Vitalism is a school of thought which postulates that life cannot be fully explained in physical material terms. According to vitalists, life, which in the material world is manifested as a physical process, emerges as a result of an immaterial impulse. Aristotle, who is regarded as the founder of scientific vitalism, believed that the soul, as a modality of life-energy, kept the organism alive. According to Aristotle, the soul affects the organism without being connected to it in a physical sense.

Historians of science often identify René Descartes as the great intellectual force that facilitated the switch from Aristotelian metaphysics to the more sober mechanistic-materialistic paradigm of modern mainstream science. A fervent Catholic, Descartes altered Aristotle's terminology, retaining, however, the fundamental idea that an organism, being a physical thing, receives direction from a spiritual entity.

Although the powerful mechanistic paradigm created by Isaac Newton (1642-1727) dominated the...