The nature of living matter

"The nature of living matter" by Lancelot Thomas Hogben is a collection of scientific essays on biology and philosophy written in the early 20th century. The work probes what “life” means in scientific terms, weighing mechanistic against vitalistic views, and argues that biology’s methods align with those of physics, treating mind as behaviour and keeping science ethically neutral.

The opening of the work frames the essays as an outgrowth of a public debate on the nature of life, sets out a program to critique prominent contemporary views, and emphasizes method over metaphysical claims. It introduces the tension between science and common sense, urges bringing modern biology into philosophy, distinguishes public (communicable) knowledge from private experience, and defines “life” as the properties of living things rather than a metaphysical essence. The first essay advances the “mechanization of consciousness,” replacing talk of mind with behaviour and drawing on Pavlov’s conditioned reflexes to analyze learning, attention, and sensation without introspection, thereby challenging vitalism and inherited dualisms. The next essay begins an “atomistic” account of heredity, using Mendel’s findings and their later development to show how genetics, like chemistry, builds predictive laws while discarding teleology.