters even in modern times.
One way in which Spinoza threw fresh light on the mind–body problem was in calling attention to the influence of the body on the mind and in taking seriously the suggestion that they be treated as a single unit. In this respect, his work on the subject was far in advance of the Empiricist philosophers of the next century. Hume notoriously dismissed Cartesian substance as a “chimera” and argued that minds and bodies alike were nothing but “bundles of perceptions,” interaction between which was always possible in principle; in practice, however, he stuck to the old-fashioned view that mind is one thing and body another and did nothing to explore their actual relationships. Empiricist philosophy of mind, both in Hume and in his successors, such as James Mill, was generally crude; it consisted largely in an attempt to explain the entire life of the mind in terms of Hume’s ontology of impressions and ideas. Nor did Kant make much, if any, advance in this particular direction, convinced as he was of the necessity of accepting an empirical dualism of mind and body. It was left to Hegel and the Idealists to look at the problem afresh and to bring out the way in which mental life and bodily life are intimately bound together. The accounts of action and cognition given by T.H. Green and Bradley, and more recently by R.G. Collingwood, are altogether more enlightening than those of Empiricist contemporaries just because they rest on a less dogmatic basis and a closer inspection of fact.
No metaphysical problem is discussed today more vigorously than that of mind and body. Three main positions are held. First, there are still writers (e.g., H.D. Lewis in his work The Elusive Mind ) who think that Descartes was substantially right: mind and body are distinct, and the “I” that thinks is a separate thing from the “I” that weighs 170 pounds. The testimony of consciousness is invoked as the main support of this conclusion; it is alleged that all men know themselves to be what they are, or at least who they are, apart from their bodily lives; it is alleged again that their bodily lives present themselves as experiences—i.e., as something mental. The existence of mind, as Descartes claimed, is certain, that of body dubious and perhaps not strictly provable. Second, there are writers such as Gilbert Ryle who would like to take the Aristotelian theory to its logical conclusion and argue that mind is nothing but the form of the body. Mind is not, as Descartes supposed, something accessible only to its owner; it is rather something that is obvious in whatever a person does. To put it crudely, mind is simply behaviour. Finally, there are many philosophers who, although more generally sympathetic to the second solution than to the first, wish to provide for an “inner life” in a way in which Behaviourism does not; P.F. Strawson is a typical example. To this end they try to assert that the true unit is neither mind nor body but the person. A person is something that is capable of possessing physical and mental predicates alike. This is, of course, to say that the “I” that knows simple arithmetic and the “I” that has lost weight recently are the same. How they can be the same, however, has not so far been explained by supporters of this view.
Aside from these main positions, an interesting development is the stress laid by writers—such as Stuart Hampshire, an “ordinary language” philosopher—on self-activity as the distinguishing characteristic of mind. According to this view, a human being is a body among bodies but is, as Plato said, self-moving as material things are not. That this should be so—that human beings are possessed of wills and can in favourable circumstances act freely—is taken as an ultimate fact neither requiring nor capable of explanation. It is often denied that any scientific discovery could give rational grounds for questioning this fact. It is also stressed that the causality of a human being is fundamentally different from that of a natural subject, intentional action being quite other than mere behaviour determined from without.
Connected with these topics is the problem, much discussed in recent philosophy as a result of the rise of cybernetics, of what differentiates men from machines. Two answers used to be given: the power to think and consciousness. Now, however, there exist machines whose calculating abilities far surpass those of any human being; such machines may not literally think, but they certainly arrive at conclusions. Furthermore, it is not true that their operations are of a purely routine nature: there is a sense in which they can improve their performance in the light of their “experiences.” They even have an analogue of consciousness in the sensitivity they show to external stimuli. These facts suggest that the gap between minds and machines is less wide than it has often been thought to be; they do not, however, destroy it altogether. Human beings possess powers of creative thought unlike anything found in machines; as Noam Chomsky, an American linguistics scholar, has stressed (and as Descartes urged in his Discours de la méthode), the ability of human beings to handle language in such a way that they comprehend any one of an infinite number of possible expressions is something that cannot be explained in mechanical terms. Again, as J.R. Lucas, a British philosopher, has argued, human beings have the ability to diagnose and correct their own limitations in a way to which there is no parallel in machines. As some older philosophers put it, man is a being with the power of self-transcendence; he can work within a system, but he can also move to another level and so see the shortcomings of the system. A machine can only work within a system; it operates according to rules but cannot change them of its own accord.
Finally, mention should be made of an extreme Materialist solution to the mind–body problem: this solution holds that states of mind are in fact states of the brain. Supporters of this theory agree that the two are separate in idea but argue that physiology shows that despite this they are contingently identical. What seems to be a state of mind, above all to its possessor, is really a state of the brain, and mind is thus reduced to matter after all. It is not clear, however, why physiologists should be granted the last word on a topic like this, and, even if it were agreed that they should be, the correlations so far established between mental occurrences and states of the brain are at best sketchy and incomplete. Central-state Materialism, as this theory is called, professes to have the weight of contemporary science behind it, but it turns out in fact to have drawn to a remarkable degree on what it thinks will be the science of tomorrow.
Hahnemann and Vital Force:
Hahnemann as a keen observer and as a lifetime student most probably followed all of the fore said contemporary as well as the old writings. Being the full devotee to the God studied the Bible thoroughly so the ideas regarding the Vital Force were not unknown to him. He was a student of classical philosophy and a master of Greek and Latin he got the privilege of studying the original works of Naturalists and Hippocratic cannon. It seems that Hippocrates massively influenced Hahnemann. Samuel’s introduction of ‘Vigor Vitae’ is based on the conception of Hippocrates, Stahl & Barthez. Hippocrates thought physis was innate to the human constitution and temperament. This life force is responsible for homoeostasis, adaptation and self-preservation of human being. The Greek called the life force, dynamic, the Sovereign, because it rules all human activities. In Organon Hahnemann had defined Vital force as the single ruling dynamic power that enlivens the material organism and provides the harmony in the vital operation. Hahnemann used the word ‘Seele’, which means soul. He also had used the word ‘Geist’ means intelligence and ‘Gemut’ – the emotional disposition i.e. Heart.
Hahnemann viewed human body as a trinity of the conscious spirit, the instinctive Vital Force and the physical organization. This is the trinity of psyche in Homoeopathic philosophy – the functional polarity of the vital plane is represented by human essence and the Vital Force. So, this goes without saying that Hahnemann did not invented this idea but defined them in Homoeopathic paradigm. Hahnemann used the term, Lebenskraft, from Lebens – life + Kraft – force, power, and energy. He also used the terms Lebens-Energie, life-energy, Lenens-Erhaltungskraft, the substantive power of life, and Nature-Kraft, the power of nature. In the old historical German dictionary the term, Lebenskraft, is linked with the Latin root word, Vigor Vitae. This is important because the homoeopath must recognize the connection between the vital force and vitality, as it is essential to understanding the philosophy of healing. In the 6th edition of the Organon Hahnemann uses Stahl’s term, ‘Lebensprincip’, the life-principle, in several places. This term is associated with the Anima Mandi of Vitalism. Chamber’s English Dictionary says:
“Vital Principle; that principle Anima Mundi which according to the doctrine of Vitalism, gives life to all nature: a principle that directly all the actions of functions of the living bodies”.
The key word is Vita, which means Life, the root of the Vigor Vitae. The Latin word Vita is the root of the term vital as used in the vital force and vital principle. Let’s look at the definitions of the principle terms for more insight. Vital, being a manifestation of organic life: supporting, or necessary to, life: life-giving, invigorating: characteristic of life, or of living things: animate, living: full of life: lively, energetic: capable of living: pertaining to life, birth, and death: essential”.
Vitalize, to give life to: to stimulate activity: to give vigor to: to make lifelike.
Vitality, the state or quality of being alive: the principle of life, power of the living: the state of being alive: the quality of being fully or intensely alive: the capacity to endure and flourish: animation, liveliness: a living or vital thing or quality.”
1. Vital force, the force on which the phenomena of life in animals and plants depend – distinct from the chemical and mechanical force operating them.
2. Vital functions, the bodily functions essential to life, as the circulation of the blood.
3. Vital spark or flame, the principle of life in man: hence, life or a trace of life.
Hahnemann, in his Organon of Medicine said in §9, “In the healthy condition of man, the spiritual vital force (autocracy), the dynamis that animates the material body (organism), rules with unbounded sway, and retains all the parts of the organism in admirable, harmonious, vital operation, as regards both sensations and functions, so that our indwelling, reason-gifted mind can freely employ this living, healthy instrument for the higher purpose of our existence.§ 10 says, “The material organism, without the vital force, is capable of no sensation, no function, no self-preservation1, it derives all sensation and performs all the functions of life solely by means of the immaterial being (the vital force) which animates the material organism in health and in disease. The Relating Foot Note says, “It is dead, and only subject to the power of the external physical world; it decays, and is again resolved into its chemical constituents”. Footnote 1 of Aphorism 11 elaborates the essential nature of the so-called dynams. Apart form this instance there are hundreds of area where this word, either with suffix force or principle has been used.
Vital Force; Overview from Modern Standpoint:
Not only the modern science but also the homoeopaths those believing upon physiological school, pathological stand point, also criticized Hahnemann for introduction of such obsolete theory in Homoeopathy. Dr. T.P. Wilson, in the editorial of Medical Advance (Jan. 1884) wrote “We reject the assumption of life principle, first because it is unscientific and secondly because it is not needed to account for the phenomenon of life, health and disease”. John William Draper said such a preposterous doctrine would not bear the touch of exact science for a moment. Carpenter writes in Human Physiology: By resting assumption of a Vital Principle of organic agent as affording a sufficient amount of all that is mysterious in the nature of life, we really remove it from the domain of scientific enquiry. Dr. Grauvogal in his first part of ‘Text book of Homoeopathy’ writes: from the natural laws of physiology thus far presented, no Vital Force can be inferred. Richard Hughes claimed Vital Force to be hypothetical and suggested to reject it. But at the same time we can see a strong support is being paid by Dr. Wells who commenting over Vital Force in Medical Advance vol. Xiv 7, as ‘ without this force as a chief factor Homoeopathy has no Philosophy; neither can there be, without this force included in it, any rational philosophy of life, health and sickness’. Dr. Finke in Medical Advance vol. Xiv No. 11 says ‘the vital force which every birth, death and daily life can testify to’. Tate said ‘to deny vital force seemed like being unable to distinguish between a cadaver and a living body’. Robert and Kent also strongly recommended this concept. Robert said that “In order to understand Homoeopathy and to get concept administering our remedies and even of taking the case, we must get Hahnemann’s concept of principles that enter into the studies of Homoeopathic physician. One of the first and foremost element with which the Homoeopathic physician must be conversant is the different forms of energy, for it is on the basis only that we can practice Homeopathically —- this was the first introduction to the medical world of the rational concept of the life itself .”
Kent really tried to give a new meaning to this theory. He all together changed the idea of force to substance. He put some criterion upon which this simple substance plays in the body. They are as follows
1. It is endowed with formative intelligence.
2. This is subjected to change.
3. It may pervade the entire material substance without disturbing or replacing it.
4. It dominates and controls the body what it occupies.
5. This is a subject to reduction but not a subject to restitution.
6. This may exist as simple, compound and complex form.
7. This is never a quantity but always of Quality.
8. It is subjected to adaptation.
9. This is always constructive.
Kentian substance theory over Hahnemanian force gave more philosophical meaning to the matter but still it was not tested on scientific tools. Anyway Kent did a lot and Homoeopathy should salute him.
The first scientific antagonism came in the theory in 1828 when Wohler converted Ammonium Cyanate into Urea, a substance used to be obtained from animal source. But truly speaking this synthesis put a little effect on the belief of the Vital Force theory because it did not start from an element. Wohler had prepared his Ammonium Cyanate from ammonia and cyanic acid both of which were animal in origin. Wohler himself accepted this but at his time there were no method of obtaining Ammonia and cyanic acid from their elements. Thus this theory remained incomplete for a long time.
Most serious attack came in 1845 when Klobe synthesized Acetic acid from its element. Following Klobe in 1846 Berthelote synthesized methane. So animal substances cannot be synthesized out side of the body can remain no longer a truth.
The growing knowledge in the molecular biology from the midst of twentieth century gave the most serious hit over Vital Force theory. It showed that the fundamental properties of living cells, such as reproduction and heredity are founded on the interaction of large molecules say proteins and nucleic acids. So there is a haven and hale difference lies between the process of manufacturing the organic and inorganic substance as Berzelius said in 1815 really put Vital Force in a question.
But for a long time heredity remained an impenetrable mysticism as a support to Vital Force theory. Charles Darwin, the father of evolution theory used to believe that the cells of the body produces their own miniature copies, called ‘gammules’, which are carried by blood in tests and ovaries, where they put together to produce ‘gametes’ and so the new individual cells or organs will be replicated of those parents — has been nullified by Francis Gatton through his blood transfusion theory.
It was only after 1866 when Augustine monk Gregor Johan Mendel (1822 – 1884), the founder of genetics, founded the scientific basis of heredity through his great garden peas experiment. This experiment established beyond any doubt that the heredity consisted of transmission of those separate unites in the reproductive cells, without any involving blood or other parts of the body.
Till early twentieth century, however, the concept of ‘Gene’ remained vague and hypothetical. The idea was rather philosophical then tangible reality for experimental research. In about 1910 T. H. Morgan, followed his studies on fruit fly, Drosophilae, first suggested that the chromosome in the cell nuclei are really the carriers of genes, the heredity factors.
Watson and Crick in the year 1950s discovered the ultimate structure of D.N.A. and explained the loci of different hereditical factors. Dr. Haragodind Khoruna during 1980s synthesized D.N.A. out side of the body. Now a day we have known the genes responsible for development of different diseases even and have distinguished them. Just few years back the first Clone human baby has begotten. This fore-said information ultimately hints us to declare that there cannot be anything called Vital Force.
But considering all the facts it is still not easy to inker this theory. This is due to the following research works that shows evidences of supporting the theory of Vital Force.
1. The experiment done by a band of scientists, in a glass box putting the main constituents of human body say Hydrogen, Oxygen, Carbon and Nitrogen. They artificially created the situation by continuous electrocution as it was at the very beginning of the birth of the life. They had conducted this for long fifteen days but no living cells, even single amoeba, is formed except some soil like substance.
2. Life is extraterrestrial in origin is believed my many persons as on fossil is been discovered from any part of the world before 5000 years but the nature is rich with the fossils of other living things as plants and animals.
3. One of the English scientists, studying the gene structure of all the basis races, claimed that the basis strains of the whole human community is formed out of maximum seven ladies as the fundamental strains are only seven. Though Bible believes it from one lady, Eve needs further study (!).
4. Cloning also needs at least one living cell and then it is processed under suitable environment. Though the first baby is born but this cannot rule out the basic theory of some life force. So, the theory is still not at a stake.
It has been proved that human body carries an electro dynamic field. When the living body is exposed to a high-energy field it affects the field of the body. Dr. Burr has shown the significant changes of field on his experiment on the growth of egg. Semyon and Valentina Kirlian, the Russian couple have developed the Kirlian photography technique which can catch this radiation of the human energy field. They described their experience of viewing the moving hand in the following language that affirms us more to the existence of such force. They said, ‘ the hand itself looked like the milky way in a starry sky, Against a back ground of blue on gold, some thing was taking place in the hand that looked like a fire work display multi colored flairs lit up, then sparks, twinkles, flashes. Some lights glowed steadily like Roman candles, others flashed out then diminished.’ This theory of electro dynamic field has advanced so much that is field even varies in diseases. The diseased part become more negative and healthy part remains positive what the Chinese probably wanted so say by inn and yang.
The science advanced so much. It was started from Newton who discovered the laws of motion. But this had failed to explain the phenomenon occurring at the sub atomic level. Faraday & Maxwell brought the field theory. They claimed the charged bodies can produced a field. The magnetism is a form of electricity is evidenced. Einstein discovered the law of relativity. The quantum formulated by Max Plank theory  said that field is a continuous media that is present everywhere in the space. Particles are merely local condensation of field. Concentration of energy, which comes and goes, there by losing their individual character and dissolving into the underlying field. This theory helps to overcome the classical contrast between particles and the space surrounding it.
This discussion actually makes it clear that there is some energy field in every living cell. This has a maximum command that it can rule the human body. As Hahnemann, named the defective gene as Miasm like that this electro dynamic field was most probably the Vital Force for Hahnemann.
 Tridosha and Homoeopathy/ Benoytosh Bhattacharyya/ Firma KLM private Ltd./ Calcutta/ 1999/ P = 32
☼ The vital force, I say, produces, in accordance with the laws of the constitution of the organism to which it is subject, a disease of a different sort, indented to expel the disease by which it was attacked, which it strives to accomplish by pain, metastases and so forth, but mainly by evacuations and the sacrifice of much of the fluid and the solid constituents of the body, with difficult, often dubious, injurious, frequently even disastrous results./ Preface to the fourth Edition/ Organon of Medicine/ Hahnemann/ Ibid./ P = xix.
 Hahnemann used the word allœpathy but his follower adapted the term Allopathy/ Appendix/ Ibid. / P = 155
 The Greek naturalist view of symptoms is much more expanded than modern allopathy, which has its roots in Galen and the Roman-Greeco school of medicine./ www.simillimum.co.
 Vitalism, as per definition can be stated as a “theory or belief that the life process possess a unique character that is different from physio-chemical phenomenon and so cannot be defined or explained empirically”.
A living organism is an organic whole of interdependent parts or organs that are intimately related to each other. They are pervaded by the common life of the whole organism. It has the unique properties of growth by assimilation and adaptation to the environment. Self repair self-reproduction and self-protection. This is a teleological whole. Jhon Carid says, “A living organism, is not a mere aggregation of parts but it is a systematic unity of member, each of which has its individual space and function. If any one member be served from such a system, both the whole and the lopped off member ceases to be unites and became fragments; they descend in to lower stages, where there is no unity but that of mechanical aggregation. This totality is some thing more than the parts.”/ C. R. / Introduction to Philosophy/ Jadunath Sinha/ Shina Pub. House/ Calcutta 26/ 1955/ P= 165
 David Little / www.similimum.com.
 Encyclopedia Britannica * A kind of freedom from earthly attachments l Virtue © Also spelled Upanisad, Sanskrit Upaniṣad (“session”), any of the speculative texts that contain elaborations in prose and verse of the Vedas, the most ancient Hindu sacred literature.
 Na, jayate, mriatya ba kadachita / Na bthua, vabhita ba na vuha. Aja nityan sashwyaton purana Na hannate hannaman sarire.
 Basanshi jirnani yata bihao Navani grihanni narahoparani/ Tatha sarirani bihao jiranananyani sanyani navani dehi.
 Nainan chdenti sashtrani, nainan dahati pavak / na chinan klediantapa, na sosoati maruta
 Upanishad –The summery of / Translation by T.K. Ganguly/ Saraswata publishers/ Cal/ 1982/ P = 32
 Question and answers on Organon of Med. / DR. Mahendra Singh/ Hom. Publications/ Raja Rajnarayan Street/ P = 44
 A compendium lectures on Homoeopathy / Diwan Harish Chand/ National Homoeo Pharmacy/ 1995/ New Delhi/ P = 205 – 206
 A compendium lectures on Homoeopathy / Diwan Harish Chand/ National Homoeo Pharmacy/ 1995/ New Delhi/ P = 206.
µ The earthy being, human spirit
¶ The Supreme Being or spirit of soul; God
 Encyclopedia Britannica
 Glimpses of history of medicine/ D.D. Banerjee/ B. Jain/ 1989/ P = 18
 Encyclopedia Britannica
 In ancient Egyptian religion, with ka and akh, a principal aspect of the soul; the ba appears in bird form, thus expressing the mobility of the soul after death. Originally written with the sign of the jabiru bird, and thought to be an attribute of only the god-king, the ba was later represented by a man-headed hawk, often depicted hovering over the mummies of king and populace alike. Graves were frequently provided with narrow passages for visitation by the ba. / Encyclopedia Britannica
 Encyclopedia Britannica
 Question and answers on Organon of Med./ DR. Mahendra Singh/ Hom. Publications/ Raja rajnarayan Street/ P = 44
§ In a strict sense, the philosophy taught by Epicurus (341–270 BC). In a broad sense, it is a system of ethics embracing every conception or form of life that can be traced to the principles of his philosophy. In ancient polemics, as often since, the term was employed with an even more generic (and clearly erroneous) meaning as the equivalent of hedonism, the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the chief good. In popular parlance, Epicureanism thus means devotion to pleasure, comfort, and high living, with a certain nicety of style.
« Also called Mayan Meso-American Indians occupying a nearly continuous territory in southern Mexico, Guatemala, and northern Belize. The Maya language is spoken by more than 800,000 people, most of whom are bilingual in Spanish. Before the Spanish conquest of Mexico and Central America, the Maya possessed one of the greatest civilizations of the Western Hemisphere. They practiced agriculture, built great stone buildings and pyramid temples, worked gold and copper, and made use of a form of hieroglyphic writing that has now largely been deciphered. / Encyclopedia Britannica
 The origin and development of religion in Vedic literature / P.S. Deshmukh/ Amravati University/1997/ P = 32
 Question and answers on Organon of Med./ DR. Mahendra Singh/ Hom. Publications/ Raja Rajnarayan Street/ P = 45
 Glimpses of history of medicine/ D.D. Banerjee/ B. Jain/ 1989/ P = 19
 Question and answers on Organon of Med./ DR. Mahendra Singh/ Hom. Publications/ Raja rajnarayan Street/ P = 45
 Glimpses of history of medicine / D.D. Banerjee/ B. Jain/ 1989/ P = 25
 Glimpses of history of medicine/ D.D. Banerjee/ B. Jain/ 1989/ P = 27
 A compendium lectures on Homoeopathy / Diwan Harish Chand/ National Homoeo Pharmacy/ 1995/ New Delhi/ P = 212
 A compendium lectures on Homoeopathy / Diwan Harish Chand/ National Homoeo Pharmacy/ 1995/ New Delhi/ P = 218
 § 280 Fifth Edition / — and let the weak ones among them allow the pit of the stomach to be slightly touched by the thumb’s point of a strong-willed mesmeriser for a few minutes, and the disagreeable sensations they then suffer will make them repent of attempting to set limits to the boundless activity of nature; the weak-minded creatures! And § 288 Sixth Edition says, “I find it yet necessary to allude here to animal magnetism, as it is termed, or rather Mesmerism (as it should be called in deference to Mesmer, its first founder) which differs so much in its nature from all other therapeutic agents. This curative force, often so stupidly denied and disdained for a century, acts in different ways. It is a marvellous, priceless gift of God to mankind by means of which the strong will of a well intentioned person upon a sick one by contact and even without this and even at some distance, can bring the vital energy of the healthy mesmerizer endowed with this power into another person dynamically (just as one of the poles of a powerful magnetic rod upon a bar of steel)./ Organon of Medicine / Hahnemann/ Ibid./ Organon of Medicine/ Hahnemann/ Ibid./ P = 149
 Early conception of Similia/ Asian Homoeopathic Times/ 1994/ April/ New Delhi/ P = 8
} American poet. His poems includes; The footsteps of the Angel, Excelsior, The Village blacksmith etc.
£ in philosophy, the use of two irreducible, heterogeneous principles (sometimes in conflict, sometimes complementary) to analyze the knowing process (epistemological dualism) or to explain all of reality or some broad aspect of it (metaphysical dualism). Examples of epistemological dualism are being and thought, subject and object, and sense datum and thing; examples of metaphysical dualism are God and the world, matter and spirit, body and mind, and good and evil. Dualism is distinguished from monism, which acknowledges only one principle, and from pluralism, which invokes more than two basic principles. Philosophers sometimes employ more than one dualism at the same time; e.g., Aristotle simultaneously invoked those of matter and form, body and soul, and immaterial and material substance./ Encyclopedia Britannica
 Encyclopedia Britannica
Sec: 17, “It is only thus that God the preserver of mankind, could reveal His wisdom and goodness in reference to the cure of the disease to which man is liable here below, by showing to the physician what he had to remove in disease in order to annihilate them and thus re-establish health”./ Sec: 60, F.N. 1 “But God knows the patient on his bed of sickness was not treated with violence, for the prick of a small lancet is not really painful and the gum Arabic solution (Eau de Gourme, almost the only medicine that Brousseau used) was mild in taste and without apparent action – the bite of the leeches insignificant and the blood letting by the physician done quietly while the luke warm baths could only soothe, hence the disease from the very start must have been fatal, so that the patient, notwithstanding all efforts of the physician, had to leave the earth.
 What is dynamic influence, – dynamic power? Our earth, by virtue of a hidden invisible energy, carries the moon around her in twenty-eight days and several hours, and the moon alternately, in definite fixed hours (deducting certain differences which occur with the full and new moon) raises our northern seas to flood tide and again correspondingly lowers them to ebb. —- He calls such effects dynamic, virtual, that is, such as result from absolute, specific, pure energy and action of he one substance upon the other substance. For instance, the dynamic effect of the sick-making influences upon healthy man, as well as the dynamic energy of the medicines upon the principle of life in the restoration of health is nothing else than infection and so not in any way material, not in any way mechanical.—-A purely specific conceptual influence communicated to the near child small-pox or measles in the same way as the magnet communicated to the near needle the magnetic property.
In a similar way, the effect of medicines upon living man is to be judged. Substances, which are used as medicines, are medicines only in so far as they possess each its own specific energy to alter the well-being of man through dynamic, conceptual influence, by means of the living sensory fiber, upon the conceptual controlling principle of life. —- Far more healing energy is expressed in a case in point by the smallest dose of the best dynamized medicines, in which there can be, according to calculation, only so little of material substance that its minuteness cannot be thought and conceived by the best arithmetical mind, than by large doses of the same medicine in substance. That smallest dose can therefore contain almost entirely only the pure, freely-developed, conceptual medicinal energy, and bring about only dynamically such great effects as can never be reached by the crude medicinal substances it-self taken in large doses.
Is it then so utterly impossible for our age celebrated for its wealth in clear thinkers to think of dynamic energy as something non-corporeal, since we see daily phenomena which cannot be explained in any other manner? If one looks upon something nauseous and becomes inclined to vomit, did a material emetic come into his stomach which compels him to this anti-peristaltic movement? Was it not solely the dynamic effect of the nauseating aspect upon his imagination? And if one raises his arm, does it occur through a material visible instrument? A lever? Is it not solely the conceptual dynamic energy of his will which raises it?
 The principles and Art of Cure by Homoeopathy/ Robert H. A. / B. Jain/ 1993/ P = 49
 Lectures on Hom. Philosophy / Dr. J. T. Kent/ B. Jain/ New Delhi/ 1995/ P = 76 – 87
 Homoeopathy in the Light of Modern Science / A. C. Dutta/ B. Jain/ 1998/ P = 42
 The science of Homoeopathy / George Vithulkas/ B. Jain/ 1997/ New Delhi/ P = 65.
The science of Homoeopathy / George Vithulkas/ B. Jain/ 1997/ New Delhi/ P = 60.
Dr Partha P Ray M.D.(Hom.) M.Sc. (Applied Psychology) P.G.D.G.C.
(Asst. Prof) Dept. of Organon of Medicine & Hom. Philosophy
Panchasheel Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital & P. G. Institute, Khamgaon, M.S. 444303