Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Vegetation and Life from Wolff to Hanov

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Vegetative Powers

  • 368 Accesses

Abstract

A committed supporter of mechanism, Christian Wolff mentions the vegetative soul as a notable example of an “empty term” or meaningless expression. In spite of this unconditional rejection of the vegetative soul, his major disciple in the field of natural philosophy felt the need to reintroduce something similar. In the 1760s, Michael Christoph Hanov revised Wolff’s account of vegetation and life by claiming that life is the product of a vegetative force and not of pure mechanism. After reconstructing both Wolff’s and Hanov’s accounts, this paper explores the reasons and implications of the latter’s revival of vegetative powers and argues for its relevance to the early history of biology.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 139.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 179.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 179.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    See Wolff’s letter to Leibniz, 15 March 1716 (Leibniz and Wolff 1860: 182).

  2. 2.

    See especially Wolff 1718a; Wolff 1719; Wolff 1723b: §§384–407; Wolff 1725a; and Wolff 1725b: §§214–266. For an overview, see Mühlpfordt 1989.

  3. 3.

    Wolff (1718: sect. 2, ch. 5, §39) mentions the “obsolete hypothesis of the scholastics concerning the soul” as an example of a physical hypothesis that conceals ignorance, hinders scientific progress, and should be banished from both medicine and physics. See also Wolff’s 1722 Preface to Sturm’s Physica electiva (in Wolff 1755: sect. 3, 143) and Favaretti Camposampiero (2012).

  4. 4.

    See, e.g., Schiller (1978: 1). There is no mention of Hanov in Zammito (2018).

  5. 5.

    See also the further occurrence of “biology” in the fourth volume of Physica dogmatica: “Quae universis singulisque animantibus communia sunt, tradenda sunt in Zoologia generali, uti fecimus in Biologia et phytologia generali” (Hanov 1768: §141). It is incorrect to argue from this passage, with McLaughlin (2002: 3), that Hanov’s actual use of “biology” refers only to general biology.

  6. 6.

    See the Overview: “Sectio II. Biologica s. rerum viventium scientia, cujus initium: de vita vegetantium corporum./ Cap. I. de vita corporea./ Cap. II. Phytologicum generale sive de regno vegetabili in genere./ Cap. III. De arboribus in genere, sive Dendrologia generalis./ Cap. IV. de Dendrologia speciali” (Hanov 1766: unpaginated).

  7. 7.

    Emphasis added by Hanov. See Linnaeus (1751: 1): “Lapides crescunt. Vegetabilia crescunt et vivunt. Animalia crescunt, vivunt, et sentiunt”.

  8. 8.

    See Hanov (1766: §440): “We call organic the bodies that by their essence and nature are apt for particular actions”.

  9. 9.

    See Hanov’s multiple references to Wolff concerning the structure of organs: “The manner of composition of an organ, hence its essence and nature, is called structure (Wolff 1731: §275ff.). This structure entails such an artful and ingenious fabric that it constitutes an instrument that is by its own force suitable for a particular function (Wolff 1731: §278), which contains the reason why the forces and parts are shaped and connected in this manner rather than otherwise (Wolff 1731: §279)” (Hanov 1766: §441).

  10. 10.

    The simple organic body “is only apt for one single action characteristic to it; hence it has no organic parts but consists of corpuscles”, whereas the composite organic body “is apt for several different actions at one time, for even its parts are organic” (Hanov 1766: §440). Hanov ascribes this distinction to Wolff (1731: §274).

  11. 11.

    See Hanov (1766: §440): “The organs in general are simply the instruments of the agents. Here, we are concerned with natural organs”.

  12. 12.

    See Wolff (1731: §276n): “All the instruments that are used in art are organic bodies”.

  13. 13.

    See Hanov (1766, §442n, § 448, §452n).

  14. 14.

    The a fortiori step of the argument is made explicit in the scholium: “Indeed, not even minerals could be so far accounted for on the basis of mechanical principles; much less will there ever be hope to do so concerning living beings” (Hanov 1766: §447n). Elsewhere in the same work, however, Hanov restricts the necessity of physical reasons to living bodies alone: the “natural change” of an organic body “can be explained on the basis of its structure through the rules of motion, if it is devoid of life; but in the case of living beings one further needs physical principles” (§516).

  15. 15.

    See Hanov (1766, §450n): “No life can be conceived or exist without an essence endowed with a vital nature, which only God can give”.

  16. 16.

    See Hanov (1766, §450): “Thus, corporeal life, the lowest of all, consists in vegetative force [in vi vegeta (vegetante)] and continuous vegetation, but not in bare mechanism”.

  17. 17.

    See the appendix “De vi materiali vel hylozoismo” in the second volume of Physica dogmatica (Hanov 1765: 760–768).

  18. 18.

    See Hatfield (2018: 66): “Here, ‘animate’ clearly means ‘cognitively ensouled’ and not simply ‘living’, and ‘inanimate’ means those living beings that lack the cognitive powers of an ensouled being”.

  19. 19.

    See Hanov (1766: §467n): “Thus, it is foolish to imagine, against §466, an animal lacking every sense and touch but alive, or intermediate between plants and animals”.

  20. 20.

    Hanov (1766: §452): “If the organs of living beings develop naturally without miracle, and if naturally contingent things cannot develop by chance or fortuitously (Wolff 1931: §96) but rather depend on their own structure and the laws of motion (Wolff 1931: §513f.), their vegetative force and vital principle must discern naturally, by a sort of simulacrum of touch or taste, the things that are useful to it from those that are useless [...]”.

  21. 21.

    See Hanov (1766: §451n): “Just as the bodies that have regular structure and figure, like salts, etc., are closer to vegetable bodies, etc., than the others, and just as below we will show that there is something similar to reason in beasts, so it is not in the least contrary to reason that there may be something similar to sense in the lowest genus of living beings”.

  22. 22.

    Hanov (1766: §451) refers to Leibniz’s Monadologie, §18ff. See Leibniz (1885: 609–611).

  23. 23.

    Like several Wolffians, Hanov was highly critical of pre-established harmony and a partisan of physical influx; see Favaretti Camposampiero (2017).

  24. 24.

    See Wolff (1734: §616n): the body would perform exactly the same voluntary motions (as well as all its other activities) even if the soul did not exist. Materialists are right in recognizing “that the motions that we call voluntary follow from the motions that pre-exist in the brain by virtue of mechanism alone” (Wolff 1734: §616n); they are wrong only in inferring from this that the soul does not exist. In his anthropology, Hanov criticizes Wolff’s theory of material ideas as a materialistic doctrine; see Hanov (1768: §503n) and Favaretti Camposampiero (2017: 86–88).

  25. 25.

    See Hanov (1766, §452n).

  26. 26.

    See Hanov (1766, §476): “As even the nature of living beings is partly common to all living beings, partly a property of their different genera and individuals, here we will only have to treat the common laws of living beings or general bionomy. Special [propria] bionomy will have its own reserved places in phytology and zoology”.

  27. 27.

    See Hanov (1766, §476n): “So far there is profound silence in physics concerning the laws of living beings or bionomy. Thus, if in breaking this ice many things will be left to posterity to be completed and corrected, this will have to be ascribed to the common fate of new truths”.

  28. 28.

    By contrast, Mühlpfordt (1989: 103) emphasizes Wolff’s role as a forerunner of the unity of biology.

References

  • Ben-Menahem, Ari. 2009. Historical Encyclopedia of Natural and Mathematical Sciences. Berlin [etc.]: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Favaretti Camposampiero, Matteo. 2009. Conoscenza simbolica: Pensiero e linguaggio in Christian Wolff e nella prima età moderna. Hildesheim: Olms.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2012. Dividing Fiction from Reality: Existence and Nature in Christian Wolff’s Metaphysics. In Existence and Nature: New Perspectives, ed. Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero and Matteo Plebani, 65–97. Heusenstamm: Ontos.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2016a. Bodies of Inference: Christian Wolff’s Epistemology of the Life Sciences and Medicine. Perspectives on Science 24: 361–379.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2016b. Christian Wolff’s Philosophy of Medicine: An Early Functional Analysis of Health and Disease. Quaestio 16: 75–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2017. De l’automate à l’homme entier: Anthropologie et médecine chez Wolff et Hanov. In L’Homme entier: Conceptions anthropologiques classiques et contemporaines, ed. Faustino Fabbianelli and Jean-François Goubet, 71–90. Paris: Classiques Garnier.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2019. Machines of Nature and Machines of Art: Christian Wolff’s Reception of Leibniz. Rivista di storia della filosofia 74: 431–452.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hanov, Michael Christoph. 1762. Philosophiae naturalis sive physicae dogmaticae tomus I. continens physicam generalem, coelestem et aetheream tanquam continuationem systematis philosophici Christiani L.B. de Wolff. Halle: Renger.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1765. Philosophiae naturalis sive physicae dogmaticae tomus II. continens aërologiam et hydrologiam vel scientiam aëris et aquae. Tanquam continuationem systematis philosophici Christiani L.B. de Wolff. Halle: Renger.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1766. Philosophiae naturalis sive physicae dogmaticae tomus III. continens geologiam, biologiam, phytologiam generalem et dendrologiam vel terrae, rerum viventium et vegetantium in genere, atque arborum scientiam. Tanquam continuationem systematis philosophici Christiani L.B. de Wolff. Halle: Renger.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1768. Philosophiæ naturalis sive physicæ dogmaticæ tomus IV. et ultimus, continens botanologiam physicam, zoologiam, anthropologiam generalem, physiologiam et pathologiam physicam, hoc est herbarum, animalium atque hominis scientiam. Tanquam continuationem systematis philosophici Christiani L.B. de Wolff. Halle: Renger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hatfield, Gary. 2018. Baumgarten, Wolff, Descartes, and the Origins of Psychology. In Baumgarten and Kant on Metaphysics, ed. Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers, 61–77. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. 1885. Die philosophischen Schriften, ed. Carl Immanuel Gerhardt, vol. 6. Berlin: Weidmann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, and Christian Wolff. 1860. Briefwechsel zwischen Leibniz und Christian Wolff, ed. Carl Immanuel Gerhardt. Schmidt: Halle.

    Google Scholar 

  • Linnaeus, Carolus. 1751. Philosophia botanica. Stockholm: Kiesewetter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malpighi, Marcello. 1675. Anatome plantarum [Pars prima]. London: Martyn.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mariotte, Edme. 1679. Essais de physique. Premier essai: De la végétation des plantes. Paris: Michallet.

    Google Scholar 

  • McLaughlin, Peter. 2002. Naming Biology. Journal of the History of Biology 35: 1–4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mühlpfordt, Günter. 1989. Die organischen Naturwissenschaften in Wolffs empiriorationalistischer Enzyklopädistik. Il cannocchiale 2–3: 77–106.

    Google Scholar 

  • Perrault, Claude. 1680. De la circulation de la sève des plantes. In Essais de physique, ou recueil de plusieurs traités touchant les choses naturelles, Tome I, 173–304. Paris: Coignard.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richards, Robert J. 2003. Biology. In From Natural Philosophy to the Sciences. Writing the History of Nineteenth-Century Science, ed. David Cahan, 16–48. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rüdiger, Andreas. 1716. Physica divina. Frankfurt: Andrea.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sachs, Julius. 1875. Geschichte der Botanik vom 16. Jahrhundert bis 1860. München: Oldenbourg.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Schiller, Joseph. 1978. La notion d’organisation dans l’histoire de la biologie. Paris: Maloine.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thümmig, Ludwig Philipp. 1721. Experimentum singulare de arboribus ex folio educatis ad rationes physicas revocatum. Halle: Hilliger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Toepfer, Georg. 2011. Historisches Wörterbuch der Biologie. 3 vols. Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolff, Christian. 1709. Consideratio physico-mathematica hiemis proxime praeterlapsae. Halle: Zeitler.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1710. Epistola gratulatoria in qua vera philosophiae mechanicae notio explicatur. In Wolff (1755: sect. III, 15–19).

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1718a. Entdeckung der wahren Ursache von der wunderbahren Vermehrung des Getreydes. Halle: Renger.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1718b. Ratio praelectionum wolfianarum in mathesin et philosophiam universam. Halle: Renger.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1719. Erläuterung der Entdeckung der wahren Ursache von der wunderbahren Vermehrung des Getreydes. Halle: Renger.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1720. Vernünfftige Gedancken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt. Halle: Renger.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1723a. Allerhand nützliche Versuche. Vol. 3. Halle: Renger.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1723b. Vernünfftige Gedancken von den Würckungen der Natur. Halle: Renger.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1724. Monitum ad Commentationem luculentam de differentia nexus rerum sapientis et fatalis necessitatis. Halle: Renger.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1725a. Anhang von der Gewißheit der Erfindung von der Vermehrung des Getreydes. In Entdeckung der wahren Ursache von der wunderbahren Vermehrung des Getreydes, 2nd ed., 65–136. Halle: Renger.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1725b. Vernünfftige Gedancken von dem Gebrauche der Theile in Menschen, Thieren und Pflantzen. Frankfurt and Leipzig: Renger.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1726. Ausführliche Nachricht von seinen eigenen Schrifften. Frankfurt: Andreä and Hort.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1728. Philosophia rationalis sive Logica, methodo scientifica pertractata. Frankfurt and Leipzig: Renger.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1730a. De notione sanitatis. In Horae subsecivae marburgenses anni 1729. Trimestre aestivum, 318–355. Frankfurt and Leipzig: Renger.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1730b. Philosophia prima, sive Ontologia, methodo scientifica pertractata. Frankfurt and Leipzig: Renger.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1731. Cosmologia generalis, methodo scientifica pertractata. Frankfurt and Leipzig: Renger.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1734. Psychologia rationalis methodo scientifica pertractata. Frankfurt and Leipzig: Renger.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1755. Meletemata mathematico-philosophica. Halle: Renger.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1841. Eigene Lebensbeschreibung. Ed. Heinrich Wuttke. Leipzig: Weidmann.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1965. Vernünfftige Gedancken von den Kräfften des menschlichen Verstandes und ihrem richtigen Gebrauche in Erkäntniß der Wahrheit, ed. Hans Werner Arndt. Hildesheim: Olms.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zammito, John H. 2018. The Gestation of German Biology: Philosophy and Physiology from Stahl to Schelling. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage – Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venezia, Italy

    Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero

Authors
  1. Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Fabrizio Baldassarri

  2. Institute of Philosophy, Universitätsstr, Alpen-Adria University Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt, Austria

    Andreas Blank

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Favaretti Camposampiero, M. (2021). Vegetation and Life from Wolff to Hanov. In: Baldassarri, F., Blank, A. (eds) Vegetative Powers. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 234. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69709-9_24

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation