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Coleridge's theory of life is an attempt by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to understand not just inert or still nature, but also vital nature. He examines this topic most comprehensibly in his work Hints towards the Formation of a more Comprehensive Theory of Life (1818).[1] The work is key to understand the relationship between Romantic literature and science.
Works of romanticists in the realm of art and Romantic medicine were a response to the general failure of the application of the method of inertial science to reveal the foundational laws and operant principles of vital nature. German romantic science and medicine sought to understand the nature of the life principle identified by John Hunter as distinct from matter itself via Johan Friedrich Blumenbach's Bildungstrieb and Romantic medicine's Lebenskraft, as well as Röschlaub's development of the Brunonian system of medicine system of John Brown, in his excitation theory of life (German: Erregbarkeit theorie),[2] working also with Schelling's Naturphilosophie, the work of Goethe regarding morphology, and the first dynamic conception of the physiology of Richard Saumarez.[3]
- ^ Levere, Trevor H. (June 28, 1990). "Coleridge and the Sciences". CUP Archive: 295–306. ISBN 9780521356855. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
- ^ Perry, Fellow and Tutor Balliol College Lecturer English Faculty Seamus; Glasgow), Seamus (Lecturer in English Literature Perry, Lecturer in English Literature University of; Perry, Seamus (1999). Coleridge and the Uses of Division. Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-818397-6.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Male, Roy R. Jr (1954). "The Background of Coleridge's Theory of Life". The University of Texas Studies in English. 33 (The University of Texas Studies in English): 60–68. JSTOR 20776075.